Recently Fixed Camera Not Working

One more thing, which indicates a Maxim 7 issue instead of an ACP/Maxim issue: Taking ACP out of the system (by clicking on "Abort" on the ACP panel, and unchecking "Dispatcher Running" on the Scheduler panel) , I kept the mag 7 guide star on the guide chip, then clicked on "locate" in the SBIG AO Control panel on Maxim 7, and had exactly the same experience--at 0.02 second guide duration, Maxim 7 could not find the very bright star with the AO engaged, even though it was clearly there; at 0.07 second guide duration, Maxim 7 found the star and guided just fine with the AO.

 

Thanks! It was set in Maxim 6.4 (I don't have 6.5), but not in Maxim 7. But I don't see how that could be causing Maxim not to recognize a bright guide star?

 

Ironically, auto-dark was checked in Maxim 7, but not Maxim 6.4. Yet, Maxim 6.4 has no problem finding the star, and Maxim 7 cannot find the star.

I will try again tonight, to see if the settings info makes any difference.

I get about 8.7Hz on the AO with 0.01 second guide exposures; 8.3 at 0.02; 6.7 at 0.05. So, I'm guiding with the AO at much less than the "ideal" rates But I'm not ready to just have slower guiding because my Maxim 7 cannot pick out the guide star in situations in which Maxim 6 has no problem. Assuming adding site and scope data to settings doesn't change the performance, I'm suspecting something in your code in Maxim 7 isn't allowing the software to pick out the star, given that Maxim 6.4 has no problem with it.

 

After a few nights of things working fine (with Maxim 6), and after waiting out the moon, I tried imaging again tonight.

And Maxim/the AO/the camera were back to the problems (after it took dusk flats just fine). When set up to guide with the AO, Maxim hangs on "accumulating dark frames). When I changed it to take the AO out of the equation, it gave me the "error opening camera in dual chip mode" for a while. I finally power-cycled the camera, and rebooted the computer. It still woudn't operate with the AO, but it's working fine without the AO, imaging and guiding.

 

The HDMI cable is brand new, so not likely. What "USB" are you referring to? No other cable has been changed, and yet this problem only started after getting the equipment back from repair.

This problem is new since getting the equipment back; I'm having a hard time understanding why the computer would be to blame, and not the AO and/or the camera; the computer shows no signs of distress that I can see. Please explain.

Thanks.

Mark

 

Please go back to the first post of this thread, and also see my later posts in the thread.

Yes, this problem was there when I first used the equipment after it got back from repair. When I first tried to use it, it was doing these unfortunate things. After a couple of days, it worked for a bit with Maxim 6. Then probems. When it worked with Maxim 6, it still was having problems in Maxim 7; now it won't work with either.

It seems, randomly, to work for a bit, but then (not having changed anything) it throws any or all of the same set of error messages (which error messages change from night to night). When it works, it works very well; but it rarely works.

Tonight (not having changed anything from last night), it's not giving the "dual chip mode" error, but it won't guide with the AO--it'll locate the big, bright (mag 7) star in the middle of the guide chip, but it can't guide on it (it cannot detect it). At all. And, yes, it is well calibrated; on those rare occasions when the AO system is functioning correctly, it guides just fine.

It is guiding just fine (not using the AO, obviously) when using "SBIG Universal," but not at all with "SBIG w/AO."

I cannot believe that it's the computer (which is a very powerful computer and shows no other gremlins). It very much acts like a piece (or set) of hardware with an intermittent problem.

 

This is not getting any better by ignoring it. Sorry.

It may be that I have a setting wrong. It may be any number of things. But the erratic way this system operates is not any fun at all--working fine for a while (an hour; a night), but inevitably doing odd things (without any setting having been changed AFAIK).

I've given up on the AO for the time being. The issue it has now is that, randomly, for two or three images each night, it doesn't make guide corrections until the guide star is a couple of pixels off center, then just keeps the guide star a couple of pixels off center. Not surprisingly, those images end up with double-lobed stars, and are useless. I can watch it flicking right by "Moving Telescope" in a tiny fraction of a second when it's doing this; clearly, it's not correcting (when it is working correctly, "Moving Telescope" will show for a decent fraction of a second).

Please help!

Mark

 

Yeah, it's perplexing and annoying!

It happens under both. When it's happening under ACP, I sometimes stop the guiding, then re-acquire the guide star ("locate") and recommence guiding. And sometimes the problem will recur (and sometimes it won't).

