Backyard EOS..What am I doing wrong?

[ncwolfie]

Reposted from Cloudy Nights forum by request:

 

Recently downloaded Backyard EOS and thought I had found the perfect companion software for my Canon T4i and 8" Edge HD. I have read the manual, as much as it is and it seems pretty straight forward. However when I tried to make an avi of Jupiter I get no indication that anything is happening. Have changed my default download folder in BYE to C:/Astroimages, but nothing is there. Settings are to save avi and jpeg to computer only, (netbook with 2 GB ram, slower than optimal but runs the program fine). Camera set on Manual. Camera connects and is recognized, am able to focus in BYE and image looks fine. I then click planetary, then record. The manual indicates I should see some numbers and the circle in the upper right hand corner spin down.
After some time I see the circle start to spin down, but no numbers, countdown or indication of anything. After a couple minutes it says sampling images then can not start new image, image already in progress. That is the only message I get.
I look in the C:\astroimgaes folder. No avi. I look in the BYE temp folder and there are about 40 Jupiter jpegs only.

This morning I test it indoors, same procedure, same results except it only captured 1 jpeg image. Still no avi.

Two perfect nights of trying to image Jupiter wasted. I have been into astronomy for about 40 years, just got into digital astrophotography last year. Trying to get stellarium, stellarium scope and Backyard EOS all going. Stellarium seems fine, stellarium scope is another story but I really thought BYE looked so simple.
Its making me feel pretty inept right now considering I am into IT support.
Any ideas what I am doing wrong. It has me baffled.

 

Notebook PC specs: HPMini 311-1037r

11.6 1366x768 LED display

2 megs DD3 SDRAM

160GB Hard Drive

Intel Atom N270 Processor 1.6GHZ

Nvidia ION with shared graphics memory 895mb

Windows 8.1 32 bit

3x USB ports 2.0

1 HDMI port

HPWebcam

802.11 a/b/g/n WLAN & Bluetooth

 

Camera: Canon EOS Rebel T4i

Thansk in advance,

[admin]

I want to eliminate the AVI encoder as a possible culprit.

 

Please follow this instructions to have BYE use VirtualDub to encode the AVI.  It this works it means something went wrong during the installation and the built-in encoder did not register properly.

 

http://www.otelescope.com/index.php?/topic/213-how-to-use-virtualdub-to-encode-planetary-avi-movies-automatically/

 

Keep me posted,

 

Regards,

[admin]

Are you using a HUB or it the camera connected directly in the computer USB port?

 

Oh, you have the T4i.  You may be out of luck then, let me explain.

 

The T4i is the worst camera for live view.  On average most camera model can produce about 30 frames per second with about a 10% to 15% failure.  By failure I mean the camera/sdk returns a blank frame which brings it down to about 22 to 25 FPS.

 

The T4i is in a class of its own.  I have tested several T4i and none have even done good.  The T4i failure is about 70% and this is constant.  This means that a T4i (and I say this with great confidence based on my testing) is not capable of producing more than 10 FPS... at best!

 

However, this seems to be even worst with your T4i.  It looks like you are getting 1 frame every second or so.

 

What happens when you go Frame&Focus, is the live view frame rate reasonable or is it very sluggish as in 1 frame every few seconds?

 

Regards,

[ncwolfie]

Directly to the USB port. Yes I read about the T4i's lackluster 10 fps performance limit just the other day. Still my fps was hanging around 5-8 in frame and focus. Did a little experiment at lunch and got some limited results. I changed the save option to avi +jpeg to avi only.

The activity button seemed to work displaying frame messages, busy message,  etc and zipped along fairly fast. It was apparent this time it did something and finished the process. However for some reason, it saved 100 jpegs to the dowload folder , created a planetary subfolder under C:\astroimages folder (as I had chosen for it to do), but still did not produce an avi there.

