ASICap Tutorial - Recording a Video

This video is for my friend Bob and anyone else new to ASICap. I go over the three types of videos I know how to record. Please let me know if I can explain anything more clearly and clear skies!

[@elvisvelez6609]

Thanks man, I've been viewing with a telescope for years but I'm new to astrophotography and it's been a little tough to get through the learning curve. It would be cool to have a community for newbs. Maybe have a live show where we can ask questions and help each other.

[@spacetimewithrobert4438]

Thank you! We're headed out tonight to share our telescopes and a Seestar S50. If I can, I'll host a youtube livestream around 8PM Pacific Time tonight while we're out and you can join us. I'll do my best to answer any and all of your questions! Alternatively, you may ask away here and I'll also do my best to answer everything. If I can't, I'll likely look up a solution for you using cloudynights.com. This is an online forum of avid astronomers with lots of knowledge, eager to help people like us. So my best tip for figuring things out with telescope equipment is to search your question but add "Cloudynights" to the end of it. StargazersLounge is another good online community for troubleshooting. I hope this helps and I look forward to your questions!!

[@emmanuelblum7454]

Super explained. Thank you

[@davidrankin8427]

Great video, thanks for making this. I'm new to astrophotography and recently got a ZWO ASI 678MC for lunar and planetary captures. When I capture with ASICap, the image is very green. Any pointers on how best to balance the colours so I can calibrate the cameras better? Thanks.

[@spacetimewithrobert4438]

Hello David, Thank you very much and welcome to the horribly spendy hobby of astrophotography!! In ASICAP to the right of the Gain slider is a red button with three dots that will say "Click to set more parameters" if you hover over it. If you click that button, a popup will appear called More Control. Under the second tab labeled "Color" there will be a checkbox labeled "Auto White Balance". Please check this box and tell me if this solves your problem. Typically the images with our cameras are very green before any color processing. The reason for this (let me know if I am wrong!) is because our camera's sensors are laid out in a rectangular grid of pixel-wells (like microscopic rain buckets). The smallest sensor grid would be 2x2, totaling in 4 buckets. Each bucket gets either a red, blue or green color filter put over it so it only absorbs that wavelength of light. But the engineers are only trying to capture 3 wavelengths of light (red, green, and blue) so what to do with that 4th extra bucket?? I'm guessing what they end up doing is because it's easiest to manufacture it this way, but the engineers decide to give that 4th extra bucket a color filter as well. Either red, green, or blue. I am guessing in your case, your camera's "extra bucket" was assigned to green. So your camera (as does my ASI 294) collects twice as much green light as it does red, or blue. And equal the amount of green as blue and red combined. Another word for this I think is the camera's "Bayer Matrix Pattern". Mine is RGGB. So every 2x2 pixel-well block on my sensor is filtered with that pattern. I believe every sensor works this way, except monochrome sensors which have no color filters over any of the pixel wells. Once you stack all your images (or even before) you can typically auto-balance the colors using whichever editing program you prefer, or manually edit the RGB channels using a histogram tool. If you would like any help with that let me know! My favorite programs for editing astrophotos is GIMP, PIPP, Registax6 and Autostakkert!3. If the whitebalance checkbox doesn't solve your problem, I think using some of those programs will! - Robert

[@spacetimewithrobert4438]

Also, for lunar and planetary I recommend taking a video! Try using 16bit instead of 8bit if you are and enable RAW. This will record .SER files. Record a few videos testing out various exposure and gain settings, seeing what looks best in the display. Try to capture hundreds of frames per video if you can. 300+ is a good star but 3000 is better. So if your telescope is tracking, this well help! With your videos, load one of them into Autostakkert!3 and follow some tutorials online if you can. I wrote one here: www.spacetimewithrobert.space/tutorial-planetary-imaging-dslr-nikon-d5300 If you jump to Step 9 in my tutorial it well show you how to process your video in Autostakkert!3. The output file will be very green, as usual. But in step 10 you will fix that. Here is another tutorial (and I love this educator!!) kzbin.info/www/bejne/eZrCkoCjhJl3eKM

[@davidrankin8427]

@@spacetimewithrobert4438 thanks, yes I am RGGB as well for the Bayer pattern. This helps, thanks. Waiting on clear skies again :)

[@patdohrety2940]

Wait, was that a kitty a 7:52? Thank you for the nice simple explanation. I'm trying to get the swing of my ZWO ASI camera, and this was perfect for me.

[@spacetimewithrobert4438]

Hah yes that was Theodore likely singing about food time. Nice catch! Also, I’m glad the video helped! If you have any questions I’ll be here. Clear skies to you, Pat!

[@patdohrety2940]

@@spacetimewithrobert4438 I am finding that my ZWO 120MC color camera is not working for my telescope. I was old school visual astronomy and I love my dobsonian! I really like my 80mm DayStar solar scout too! But the color camera get really . . . weird when I point it at the sun through the H-alpha filter. It's just all red light LOL! I think I need to find a used monochrome camera. Cheers! The sun is clear far more than the planets and stellar objects it seems!

[@spacetimewithrobert4438]

@@patdohrety2940 Yes the Sun would look much better on a higher resolution camera, especially using a DayStar Scout! Congratulations on that by the way, I have been considering it or getting a Chromosphere to use with my refractors. Awesome technology! I've heard monochrome cameras work best on the Sun since you are recording in a single wavelength anyway. You can just colorize your B&W photos however you like, and that the monochrome images are somehow sharper. I'm obviously still learning a lot about it but here are two really good Solar Astro Imagers that respond to questions and list their gear if you're looking for more info: instagram.com/simon2940/ instagram.com/stromback_photography/ Also, here is a cloudy nights post I found on the subject! www.cloudynights.com/topic/701627-best-camera-for-solar-imaging/ Hope that helps. Happy Mother's Day! - Robert

[@ponapoastro]

big thanks

[@spacetimewithrobert4438]

You're very welcome!

