ZWO ASI178MM Monochrome Camera

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EGRAY_OBSERVATORY
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Re: ZWO ASI178MM Monochrome Camera

Post by EGRAY_OBSERVATORY »

Hi James, much depends on which camera you have available.

Obviously in the case of the ZWO ASI 178MM, it comes with it's own "1.25" T-Mount" to simply replace an eye-piece.

Some makes of DSLR's have available to purchase "T-Mounts" of which my Panasonic DMC-G2 has one and in 2010 I was taking good images through both the Lunt 60mm Ha and Cal-K scopes, as well as through a 114mm Reflector in WL too.
They can be available for 1.25" or 2" version for fitting to the scopes focus-draw tubes.

Usually the T-Mount consists of two-parts as the camera's mount-type and the T-adapter itself..

Other cameras similar to DSLR's may also have available "T-Mounts" but in all cases web-searching should assist in finding which and suppliers.

Alexandra says the word "snout" which I think means the same as "T-Mount" - Apologies in advance Alexandra if I'm wrong there...

Attached images show both the T-Mount as well as a WL filter for my DMC-G2 camera.

Cheers
Terry
Attachments
IMG_1761 WL-FILTER.jpg
IMG_1761 WL-FILTER.jpg (1.53 MiB) Viewed 434 times
IMG_1760  T-PIECE.jpg
IMG_1760 T-PIECE.jpg (2.46 MiB) Viewed 434 times


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DeepSolar64
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Re: ZWO ASI178MM Monochrome Camera

Post by DeepSolar64 »

Montana wrote: Tue Nov 10, 2020 10:05 am James, the camera should come with a snout which fits inside an eyepiece holder, my ASI did. You shouldn't do eyepiece projection, just remove your eyepiece and pop it in instead. Always best to find the Sun with the eyepiece first, then do a straight exchange and the Sun should be in the field of view.

Alexandra
Yes it did come with a snout to fit the eyepiece holder. It fits perfectly. 🤠

And yes Terry I have one for my Nikon too.

James


Lunt 8x32 SUNoculars
Orion 70mm Solar Telescope
Celestron AstroMaster Alt/Az Mount
Meade Coronado SolarMax II 60 DS
Meade Coronado SolarMax II 90 DS
Meade Coronado AZS Alt/Az Mount
Astro-Tech AT72EDII with Altair solar wedge
Celestron NexStar 102GT with Altair solar wedge
Losmandy AZ8 Alt/Az Mount
Sky-Watcher AZGTI Alt-Az GoTo mount
Cameras: ZWO ASI178MM, PGR Grasshopper, PGR Flea
Lunt, Coronado, TeleVue, Orion and Meade eyepieces

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rsfoto
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Re: ZWO ASI178MM Monochrome Camera

Post by rsfoto »

DeepSolar64 wrote: Tue Nov 10, 2020 2:09 pm
Montana wrote: Tue Nov 10, 2020 10:05 am James, the camera should come with a snout which fits inside an eyepiece holder, my ASI did. You shouldn't do eyepiece projection, just remove your eyepiece and pop it in instead. Always best to find the Sun with the eyepiece first, then do a straight exchange and the Sun should be in the field of view.

Alexandra
Yes it did come with a snout to fit the eyepiece holder. It fits perfectly. 🤠

And yes Terry I have one for my Nikon too.

James
Hi James,

Yes find the Sun with an eyepiece and exchange to camera but I doubt it will be in focus. As far as I know the focus of an eyepiece is inside (depends on the eyepiece type) as an eyepiece has a negative focal plane and the camera need a positive focal plane or however it is called ...

IMHO

Look here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyepiece

Perhaps you will need an extension ¿? This is Trial & Error work ...

I guess people with more experience then me can explain better how it behaves.
Last edited by rsfoto on Tue Nov 10, 2020 5:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.


regards Rainer

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Re: ZWO ASI178MM Monochrome Camera

Post by DeepSolar64 »

:lol: I am sure a lot of my initial imaging attempts will be trial and error.