 

After reading about the fps limiting factor the other day I was still hopeful it would at least grab 5ps being somewhat useable. So my thinking is that the notebook available memory could have been causing somne of the activbity issues, but maybe still something wrong with the encoding. Not sure how to proceed to fix the encoding but I can up the notebook up 1 more gig tomorrow to its max and hopefully help the processing activity along. The fps issue will keep it from being ideal, if it works at all, but something would be better than nothing until I can upgrade. It is fine for deep sky, but I may have to look at other options for a planetary camera. Can you think of anything I could look at on my end to check or fix an encoding issue?

 

Thanks again.

[admin]

Have you tried on another computer to confirm (or rule out) your current computer as maybe being part of the issue?  Just trying to rule out potential culprit.

 

Regards,

[Jim]

Guylain,

 

Just tried my T4i (650D) and got the following results using Planetary and my desk as a target, this is with BYE 3.1.2, Windows 10 Technical Preview, desktop PC with more than enough processors, ram, HDD, etc.

 

AVI + JPG, only the JPEGs saved in the folder specified in .. Pictures/BackyardEOS/Planetary/Foldername.

AVI only, nothing and no folder created in .. Pictures/BackyardEOS/Planetary/Foldername.

JPG only, only the JPEGs saved in the specified folder of .. Pictures/BackyardEOS/Planetary/Foldername.

 

If I watch in BackyardTemp I can see the temporary folder being created and the JPG frames being deposited in it. VDUB.exe starts does its thing and eventually the folder in BackyardTemp is deleted. This happens whether AVI + JPG, AVI or JPG is selected as the output. No AVI's are being created and if AVI only is selected as the output no folder is created in .. Pictures/BackyardEOS/Planetary/Foldername.

 

Also I'm only getting between 3-4 fps now whereas previously as we have discussed at some length in the past with previous versions of BYE I was getting about 10 fps, sometimes even bursting up to 11 ;^))

 

Regards

 

Jim

[Jim]

Guylain,

 

 

EDIT Just realised I was looking in the wrong folder for the AVI, it is in the PLANETARY folder, not in the same folder that is created to hold the JPGs. Doh, smacks head ! This means my 650D is working exactly as well as it is capable of. 

 

 

Just run two more Planetary imaging runs (AVI + JPEG) and noted the following, in each of the runs a folder was created  ...Pictures/BackyardTemp/Downloads\Foldername and the JPGs were loaded into it. vdub.exe started and an AVI was created in ... Pictures/BackyardTemp/Downloads/ (I.e. not in the temporary folder named above as Foldername but directly into Downloads) with the correct target name, etc. Just prior to vdub.exe exiting this file disappears and a few seconds later the temporary folder ... Pictures/BackyardTemp/Downloads/Foldername is deleted.

 

Each time the JPGs have been saved but there is no AVI file in ...Pictures/BackyardEOS/Planetary/Foldername.

 

I have attached the main and backgroundworker logs for you from a single planetary run.

 

logfile-20150212-18h18m30s898-backgroundworker-9036-2015-02-12.txt-2015-02-12.txt]

 

logfile-20150212-18h18m16s579-12644-2015-02-12.txt-2015-02-12.txt]

 

Jim

 

 

P.S. Edit. If I run Planetary in 5X zoom I am getting between 10 and 11 fps as I was previously, but if I run the session un-zoomed I'm only getting between 3-4 fps.

[ncwolfie]

Will try another computer tonight.

[admin]

According to the logfile you sent the move took place and no errors were returned.

 

2015-02-12 18:20:28,621 [MoveFile(Normal)] INFO  - MoveFile START!
2015-02-12 18:20:28,636 [MoveFile(Normal)] INFO  - move: D:\Users\Jim\Pictures\BackyardTEMP\Download\Rubb_Tv1-15s_f4_1600iso_960x640_20150212-18h19m38s.avi
2015-02-12 18:20:28,636 [MoveFile(Normal)] INFO  -   to: D:\Users\Jim\Pictures\BackyardEOS\PLANETARY\Rubb_Tv1-15s_f4_1600iso_960x640_20150212-18h19m38s.avi
2015-02-12 18:20:28,636 [MoveFile(Normal)] INFO  - Try move D:\Users\Jim\Pictures\BackyardTEMP\Download\Rubb_Tv1-15s_f4_1600iso_960x640_20150212-18h19m38s.avi
2015-02-12 18:20:28,636 [MoveFile(Normal)] INFO  - moved to D:\Users\Jim\Pictures\BackyardEOS\PLANETARY\Rubb_Tv1-15s_f4_1600iso_960x640_20150212-18h19m38s.avi
2015-02-12 18:20:28,636 [MoveFile(Normal)] INFO  - MoveFile total execution time 0.016 seconds.

