Problem with STC 428 P and the SKY X

Hello All,

Hope your week is going well. I've run into some possible hickups that are easily resolved and I'm just over seeing it.

To get this out of the way. I activated the CMOS camera and downloaded the appropriate drivers as well as maxmdl on the computer and the camera is working fine with the maxmdl software.

For the sake of students sanity it would be nice to use this camera with The SKYx. I have ASCOM currently installed and running windows 11. I also installed the ascom driver and the DLAP software(I don't remember the exact name but you released a recent version of it and installed it successfully).

The camera in general connects to the sky successfully and recognizes it and actively cools. When connecting the filter wheel with the same process and when imputing the filter wheel positions, I noticed that the positions start from zero instead of 1 but on the filter wheel there is 8 positions including the dark filter the first position ( i believe) has the lum filter would I input the lum filter on position one or position zero?


Now when the camera is connected to the sky and its taking focus images at 1sec since I'm doing tpoints on bright stars its almost as if the camera is set on the dark filter although the telescope is out of focus (12" LX200) since we used an eyepiece but when using maxmdl I can see donuts quite easily. On the sky its like the shutter is closed. Also as the the camera is taking images at random times I get the command error and the camera wont let me take anymore images I have to disconnect and reconnect again for it to work any Idea why? I'm sure this is a minor issue but its been overlook constantly.


Thanks for the help!
Best,
Darien

 

Hi Collin,

Thanks for the help some things improved

1. Got the filter wheel position figured out and it knows where the filters are so this is good

Not really improved

The usb selective power suspension you mention inst even available in the power management settings. (followed the steps in the forum you linked) So maybe its not an issue? I took it 1sec exposure during the day it the counts are maxed at 4096 counts so I think its working now mabey? I also check filterwheel shutter that you mentioned in ASCOM. So it'll be interesting to see if it works tonight.

Best,
Darien

 

Hi Collin,

Windows 11 is what we are running currently

 

Hi Collin,

The second attachment is what i recognize. I will check this tonight as i didn't do it to all of them. This MUST be done to all of them? The one that is sbig USB I unchecked the allow computer to turn off im sure of it but will double check.

 

Hi Collin,

So here's the update.



In general nothing worked I went in and disabled the check boxes as you described in the attachments. An I still receive the command error in TSX which disables to the camera from taking images. Now when using maxmdl is similar situation but different. In maxmdls case i get "No image requested" when taking continuous images for when i was making the tpoint model. However even though i get this error i can still take images but pressing ok on the error message an tell it to take images again but this error comes up repeatedly. I seems on telescope 4 it dosent have this issue which i will try tonight but on telescope 2 it has these issues.

 

Sure will do ill be heading there soon so. Ill provided info.

 

Hi Collin,

Sorry for not following up is been quiet busy. I ended up going out couple days ago instead. However i was working on the 14" in instead. Although not the detailed list which ill give to you tomorrow if i go out there, here's the summary,

The only difference between the two rigs is the size of the OTA one is 12" the other is 14". Both mounts are the EQ8-R and both computers are windows 11 ( will get you full specs on this tomorrow) latest ASCOM software. Will check about maxm DL but sure its the latest software as well as the DL config utility. Window 22h2 which was recently installed.
TSX build is most recent within the year. Now the USBs both extenders are amazon basics the USB itself is the one that came with the STC 428p. When creating the TP on the 14" using i didn't have this problem so i wonder if there is a driver conflicting issue?


Best,
Darien

 

Yes TTU is correct lol we are not on the domain there however so we dont need to worry much about firewalls

 

Hello Darien.

Just a few observations from my own experience with TheSkyX, CMOS cameras in general and USB hubs.

+1 for using an industrial USB hub, although my own observstory computer, one of the OnLogic industrial fanless models, would not work with any of the StarTech USB3 hubs, despite StarTech support having remote access to the computer for three days they could not get Windows to reliably detect the hub after a restart/reboot of windows. This was due to a hardware incompatibility issue with the USB3 UART chips on the OnLogic computer motherboard which was impossible to workaround.
StarTech did however refund the cost of the USB3 hub and gave me a free USB3 active extender, which worked flawlessly, and a discounted USB2 hub which also worked well with the OnLogic computer.

