Using altair astro gpcam2

[Robin Bedford]

Hi all

I have just started using PhD2 and have bought one of the new gpcam2 (mono) from altair. Loaded software and drivers as per instructions at altair, but it didn't recognise camera, unless I set up as webcam (sharpcap doesn't work either - but that is for another day). Have now downloaded the latest v of PhD2 (2.6.2) which has updated support for altair. Certainly seems that it recognises the camera, but again I can't do much with it. Set up a new profile and it let me build a bad pixel map, but wouldn't let me do darks (kept timing out). Similarly times out when I try and start looping. If I switch it back to webcam then it works fine (so I guess that is the answer for the time being) but it would be great to know how to get it up and running properly as a recognised camera rather than a generic, low grade webcam. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Much appreciated

Robin

[Andy Galasso]

Hi Robin,

I just forwarded your question to Robin G, the developer who contributed the Altair camera support in PHD2.  Robin is also the developer of SharpCap.

Could you post a link to your PHD2 debug log so we can see if there is any useful diagnostic information recorded there?

Andy

[ch...@beyondmonochrome.co.uk]

I just had the same issues with the ToupCam - which is the same camera. I tried both Altair's and Toupcam's drivers. I tried the Altair camera driver, WDM and various ASCOM drivers. All the drivers connected and produced an image.

I could sometimes get a dark pixel map to complete but when I set it going, (not guiding, just sampling), I had random bright frames and it repeatedly timed out (>15 seconds) during download, especially if anything else was happening at the same time. I think the WDM is one way to go - but for me I don't want to set half a dozen video parameters to produce a guide exposure. When I swapped it out for my Lodestar X2, everything was good.

I gave up in the end and just returned the camera to the dealer. I'm not an expert but it feels like there is something like bus contention with this camera/driver. I need reliability and simplicity over economy and bought a Superstar, which has similar sized pixels.