 

Are you sure you have Windows set to display file extension.  Could it be that Windows is not displaying extension and the file is there but you don't see the .avi

 

Regards,

[Jim]

Guylain,

 

Please see the edit in my earlier post where I point out my stupidity of looking for the AVI in the wrong folder !

 

My camera and BYE 3.1.2 are all working as expected, I.e. between 10 - 11 fps, AVI saved in the PLANETARY folder as it should.

 

Jim

[admin]

Yeah, so all is working fine

[ncwolfie]

Guylain,

 

Ok, tried it on a second laptop, Asus Intel I7 17" gaming laptop, Windows 7 professional. It worked perfectly and recorded an AVI. Average 8 -9 fps, acceptable, just a big laptop to lug out at night.

Tried again on the HPMini 311-1037r notebook. Same results as before no avi recorded. Deleted BYE from the notebook, did fresh reinstall with same results, no avi, but jpegs created instead even though I specified avi only.

 

Somethings I noticed with same procedure the for both laptops.

 

1. Start BYE, connect camera by usb direct to computer, power on camera, click connect in BYE. Both connect fine. I have camera itself set to High quality jpeg (L) + Raw. This shows in camera information window in BYE. I remove the lens cap while connected to the Asus I7 and this settings stays the same in the BYE camera information window. But when I am connected to the HP notebook and remove the lense, as soon as it sees light this settings changes to S1 in the BYE camera information window.

Just something I noticed, Have no idea why it does that or if it is relevant.

 

2. When I installed BYE the second time on the notebook, I never saw the dos window pop up for the encoder install (if that is the right word). I did see that on the asus and saw it on the initial BYE install on the HP notebook.

 

3. When the HP note book is capturing the images dislaying, it finishes and says " Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID {40D02BB3-80B5-4EAF-A264-61B9EF30BBE2} failed due to the following error: 80040154 Class not registered (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80040154 (REGDB_E_CLASSNOTREG))."

 

I pulled that from the log but it displays the first part of this message in the status window under the connect button.

I can send you the entire log if you want to look it over?

 

 

Thanks,

[ncwolfie]

Success!! You are the man Guylain!

The vdub encoder seems to have done the trick. A couple of pecularities at first but it seems to be working fine. I am choosing the avi only option. Tried the avi+jpeg option once and it did not save jpegs...but i gave the target a name which maybe I shouldn't have done since I have the subfolder option with subject, time and date stamp set. Not worried about the jpeg option for planetary anyway. Just happy to be getting avi's now. I see a camera upgrade in the future but I can live with what I have for now.

Excellent customer support!!

 

Thanks

[astroman133]

Just so you know...Both RegiStax and AutoStakkert can use either an avi file or a series of individual jpg files.  Avi's are easier to manage, but if you have a series of jpg's you will likely not need to throw them away. AND now that you have VirtualDub, you can manually try to assemble that series of jpgs into an avi file. That is what BYE does.

[ncwolfie]

Stacked a series of Jupiter jpegs in RegiStax the other night. It wasn't bad but not as sharp as I would have liked. I assumed some of the loss or inability to process more was due to it being a jpeg image. It could have easily been operator error as well.  Am I correct in assuming that frames from the avi can be saved as tiff files and there for be more adaptable to processing in registax and photoshop than jpegs?