With the USB3 active extender dedicated to the CMOS camera and the Startech USB2 hub connected to everything else on the OTA (focuser, rotator, guide-cam, anti-dew heater controller and Flip-Flap calibrator panel), the system has been very reliable, the mount and dome controllers are connected directly to the computer USB ports.

For TheSky software you stated that you are running a version released within the last year, this is not a precise enough description as there have been many bug-fixes over the last year, particularly with regard to the camera drivers used in the 64-bit version of TheSky software.

Make sure you have updated TheSky with the latest “Daily Build”, as of today that should be:
TheSky version 10.5.0 Build 13592.

There are still some camera drivers that are not performing well with TheSky64 and to eliminate that possibilty from your configuration test with both TheSky 32-bit build as well as TheSky64, both versions are installed with TheSky software by default.

For Windows 11, manually update the Microsoft Visual C++ redistributable libraries on your computer(s).
These libraries are not distributed with Windows 11 but are installed with manufacturers device drivers and applications but unfortunately many device drivers and applications are still distributing Visual C++ libraries that are no longer compatible with Windows 11 and in some cases not providing the libraries at all.

For a Windows 11 64 bit OS, download and install both the 32-bit and 64-bit Visual C++ redistibutable packages.

After installing both packages you need to reboot the computer to make them active and then your device drivers and apps will be using the correct Visual C++ libraries compatible with Windows 11.

The two links below are direct to the official Microsoft Visual C++ installers however if you wish to inspect the Microsoft host page and learn a little more you can fiind that here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-GB/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist?view=msvc-170

https://aka.ms/vs/17/release/vc_redist.x86.exe

https://aka.ms/vs/17/release/vc_redist.x64.exe

Lastly, when creating your T-Point sky model in TheSkyX make sure to configure a pre-exposure delay of about three seconds in TheSky’s Camera Module to give the mount and OTA time to settle after each slew and also time to clear the previous image from TheSky’s Image-Link buffer.

HTH

William.

Edited for spelling errors.

 

Hello Collin,


I have some good news,

Last night when doing final tweaks on the rig. I did not receive the no image request error when i was using maxmDL. Like william said the problem might also be from not updating TSX recently. Is there a conflicting issue if you switch between the two software? when using camera control?

 

Hi William,

Thank you for your response. I will definitely take a look in updating the TSX my fear is if i update TSX will it change the software configuration? will it remove the tpoint model i have? Or should everything be the same. Using the camera through maxmdl last night seemed to preform ok and no errors occurred. Now using TSX though im not sure. To clarify, When updating the libraries and updating the TSX this should fix this problem? On my personal rig i use astrophotography tool and i find all my objects by plate solving so TSX is quite the learning curve for me lol. Please forgive me if I misread.

Best,
Darien

 

Hi collin

So to note, T2 is the only computer i had this issue. All rigs are the same and computers are the same. I have speculation that when initially connecting TSX and it worked for sometime before giving the error than disconnecting the camera from TSX and using maxmdl and getting the same error that this might of been the issue?

 

Hi Darien.

When I updated TheSkyX from the old 32-bit only version to the dual 32/64-bit version a few years back there wasn’t any impact to T-Point or ProTrack, those settings migrated across seamlessly.

There were a couple of missing config issues where the dome settings didn’t migrate from the 32-bit build to the new 64-bit bit build and my custom horizon was missing too but it was not difficult to put that back.

If you already are on the dual 32/64-bit build of TheSky then installing the latest “Daily Build” does not usually cause user config settings to be lost because these are not stored with the main application but stored separately.

If you are concerned about that aspect take a look in your User Documents folder, there you will find a folder called “Software Bisque” and inside that folder are all your “TheSky” user settings. If you make a copy of that folder to a different location before updating TheSky software then in the worst case you can completely uninstall TheSky, delete the Software Bisque config folder in your User Documents folder then re-install TheSky and finally copy back the original Software Bisque config folder to your User Documents directory and everything will be back as it was before you updated.

In my (limited) experience updating the visual C++ redistributable libraries has never had a negative impact on anything and has resolved several users problems in TheSky and in other applications that share the same libraries.

One can never say a software upgrade is guaranteed to go without a hitch, but I’ve never has any major problems with these specific updates myself and it’s worth trying if you are chasing rare and sporadic bugs, if nothing else to eliminate another possible problem source from the fault diagnosis procedure.

HTH.

William.