Altair Hypercam 183C Pro tec possible issues

[korbitz]

Hi,

So managed to pick up a dedicated astrophotography camera about a week ago (second hand, but looks in good condition), since then had horrible weather. Installed Astro Photography Tool, and during live view i can manage to pick up an image, aparantly the greenish tinge is correct according to what i've read, i have it set to RGGB.

Single__2020-03-14_22-48-31_Bin1x1_4s__0C.png (111.51 KiB) Viewed 2805 times

Now when i capture an image, testing so taking images of internal stuff until the weather improves, using the plan function it will only provide a black (or white if i stretch the image) image, if i run this image through DSS to de-bayer it i get a plain green image with no images.

Question, is this what i should expect to see and will star images i capture using this camera come through when i stack and stretch. Tonight is (hopefully) going to be the first clearish night for awhile so would like to capture some images and would rather not waste my entire night tweaking cameras, or finding out i've got a dud camera and get no images at all.

Thanks for reading, clear skies (hopefully).

ps. pic of the camera attached and ready for action

[Mack41]

Mine is the same, if I select raw12 or raw8 deepskystaker reads it as grey scale
I believe the green tint is normal and can be rectified in processing

[korbitz]

Thanks, is there anyway to test that it is actually taking data

[Mack41]

I don’t know mate, sorry
I’m new to this and like you hoping to try it out tonight

[bladekeeper]

Make sure your data is captured as 16-bit FIT files. DeepSkyStacker does not like 8-bit data...

You will need to know the bayer matrix of your camera (RGGB, GBRG, BGRG, etc) and setp DSS to debayer accordingly. That will allow your color to be assigned appropriately.

After stacking, stretching will allow the content to be brought forth.

That's the cheap nutshell version. I've not used APT so am of no use there.

[korbitz]

Okay so last night was shambolical, 1st Microsoft decided to perform an update on my laptop which ultimately took 2 hours to complete on my laptop. Took my desktop pc out to the shed, got setup, trained my telescope on the stars just as the clouds rolled in, so basically no images captured and still not sure if my camera works. :flame:

Does anyone know a way i can test the capturing capabilities of the camera during the daytime (wont have clearish nights for another week), liveview has no issues. But when i capture, run through DSS and then into processing, all i get is an empty image no matter if i stretch.

Granted i am new to all this, so apologies if this is a dumb question.

Make sure your data is captured as 16-bit FIT files. DeepSkyStacker does not like 8-bit data...

You will need to know the bayer matrix of your camera (RGGB, GBRG, BGRG, etc) and setp DSS to debayer accordingly. That will allow your color to be assigned appropriately.

After stacking, stretching will allow the content to be brought forth.

That's the cheap nutshell version. I've not used APT so am of no use there.

Can only set my fit files to 12 bit and the bayer matrix is correctly set to RGGB

Thanks for reading.

[Graeme1858]

Can you post up a couple of your captured images? Or an online storage link?

Someone here will know what to do with it!

Regards

Graeme

[Mack41]

You can use your camera in the daytime, just point it at something that’s far enough away to focus and start capturing

[korbitz]

okay seems that i was oversaturating the image, when i looked at a histogram it was maxed out, managed to capture a 3sec exposure of a picture i have hanging on my wall (sad, but all i have at the moment). Roll on the clear skies.

Cheers