I bought this camera used from a close friend, who had used it sparingly prior to upgrading to a monochrome CCD camera. I have had this camera out twice. First time, running under TheSkyX, images were fine. Second time out, I had very noticeable streaking in the fits frames visible after any stretching. deBayering didn't help. I have included a jpeg of single frame that shows the effect. This is just a single raw frame simply converted to a jpeg with no processing (so you can also see some dust issues, and also some tracking issues...) But the main issue to me are the stripes. Very noticeable. I did not see this in darks I don't think, and have not seen it in any captures the previous time out, nor have I been able to recreate it when the camera is just sitting inside on a bench running. The cooling between the 2 times out was similar too. Is this some sort of a software artifact, or is the camera having some kind of a hardware problem?
That looks like a clocking issue, it may need adjustment. Please contact Bill @ SBIG Service and Repair. SBIG Service & Repair Center 130 Castilian Drive, Suite 102 Santa Barbara, CA 93117 Bill Lynch - bill@sbig.com Phone: (805) 308-6979
Bill, it's an STF-8300C. I MIGHT have found a suspect USB cable, but it is hard to really be sure until I can try the camera out aqgain. I seem to have misplaced the bad cable at the moment or I would just try it out on the bench inside with that. I am hoping it is a simple thing like the cable, as the results as you can see are very ugly when it happens. ML
Bill, Sorry to engage you on this when you are supposed to be out of the office till Monday - I hope I am not interrupting your vacation. Not sure yet. I seem to have lost the cable I used last time, which would let me try to recreate the problem just running the camera inside. And of course, thew weather here rioght now doesn't allow outdoor testing. All I can say so far is that I cannot recreate it with any of the other compatible USB cables I have around here. There is an additional interesting intermittent issue with the temperature control too, but I have not been able to correlate the 2 things at all so if that is an issue it appears to be an unrelated one. ML
No worries Mike. I'd be surprised if this is a camera issue, Like I mentioned earlier, I can't recall seeing anything that looks like that before. I would think you could see it in dark frames, or lights, taken indoors just as easily as light frames taken at the scope. -Bill
OK, just to update, I was out again with a different USB cable, and this problem was nowhere to be found. So I am chalking it up to a bad USB cable at this point, unless and until it re-appears anyway. Thanks again for the support! ML