[@jyosuckas6720]

Hi Robert, I’m a newb with this. I have my nexstar 8se and zwo camera. I’m aiming at Saturn and can see it in my eyepiece but when I put the zwo camera on I get nothing. I take the camera off and point it to a light in the distance so I know it’s on and working. Any idea what I’m doing wrong?

[@spacetimewithrobert4438]

Hello! No worries I’m a newb also, so let’s figure this out together. My first hypothesis is Saturn was out of focus when you put the camera in the focuser after removing the eyepiece. I think this because often I have to refocus my telescope after swapping between camera and eyepieces. To test this, try increasing the gain to max and exposure to about 1 or 2 seconds. If you still do not see anything on your screen then perhaps it could be my second hypothesis: Saturn was not directly centered and is off screen. If you are using a small sensor camera like the ASI120 coupled with a high-mag telescope like the 8SE, your field of view may be absolutely tiny. Big enough to fit Saturn, but if you’ve seen Saturn at 200+ magnification you know how small of a window this can be. Earth’s rotation becomes mesmerizingly quick in a Dobson at those magnifications. I digress. Having such a small window will require precise centering when using an eyepiece. Im out with some scopes at the moment but I’ll come back tomorrow morning to check in. Also, my email is [e-mail] if you wish to contact me that way but this works just as well for me! Hope that helps! - Robert

[@louischampion5485]

Hi from 🇫🇷 I have a problem, asi studio do not detect my caméra… Can you help me pls ?

[@spacetimewithrobert4438]

Of course! I have this problem sometimes, too! First, I have only been able to use ZWO cameras on this program, so if you're hooking up a DSLR that may be your issue. If it is a ZWO Camera, to fix it I will double check my cord connections from the camera to the PC. Sometimes switching USB slots on the PC helps and I'm still not sure why. Once I was using a ZWO 120mc and it wouldn't get detected using my USB 2.0 slot, so I switched to a 2.0 cord and it worked fine. If securing the connection and using the proper USB slots/cords still doesn't work then I will re-install the drivers for the camera (I use windows). The driver solution is typically for computers I haven't used in a while. Let me know if any of this helps!

[@rafaelvantolra8072]

Great video!!!!! I'm new in this hobby I have a celestron nexstar8se and just received my zwo asi662mc. And everything looks white .. do I need filters?

[@spacetimewithrobert4438]

Hello Rafael, Thank you so much and congratulations on your new NexStar 8SE and camera! You chose a great telescope!! If your camera is enabled and you are receiving a video feed while using ASICAP, then you should see a color image and not pure-white. My first assumption is your exposure and gain settings are too high for the lighting conditions in your lab. I would like you to first set the Gain slider to the middle with the camera enabled and the lens cap off. No telescope is required for this test, but I do like to attach mine and aim at a nearby tree to make sure everything works for when I go out at night. Next, with the camera on and the gain set to half, lower the exposure slider to it's lowest setting and then steadily increase the exposure until an image appears. There are multiple tiers of exposure settings available in the drop-down menu near the exposure slider. I would start with the first tier (fastest shutter speed) and move the slider to the right. If nothing appears, select the next tier and repeat. I'm anticipating you to see a black screen at first, and then as you increase the exposure a colorful feed should be visible on your monitor. If no telescope is used, nothing will be in focus but you will at least be able to detect variances in light by aiming the camera around your lab. Let me know if this experiment fails and we will try something else! - Robert

[@spacetimewithrobert4438]

Oh and to answer your question: no filters should be required for this camera. The ASI662 MC is considered a "color" camera and this means filters are already built in! When you look at your sensor and tilt it near a light source, you may see rainbow-like colors reflect off it. This is because there are thousands of tiny buckets each with either a Red, Blue or Green filter placed over them. There are about twice as many buckets for collecting green light as there are for blue and red on these cameras. So you should get nothing but color images using it. Black and white images are often a result of the settings applied in ASICAP prior to capturing an image or if you are using a Monochrome camera that has no internal filters for RGB. I hope that helps!

[@janwouterdeheer7185]

Thanks in advance for your clear explanation !! - have you got a more advanced in depth video of asicap ?

[@spacetimewithrobert4438]

Thank you very much!! Unfortunately I do not and certainly need to work on more videos. However, if there are any questions you have I'd love to help right here if possible! This would also help me figure out what to include in my next ASICAP video. You can also email me at [e-mail] if you prefer and I'd love to help any way I can! Clear skies!

[@tredi2]

I can't get any focus using knob on teleskop, don't see stars or planet, only black screen. What's wrong am I doing? Using ZWO ASI 120 MC.

[@spacetimewithrobert4438]

Let's get to work! Set gain to max. On exposure, set to half a second. You should see something. If not, try pointing at a bright street light or something bright and stationary. My assumption is either gain or exposure are too low. I know you know this but just to make sure, double check that your lens cap is off! :) Let me know if any of these work.

[@tredi2]

@@spacetimewithrobert4438 ok, I'll try next time. Maybe I should also use eyepiece with this camera?

[@spacetimewithrobert4438]

No, these cameras are designed to work better without an eyepiece! The camera should go right in the focuser as if it were the eyepiece. I hope that helps! Edit: however it would be useful to make sure the telescope works using an eyepiece!! Then, remove the eyepiece and practice with the camera. I do this often.