Using planetary imager

[Plutonium5793]

I am trying to use your program. Is there any way to change resolutions. My zwo178c is coming up at 3000x2000 and 5fps. I would like to be doing 800x600.
Thanks,
John

[GuLinux]

Hello!
Well, this is a good question.. it's very driver related, so the most accurate answer I can give you is that ZWO ASI SDK doesn't seem to support an explicit resolution change.
I will investigate further.
However, the closest thing to that is binning, using bin 4 you will effectively reduce the resolution by a factor (4 in this case, it also supports 3, 2, and 1 which is original image), reducing it to 770x520.
Be sure to check the "Hardware bin" flag, which will give you better results.

Another option is to use ROI: this will not reduce resolution, but will just capture a smaller region, to gain much higher speed (if you're imaging a planet, you usually don't need the whole sensor).

May I ask you why you want to reduce resolution? It's a tiny bit unusual request, usually one tends to set the resolution to the max, unless of course you have particular needs.
If the problem is speed, be sure to try first using high speed setting, and gradually increasing USB Bandwidth until you achieve optimal speed.

[Plutonium5793]

The ROI sounds like what it may be doing in other software. As one goes
to "lower resolution", the FOV gets smaller and the f/s get faster.
Comparing images it may just be using a smaller part of the chip. My
ZWO 178c max resolution is ~3000x2000 in color. If I took all my images
at that, I would be buying new hard drives like candy to store it all.
I will try the methods you suggest, it may well be doing what the
windows software is doing by "changing resolution"
Thanks for your reply, I will continue playing with your software to see
how it goes.
John

On 10/17/2016 05:22 PM, Marco Gulino wrote:

Hello!
Well, this is a good question.. it's very driver related, so the most
accurate answer I can give you is that ZWO ASI SDK doesn't seem to
support an explicit resolution change.
I will investigate further.
However, the closest thing to that is binning, using bin 4 you will
effectively reduce the resolution by a factor (4 in this case, it also
supports 3, 2, and 1 which is original image), reducing it to 770x520.
Be sure to check the "Hardware bin" flag, which will give you better
results.

Another option is to use ROI: this will not reduce resolution, but will
just capture a smaller region, to gain much higher speed (if you're
imaging a planet, you usually don't need the whole sensor).

May I ask you why you want to reduce resolution? It's a tiny bit unusual
request, usually one tends to set the resolution to the max, unless of
course you have particular needs.
If the problem is speed, be sure to try first using high speed setting,
and gradually increasing USB Bandwidth until you achieve optimal speed.

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[Plutonium5793]

I am now working on hooking up my IS DMk21AU04 (monochrome) to your
software. It says it is connected, but will not display an image.
Several other programs refused to connect (but saw it). I had to use
modprobe to get it working. So yours probably wasn't really connected
at that point. FWTIW

Also, I disconnected the windows so they were separate. Then when I got
out of the main program, they didn't go away (I forgot to put them
back). Not only that, when I clicked the X on them, they didn't go
away. In fact, I had to reboot the computer to make them go away. I
probably could have killed them from a terminal, but didn' try that.
I like the interface on your program and hope to get it going with all
my cameras.
John

On 10/17/2016 05:22 PM, Marco Gulino wrote:

Hello!
Well, this is a good question.. it's very driver related, so the most
accurate answer I can give you is that ZWO ASI SDK doesn't seem to
support an explicit resolution change.
I will investigate further.
However, the closest thing to that is binning, using bin 4 you will
effectively reduce the resolution by a factor (4 in this case, it also
supports 3, 2, and 1 which is original image), reducing it to 770x520.
Be sure to check the "Hardware bin" flag, which will give you better
results.

Another option is to use ROI: this will not reduce resolution, but will
just capture a smaller region, to gain much higher speed (if you're
imaging a planet, you usually don't need the whole sensor).

May I ask you why you want to reduce resolution? It's a tiny bit unusual
request, usually one tends to set the resolution to the max, unless of
course you have particular needs.
If the problem is speed, be sure to try first using high speed setting,
and gradually increasing USB Bandwidth until you achieve optimal speed.

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You are receiving this because you authored the thread.
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub
#1 (comment),
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If your ship doesn’t come in, swim out to it!
—Jonathan Winters

[GuLinux]

Hi,
Well, DMK are not supported right now.
They are based on Linux V4L2 UVC, so it shouldn't be too hard to get them to work, but I need to find time, and at least someone to do lots and lots of testing.

For the windows issue, it's an annoying Qt "feature", I know how to fix it, will do it soon (possibly tomorrow).
For both cases, I suggest you to open different issues on github, just to keep conversation and issue tracking much more clean :)

[GuLinux]

Back on the resolution issue, summing up that's what I would recommend:

• Binning actually lowers resolution. It also means grabbing more light, and getting faster shots, but you usually don't want to lower your resolution, unless you're using it for autoguiding, or for field preview.
• ROI (region of interest) is the best choice for capturing planets: you click the ROI button, select the area you want to grab, and this way you can get much faster FPS, but with full camera resolution.

I don't know if ZWO supports explicit resolution change (they do advertise it on their homepage, but there is nothing to change resolution in the API), but usually you don't really want to do that (hardware binning is better, and you gain much more light).

If this solves your issue, we might close this one :)

[Plutonium5793]

I put them on github. I can certainly try things out on my model camera
if you like.
John

On 10/18/2016 02:35 PM, Marco Gulino wrote:

Hi,
Well, DMK are not supported right now.
They are based on Linux V4L2 UVC, so it shouldn't be too hard to get
them to work, but I need to find time, and at least someone to do lots
and lots of testing.

For the windows issue, it's an annoying Qt "feature", I know how to fix
it, will do it soon (possibly tomorrow).
For both cases, I suggest you to open different issues on github, just
to keep conversation and issue tracking much more clean :)

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[Plutonium5793]

Now that the IS is supported, the window problem has gone away. If I leave them open and close the program they go away also.