Seems that although my imaging system indicates filter changes being done while imaging it doesn't seem to be so. After calibrating and trying to combine the master red, green, and blue masters I get a monochrome image. I'll go out tomorrow and see if the filters are physically moving or not but I thought there were sensors that would tell the system they were turning. The model of the filter wheel eludes me at the moment but it has the R, G, B, L, Ha, O3, and S2 filters installed on the STX-16803. I'll try to change the filter positions and look at the scope to see if the filter wheel is moving or not but if not wouldn't this throw an error? If needed I'll remove the camera and look but prefer not to if possible. Suggestions welcomed. This drive me crazy....especially now that I just finished getting sky flats working again vs the panel flats. -Steve
Hi Steve. When I’m looking at suspect FW issues from the kit at our remote site I would normally just do a simple Pixelmath subtraction, R-B for example, if the filters weren’t changing between different FW slot requests the resulting image would have no remaining stars, if the filters were changing between the R and B filters then some stars would still be visible in the Pixelmath output image. Any chance that the filter wheel setup in MaxIm is configured for a filter wheel simulator and not the real filter wheel after you were testing the sky flats logic in ACP last week? As your camera/FW is on-site there’s no need to remove the camera from the OTA, you can just peer down the mouth of the OTA in the daytime with a flashlight and watch the filter wheel physically move between slots as you trigger a sequence of manual exposures and filter wheel changes from the Camera Control window in MaxIm, no need to process the images, just watch that the wheel moves to the slots you request. When peering into the mouth of the OTA it’s quite easy to see visually the colour difference between the broadband LRGB filters from their reflection as they move across the camera sensor window, NB filters can be a bit trickier as not much light is reflected back from behind the filters and a stronger flashlight helps. Lastly, look at the MaxIm log for the suspect run, it will at least tell you which filters MaxIm thought the wheel was being set to for each image. Hope the above reads ok, just finished an all-night manual session with the spectrometer and with the clocks change from summertime to wintertime half way through the night it’s been a long session… William.
Thanks William, Your post is quite helpful. I shutdown the system for the night and will have a physical look tomorrow. My plan was to have my wife sit at the computer screen in the cabinet and manual switch between filters and use several second exposures while viewing down the scope. I hadn't thought about the simulated run we did for the initial "dry" run of the flats and hope that is indeed the case. At the moment the system is shutdown completely while the AP Stowaway with the ASI2600MC Duo images M42. Current exposures at set for 400 seconds and after looking at the initial images I set a plan for 60 more at q80 seconds....it may take a few night to get all of these done but I have the time I think. Thanks again for the post. I'll let you know the outcome hopefully later today. Off for some zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzs now.
Well I gave the system the night off and checking today proved not so good. Took the filter wheel/camera loose and saw no movement yet MaxIm showed it as moving for each filter. I've found no simulator mode in MaxIm. This is ver 6.5
I can't/won't speculate on how this happened but the filter wheel configuration was set to an older camera/filter wheel. After looking at the configuration I thought this looked more the configuration that the STL/Filter wheel had. Thankfully I usually take notes and screen captures on my setups just in case. Just have to remember to refer to them.....
It seems so Colin. I need to go in and recalibrate the guider dew to "new" camera position. I was tired last night and failed twice to recalibrate, which I hadn't done in a few years it seems. I've always calibrated on a star near DEC 0 on the east and at a PA of 0 but last night simply tried on a star east of the meridian near M33 and while it moved as expected it would not later track well with the star moving off the chip in a matter of a minute or so. I tried this twice before giving up for the night. The 1st attempt was using the ASCOM Direct method which is what I had used prior but on that failed to guide attempt I went back and reinstalled the cable and switched back to "Guider Relays" but it also walked off after maybe a minute. I was too tired to look further.... The guide camera, an UltraStar mono, is mounted in an OAG. The camera assembly was removed from the telescope at the backside of the OAG so guider was intact. Just filter wheel and camera removed to check the filters.
Actually today's startup was a mess again.It will not recognize the filter wheel as the FW5 it is and connect via Standard or any other setting short of FWS8. This is a bit maddening as the filter wheel won't rotate to the filers as a FW8....What the heck is happening? I do have a FW8 with filters that is on my old STL-11000 but can't do any switching as we're about to be tied up for the next 2 weeks. And I'd rather not change the filter wheel if not necessary. This is the only way it will connect. I had this before and several days ago when I found this out I changed it back to Standard and it worked. I've rebooted the system and cycled power with no difference. It thinks it's a FW8
Understood but it fails to connect.... If I end up installing the CFW8 will it still be set to Standard?
Always use Standard, period. Everything else is for obsolete wheels that haven't been manufactured for a decade or two.
Doug I understand the connection but why would it connect via CFW8 and not Standard ? This happened a week ago and I didn't realize it and switched back after seeing the filters weren't changing and now back to this again.
I have no idea if an old CFW8 would work with an STX... they certainly aren't mechanically compatible. Set it to Standard. Period. Anything else is just confusing the issue. If it doesn't work then there's something going on electrically or mechanically. Could be a cable problem. The wheel might have been hot-plugged and blew the I2C fuse on the camera. The wheel could have failed electrically or mechanically... could be anything. If you have another camera available, you could try connecting the wheel to that and see if it works. That would rule out some possibilities.
The old CFW-8 will NOT work with an STX. Doug's giving you good advice. One other possibility: Did you recently change the SBIG drivers or firmware in the camera? What version of SBIGudrv.dll do you have? 5.1.1.0 or 4.99 build 7 ? SBIG Driver Checker 4.05 will show you.
Thanks Colin. I'm away for a few week but will investigate when I get home. Everything is locked up and powered down for now.