Lunt 8x32 SUNoculars
Orion 70mm Solar Telescope
Celestron AstroMaster Alt/Az Mount
Meade Coronado SolarMax II 60 DS
Meade Coronado SolarMax II 90 DS
Meade Coronado AZS Alt/Az Mount
Astro-Tech AT72EDII with Altair solar wedge
Celestron NexStar 102GT with Altair solar wedge
Losmandy AZ8 Alt/Az Mount
Sky-Watcher AZGTI Alt-Az GoTo mount
Cameras: ZWO ASI178MM, PGR Grasshopper, PGR Flea
Lunt, Coronado, TeleVue, Orion and Meade eyepieces

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Re: ZWO ASI178MM Monochrome Camera

Post by EGRAY_OBSERVATORY »

Again, as Rainer says there will almost certainly be different focusing and my experience of 10-years ago with the Lunt 60 and my as camera imaged, didn't take much to get to focus. Of course the Lunt 60 does have quite long draw-tube as well as the Blocking-Filter can also be adjusted in the draw-tube, as well as the camera itself into the BF too, so unlikely to be a problem.

Depending on your Nikon camera's type, if it has a separate back-mounter monitor as can be seen on my G2, then it will be "easy-peesy" to use that monitor for aligning the scope and even focusing. Mine has the choice of using the back-monitor and/or the view-finder..

I will likely be using my G2 for WL imaging (along with the R2) - whilst the Sun is low-down...

Cheers
Terry
ps 3-pages and zillion of looks for this post !!


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Re: ZWO ASI178MM Monochrome Camera

Post by DeepSolar64 »

I installed the drivers and the ZWO imaging software plus an older version of SharpCap on an old Windows 7 laptop I have. Using the camera's tiny all-sky lens I got it to work but the computer seems terribly slow running it. The video image is quite jerky with some delay. I may have to use my wife's Windows 10 laptop for this. This old computer I am using is probably a 2009 model!


Lunt 8x32 SUNoculars
Orion 70mm Solar Telescope
Celestron AstroMaster Alt/Az Mount
Meade Coronado SolarMax II 60 DS
Meade Coronado SolarMax II 90 DS
Meade Coronado AZS Alt/Az Mount
Astro-Tech AT72EDII with Altair solar wedge
Celestron NexStar 102GT with Altair solar wedge
Losmandy AZ8 Alt/Az Mount
Sky-Watcher AZGTI Alt-Az GoTo mount
Cameras: ZWO ASI178MM, PGR Grasshopper, PGR Flea
Lunt, Coronado, TeleVue, Orion and Meade eyepieces

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Re: ZWO ASI178MM Monochrome Camera

Post by dhkaiser »

Be sure to use a USB3 port James. USB2 really slows it down.


Dan
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Re: ZWO ASI178MM Monochrome Camera

Post by DeepSolar64 »

dhkaiser wrote: Sat Nov 28, 2020 12:53 am Be sure to use a USB3 port James. USB2 really slows it down.
That may be the issue I am having with this old machine . The image is quite jerky.


Lunt 8x32 SUNoculars
Orion 70mm Solar Telescope
Celestron AstroMaster Alt/Az Mount
Meade Coronado SolarMax II 60 DS
Meade Coronado SolarMax II 90 DS
Meade Coronado AZS Alt/Az Mount
Astro-Tech AT72EDII with Altair solar wedge
Celestron NexStar 102GT with Altair solar wedge
Losmandy AZ8 Alt/Az Mount
Sky-Watcher AZGTI Alt-Az GoTo mount
Cameras: ZWO ASI178MM, PGR Grasshopper, PGR Flea
Lunt, Coronado, TeleVue, Orion and Meade eyepieces

Image Visual Observer
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Re: ZWO ASI178MM Monochrome Camera

Post by EGRAY_OBSERVATORY »

As Dan has said, as the ASI 178 runs faster on USB-3 through its' own USB-3 cable, as long as the pc has a USB-3 port, otherwise there should not be too-much difference from plugging the USB-3 cable into a USB-2 port.

Trying selecting in the SharpCap program both USB-3 AND USB-2 as the method to be used - to see if that helps.

My observatory-computer has been programed with Windows-7 Professional and I know that either USB-3 PORT and USB-2 PORT usage makes little difference to the download times for Solar imaging, as the download files are much smaller than long night-time imaging. Also taking "SNAPSHOTS" for a start, uses very little pc memory...

Keep the number of programs open on any pc, down to the minimum, as they all can slow-down the performance too..

Cheers
Terry


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