Hey everyone. Maybe SBIG folks here could give a hand to NINA developers to add the native drivers for SBIG since it realistically appears that most of our CCD cameras are never getting the ASCOM driver anyways. I would love to use NINA but I am currently stuck with SBIG and Canon DSLR. Both not exactly ASCOM friendly. I would love to get NINA to work with my gear. It is the trending image acquisition software, open source but with limited compatibility outside ASCOM.
Hello, I'm frenchn sorry for my english... I'm in the same situation: Need ASCOM drivers for my ST10XME + CFW8. buy for more 6k$) Offer assistance to developpers is cool.... but not that we hope of an historical makers of astro CCD.. ASCOM is THE standard now ! and the value of resell of an ST10WME is lower.. nobody want to buy a camera without ascom drivers in 2020...
Diffraction Limited helped create the ASCOM standard back in the 1990's. How old is your camera? 10-12 years old? SBIG didn't support ASCOM back then, during the first 20 years of their business. We were considering doing an ASCOM driver for the older cameras, but it's not economical - someone has to pay our staff to do the work. For our new products, such as the Aluma 3200, which has the same sensor, it does support ASCOM. You might consider this sensor transplant program: https://diffractionlimited.com/sensor-transplant-service/
Hello mister Colin, __"Diffraction Limited helped create the ASCOM standard back in the 1990's."__ Really !!! And then 30 years you never developed an ASCOM driver for all of your cameras? It's curious... Instead of helping every astro software developer, you would have saved a lot of time and energy by developing your ASCOM driver one time I understand that this is not economically interesting for you ... but you lose or will lose more customers ... Do you think I'm going to throw my $ 6K of ST10XME in the trash ... and buy back a SBIG? Be serious... Have a nice day...
For the record: I first proposed the original ASCOM Camera standard in 2001. At the time Diffraction Limited and SBIG were separate companies. Every software program of any consequence already supported SBIG cameras natively, so they did not consider it a priority. The SBIG Universal Driver API is available free for download, and has been for decades. Anyone could put together an ASCOM driver using that API. Right now we're in a major transition. When we acquired SBIG, we started working on several fronts: Creating new, modern software and API - with full ASCOM support. Updating the hardware products. Diversifying the product line to use more than just ON Semi CCDs (boy that was a good idea!). Experimenting with new sensors. etc. We're currently replacing the entire old SBIG camera line. This was started several years ago - it's a huge job obviously - and it is been accelerated by the retirement of the ON Semi sensors. Our programmers in particular are very taxed with this transition, and we simply don't have the resources at the moment to work on the old software.
The resale value of these old cameras (ST line) has been in the $500-1500(us) range for awhile now, I know, I've had a couple including the ST-10xme and I doubt it has anything to do with ascom drivers, they are simply getting old. CMOS sensors are so much cheaper and have improved dramatically lately which gives buyers plenty of choices.
Hi Doug, If it is so easy to program an ASCOM driver with the famous API, WHY NOT JUMP OVER YOUR HEAD AND FINALLY PROGRAM THE DRIVER!!!! And I agree to Vincent: I will not buy any SBIG / DL camera anymore! Ralf
Please be kind, polite, and respectful. You bought the camera years when it didn't come with ASCOM. We're human beings here, and we can understand you might want something, but treat us kindly or we won't be interested in helping you.
I agree with Colin - yelling is an ineffective tool when asking for help. The SBIG Universal API has been openly available for years... why not yell at your software provider for not supporting SBIG? Can you get any technical support support for a computer peripheral you bought ten years ago? Lots of perfectly good printers were killed by Windows 10, not to mention notebook computers. We've done our best to make sure that the old ST-series cameras keep right on working, even though there is no business case for it. Name another technology company that does that...
Hi, I found someone that may be willing to develop an SBIG Alpaca driver. My understanding is that an Alpaca driver can also be used as an ASCOM driver! Doug would you be willing to supply an SDK or what ever info. would be needed for the ST line to this developer? This sounds like it could solve the lack of an ASCOM driver issue. -Iver
Yes the SDK is freely available for download from our web site. If you go to the camera product page on our site, and click the Downloads tab, you'll find it there. Here is the link to the file: https://diffractionlimited.com/downloads/sbig/WinDevKit.zip
Thanks DL for making the SDK available. ASCOM standards are well documented. A user of the older hardware (e.g. retired programmer) needs to use the provided SDK to create an ASCOM driver. There are people out there with both the skillset and bandwidth to do so. Cloudy night project... The testing would be limited to that persons hardware availability, but with beta testers and remote interfacing between people with each hardware variant, a collaborative effort could be initiated, where each of the major camera families could be validated. The reward for whomever takes this on, will not be financial, but knowing that they are helping people continue to use their old hardware with new software. Github has thousands of such open source projects, so it is not inconceivable. I am a programmer, however, not retired and no bandwidth at present. But I would be willing to assist in the testing of any ASCOM driver with an ST-8300M
Hello, i am new here and came upon this thread. I also have an ST8300 (that i love) and am very interested in an ASCOM driver. Unfortunately the last program i wrote was in college in Fortran77 33 yrs ago. I have heard of SDK's but don't know how to use one. Has there been any headway in this development? Thanks Lou WeegieB
Hello, Same situation here I have a ST8300 that works fine with SGP but with NINA, nope, any movement on an ASCOM driver? I agree with few comments here, it doesnt matter if there was some cooperation between DiffarctionLimited and ASCOM in the past, the matter or the fact is that one of the most popular camera in astrophotography is not supported with an ASCOM driver and I think that a good exercise for any business is to support your costumer.
The NINA developers have used the native software development kits for many other camera models; please suggest to them that they use the SBIG Software Development kit. We offered to help them 2 years ago, and they never followed up with us.
It seems reasonable to suggest that it might be in the long-term best economic interest of Diffraction Limited to develop and release ASCOM drivers for their cameras. I have been a loyal SBIG/MaximDL owner/user since 2006 (9 camera models). I have had 8 years of recurring frustrations trying to automate and use remote access for my astrophotography with ACP/MaximDL/SkyX/FocusMax and SBIG cameras. Problems have been most vexing in the areas of reliably autofocusing my FSQ-106 and of losing guide stars with a variety of SBIG/Lodestar guide cameras. In the last week, I have been working with the same equipment except I switched to NINA/PHD2 for remote automation/autofocusing/guiding using a NINA-supported main camera and ASCOM drivers. All of my autofocusing and guiding problems are gone. Automated and remote astrophotography is easy and productive with NINA/PHD2 and a 64-bit operating system. For me, it is goodbye to ACP. NINA-compatibility now appears to be requisite for future camera purchases and retention of my current SBIG cameras.