An odd thing I noticed is that at the end of an image in which it has stubbornly kept the guide star a couple of pixels off center, it will immediately correct to center the guide star when the image is done (guiding continues after the image is done). Also, it happens most of the time during the first few images of the night, and then only once or twice after that for the rest of the night. Last night, for instance, it happened on the first and third images, then only once the rest of the night (hours later).

 

Reviving this thread, in the hope that perhaps this annoying problem can be solved.

To review the bidding:

I sent in my STX-16803, STX guider and AO-X for service. You guys did some work on all three, pronounced them ready for prime time, and sent them back.

When I got them back, the problem I had sent them in for (oblong stars) was gone, but a new problem had appeared--the AO-X won't function right.

I have done a whole lot of trouble-shooting. This happens with both Maxim 6 and Maxim 7, but it's worse in Maxim 7. In Maxim 6, it shows signs of life, but often isn't taking a guider image (a very bright star with S/N very high, will blink in the guider window, and show as not being there). It quite quickly will give up trying. In Maxim 7, it doesn't even show signs of life--It will take a guider image, showing a very bright star. But when it tries to start guiding, there never is a star in the window.

If I tell it to "find," it finds the star. If I tell it to calibrate the AO, it does that successfully. But when I tell it to guide, nothing.

The system is running very well without the AO-X, but I paid a lot of money for the AO-X (and its repair), and I would like to use it.

The cable is the SBIG one. All cables are seated well, and (as I said) the system runs just fine when I tell it to image without the AO-X (AO-X still in the stack, but not being used).

Thanks.

Mark

 

Hi,

Thanks for your response.

I have not removed the AO, but, tonight, I did several hours of trouble-shooting, with Maxim 7, latest build. Remember, this is a system that works just fine when not engaging the AO-X.

Please read to the end; it's long, but there's a lot of data, I think. All though this process, I had the minimum S/N set to 15.

With a mag 7 star near the center of the guide chip, I told it to calibrate the guider (using only Maxim, not ACP). It streaked the star all four times, so it looks like a very elongated star.

I have a video clearly showing this, but it won't upload, being a .MOV file. So I uploaded it to my space; it's here:
www.de-regt.com/Problems/StreakCalibrate.MOV

I also did a video of what the AO is doing when it's supposed to be guiding. This is a very bright guide star (mag 7), near the center of the guide chip. As you can see, the S/N is very high, when it actually picks it up. Note the guide exposure of 0.02 seconds, which should be just fine (and used to be, earlier this year)
www.de-regt.com/Problems/IMG_6773.MOV

Then I tried some things I had not tried before. I backed off the minimum guide exposure to 0.1 seconds (mag 7 guide star), and the the system seemed to work just fine (750 S/N). I tried 0.5 seconds; sometimes it worked fine, sometimes it was obviously misbehaving. It always misbehaved at 0.4 seconds.

I would not object strongly to guiding with nothing faster than 0.1 second guide exposures, which translates to 5.6Hz on my system (even 0.01 second guide exposures translates to 8.7Hz, which is not an order of magnitude faster); it's not what the AO-X is supposed to do, but I suspect it would give much better results than guiding with the mount at one-second guide intervals (as I have been doing the last few months).

But I was concerned that the issue is that this system is demanding a very high S/N (like 750) to work properly. So I put a mag 10 guide star near the center of the guide chip, and told it to guide with the AO (0.1 second guide exposures). It seemed to be ok (a zero S/N every few seconds, when normally the S/N was around 20; but maybe that's normal when the minimum S/N is set to 15 and the typical S/N is only about 20); it went through a three-minute exposure with reasonable guide errors for the seeing conditions, and gave me round, tight stars.

So it seems to me that the problem is that the system isn't operating well at guide exposures faster than 0.1 seconds. But the really (potentially) good news is that maybe I can use the AO-X again.

I hope you find this helpful in diagnosing this perplexing problem.

Mark

 

It's there; I can download it independently. It downloads into the download folder, and opens when clicked on. I don't know that uploading it again would do any good.

As an update, I got several hours of good images (until the moon got too high) last night, using the AO with the shortest allowable guide exposure being 0.1 seconds.

On the AO Control window--

Track tab: Track time is 0.1 (but changes with the brightness of the guide star); Aggressiveness is 6; max move is 60 pixels; binning is 3 (imaging at .559 arcseconds/pixel)

Drive tab: Enable X motor and Enable Y motor are checked; manual settings is not checked; Activation level is 25; bump time is 10; Calibration time is 5 seconds on both axes

Setup tab: Manual settings is not checked; exercise speed is 200; SNR threshold is 15; X axis and Y axis are both checked; fan speed is enabled and set to auto; track box is 16x16;
on "options," only autodark is enabled.