Make sure you set your gain correctly in the ASCOM driver for the camera. I believe default is 20. I haven’t used mine under the stars yet so I’m not sure if this is a sane value or not.
Thanks,
Jared
Failure again, I have no apparent Gain from the camera. Despite cranking the Gain up on the driver box, the stars are so faint I can’t use them for focus. I went back to the supplied USB3 cable, and no improvement. I am out of ideas now. I will try to get it to work with APT or something else. Suggestions welcome, but I think I have tried everything.
I posted the following at CloudyNights and I am re-posting here because I thought it might be useful information:
I have been reading this with great interest so I decided to test it myself with ASI120MC-S which is a color CMOS camera and USB 3.0. I tested with two different computers/laptops. Here is my equipment.
Camera: ASI120MC-S using V1.0.2.5 and V1.0.2.8 ASI ASCOM drivers. I selected “Highest Dynamic Range” preset gain, offset and USB Limit.
Desktop Computer: Home Built. Intel i7 Quad Core, 3.6Ghz, 16GB RAM, Windows 10 64 bit
Laptop: HP Envy, Intel i5 Dual Core, 2.5GHz, 8GB RAM, Windows 10 64 bit.
Using Desktop: Both SGP 2.5.1.15 and Nebulosity 4.1 FAILED. I was taking Bias subs at 0.000 second exposure and collected 20 subs for each SGP sequence. I would repeat SGP sequence at least once or twice before SGP would crash. Nebulosity 4.1 Frame & Focus would cause the download to hang forever after second capture consistently.
Using laptop: Both SGP 2.5.1.15 and Nebulosity 4.1 PASSED. I was taking Bias subs at 0.000 second exposure and collected 20 subs for each SGP sequence. I collected a total of 500 subs without a single crash. Nebulosity 4.1 Frame & Focus passed with flying colors and no download hang.
What does this mean? Different computers behaving differently for same ASI camera, USB 3.0 cable and drivers? I am still leaning to blame on ASI driver for USB 3.0. Note that my laptop is a little wimpier than Desktop but does it mean that wimpier computers/laptops would work better? I don’t know.
But both desktop and laptop easily PASSED if using USB 2.0 with SGP 2.5.1.15 and Nebulosity 4.1 with V1.0.2.5 and V1.0.2.8 ASI ASCOM drivers.
No delays were used in between subs for SGP. Some people said that inserting delays in between subs help.
My suggestion when capturing DSOs using SGP or Nebulosity, use USB 2.0 since sub-exposure times are always longer (at least 30 seconds) and there is no hurry for downloading subs at 4 Gigabit per second for USB 3.0.
When capturing videos of planets, use ZWO native driver and FireCapture. Firecapture using USB 3.0 seems to be stable and no crashes or hangs. Note that native driver for ASI120MC-S is not the same as for ASI1600 so I can’t say that native driver for ASI1600 is rock solid and stable to use with FireCapture.
I know my camera is not ASI1600 but my tests with ASI120MC-S appear to behave similarly with others using ASI1600 which leads me to believe that ZWO ASCOM driver using USB 3.0 is a little (maybe more than a little) buggy.
I hope this is useful information.
Peter
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I’m having issues as well. I get close to two hours of imaging at Unity in the ZWO ASCOM driver and then SGP crashes. Yes, even .15.
On top of that the FLATS wizard fails to work properly. It takes 3 frames, gets down to the 4th at .48 seconds and then fails to download any image at all.
If I try to manually take a flat frame with anything under 1 second…it fails to download. I’m using the .5 driver with SGP .15.
BTW, this is an ASI1600MCC, not an MMC.
They had a couple more recent drivers but it looked like they rolled them back for some reason.
Logs would be helpful.
Thanks,
Jared
Jared,
Thanks for the reply. So I worked at this last night trying to find out what was going on. I was using an IOGEAR USB Hub/Extender over Cat5e that was 25’ long. I’ve used that same IOGEAR unit over 150’ with a Canon DSLR in the past without issue.
I uninstalled the ZWO ASCOM 1.0.2.5 driver and replaced it with the 1.0.2.8 driver. Same issue taking Bias frames. I then pulled out the IOGEAR USB Hub/Extender and plugged the ASI1600MCC into the laptop directly.
I was then able to take 100 Bias frames without a hitch! I just plain ran out of time last night to try taking Flats with this revised setup. Will try that today and get back to you.
It just might be that the ZWO ASCOM driver is having issues with USB Hub/Extenders. I have a newer one from AVAccess that is a much higher end unit and will give that one a shot if I’m successful with the flats directly connected.
Just for further background, the IOGEAR one recently failed to work when I ran my Cat5e Shielded underground (new patio) over 75’ to inside the house. The AVAccess (higher end unit) worked great over the new Cat5e Shielded buried in Schedule 40 Conduit right alongside two 20AMP dedicated circuits. So there’s hope…
P.S. Appears Sam & Company read my suggestion on the ASCOM ASI Camera driver naming as those who have installed the 1.0.2.8 driver will notice they are now named ASI Camera (1) and ASI Camera (2). 
Jared,
All set now. I made some posts in the Cloudynights thread on this issue: More SGP and ASI1600 problems - Page 6 - Beginning Deep Sky Imaging - Cloudy Nights
Basically the 1.0.2.8 ASCOM driver appears to work, but SGP still has some issues with sub-second frames for Flats. After reading a bit more folks were suggesting that Flats should be over 1 second anyway, so I adjusted my Spike-A FF to get above that and had no issues even with the IOGEAR USB Hub/Extender.
If you are running at USB 3.0 speed, try run at USB 2.0 speed by simply using USB 2.0 cables. There’s no reason to run at USB 3.0 speed because SGP is not intended to be a video imaging capture software and plus the download speed at a full resolution of ASI1600 camera takes too long due to 16MP resolution.
For planetary video imaging, use FireCapture software and USB 3.0 speeds without using USB hub.
Peter
I believe turning the USB limit to 45 has the same effect for USB 3.0. This is what works for me.
Jared
Jared,
I got the USB turned down to 50 and things stabilized. I’ll be posting the resulting image in a few minutes.
This may be a stupid question but how do you turn down the USB? Unless you are not using Windows. My OS is Windows 7 and I would like to try this to see if it solves my problem while using the newer versions.
Thanks for your help
Rex
It’s in the ASCOM settings for the ZWO ASCOM Driver.
Thanks,
Jared Wellman
Co-Founder and Developer
Ah OK, no problem.
Thanks