[s3igell]

Within BYE Planetary Mode, the process is:

1) BYE uses the Canon EDSDK functions to Stream the Camera's LiveView data to the Laptop

2) BYE quickly captures individual Frames of this Stream and saves them to JPG files on disk using whatever Best Quality and Minimum Compression parameters are possible

3) BYE, once the Planetary Capture is over, commits a BackgroundWorker Task to feed those acquired JPG files through VirtualDub in order to construct an AVI

4) BYE, depending on your settings, deletes the accumulated temporary JPG files

5) BYE leaves you with a single AVI containing the Planetary Imaging Session, and a directory full of the JPGs which made that AVI 

 

Thus, while in  general "TIFF are preferable to JPG", in this case the JPG files are "as good as you get" for the Source Images, and the AVI is generated from these with Codec Settings that stipulate No Compression.

Using RegiStax6 (or as many of us prefer - AutoStakkert2) on the AVI (or the accumulated JPGs) is definitely an option, as such Video Stacking Software will extract the Best Frames (ultimately the same as "the best JPGs") of the AVI to produce an Image.  And then, either RegiStax6 or PS can be used to further Sharpen and Process that resulting Image (which likely will be saved as TIFF).  

Note: The usual Workflow does not see the AVI first "deconstructed" to TIFFs before being fed to RegiStax6 or AutoStakkert2, as that is simply an extra step and which might introduce its own Artifacts (depending on Codec and Parameters used).

[ncwolfie]

Great explanation of the process. Thanks!

[PoppaChris]

Have these above issues been limited to the T4i?  What about other newer Canon versions?

 

I use an older T2i and have never had such problems.  I normally get runs of 25 - 26FPS for as long as 2000 frames (which is what I limit them to.) When 3.1 first came out I had an issue with individual videos being saved when more than 1 or 2  were in memory.  But that has been resolved now.  I would hope to upgrade my DSLR in the future, but don't want to be buying problems.

[admin]

Have these above issues been limited to the T4i?  What about other newer Canon versions?

 

I use an older T2i and have never had such problems.  I normally get runs of 25 - 26FPS for as long as 2000 frames (which is what I limit them to.) When 3.1 first came out I had an issue with individual videos being saved when more than 1 or 2  were in memory.  But that has been resolved now.  I would hope to upgrade my DSLR in the future, but don't want to be buying problems.

 

Yes, the T4i only.

[PoppaChris]

Guylain, you've obviously tried the vast majority of Canon DSLRs while working your magic in BYE.  Which model is your personal favorite?

[admin]

It's the T3i/600D... but just because it is a cooled CDS600D

[PoppaChris]

It's the T3i/600D... but just because it is a cooled CDS600D

OK... Let me rephrase the question...  Which is your favorite UNMODIFIED (cooled or otherwise) Canon model? 

[admin]

I really don't have any preference... but I do have 1 model I don't like... and that would be the 60D/60Da.

 

Not because it is not a good camera, but because that model has a physical separate dial position for BULB (it is not M).  Which means that you have to physically touch the camera to move from BULB to TV values and BACK... so between flats and lights you have to touch the camera.

 

Regards,

[s3igell]

But, in defense of the unmodded-60D:  

It has a Sensor / Processor / Electronics package which produces LESS Noise than either the T2i or T3i (60D Noise is about equal to the T4i - but without the 5-10FPS Penalty).

It has the Crop Movie Mode that captures TRUE 1:1 Video at 60fps (but only to SD Card - no BYE Control).

It has the Articulated LCD Screen like the T3i (allows better viewing of LiveView when BYE is NOT being used).

It has a Bigger / Better Battery that truly will last a whole Winter Night of DSO Imaging (or 2x Summer Nights) - about 2x the duration of the T2i/T3i Battery - and doesn't seem to Heat-up the Camera Body as much as the smaller Batteries.

It has all the Daytime Photography Bonuses of being the "Pro-sumer" Model - better Focus, Metering, Buffering, etc.

 

And the Astro 60Da - well, you need a good Modded T2i/T3i to beat the Ha Response...

[PoppaChris]

Hmmm... I think you've convinced me to hang on to my T2i for a spell.  Doesn't look like an upgrade will gain me very much.