ZWO ASI071MC Pro User manual
ZWO
ASI Cooled Camera
Quick Guide
苏州振旺光电有限公司
Suzhou ZWO Co.,Ltd.
Thank you for purchasing a ZWO ASI camera. This guide is brief summary of the
installation procedure to get you up and running with your new camera. Please be sure
to read the user manual for more complete instructions.
Driver and software installation(Windows)
1. Download and install ASI Camera driver from our website1or the
CD-ROM that came with your camera.
After plugging in the camera, you will see your ZWO camera model
listed under the “Imaging devices” category of the Device Manager if the
driver is installed successfully.
NOTE: To open device manager in windows, you may use one of the
following methods:
a) All Windows: Open Control Panel; Find and open Hardware and
Sound; Find and open Device Manager.
b) Windows 8/10: Right-click Start menu; Find Device Manager and
click to open.
c) Click “Start”menu and click “Run”( or press “WIN+R”key ); Type
devmgmt.msc and choose OK.
2. Download and install SharpCap (capture software) from our website or
CD-ROM. Choose your camera model from the camera menu. Then
you can see the preview video. Keep in mind that you will only see
some brightness in the preview video without lens or telescope.
4. Download one of various imaging software programs from our website
That’s all! You are ready to use your ASI camera to begin imaging the
night sky, including planetary objects as well as deep sky objects(DSO).
To learn more about your camera, you may find a more detailed user
manual can be found at our website:
https://astronomy-imaging-camera.com/manuals/
Definations:
website1: https://astronomy-imaging-camera.com/software/
ASCOM Platform2:http://ascom-standards.org/
Camera ports
Cooler power supply: Cooler and fan need an
external power supply. We recommend at least a
12V@3AAC-DC adapter or battery from 9-15V is
also suitable.
Connector standard: 2.1*5.5mm, center positive.
USB3.0 Port:
Connect to your computer
USB 2.0 Hub:
Connect to a guide camera
or EFW
Chamber seal screw:
Do not open it.
LED: Power on
Connecting the camera to the telescope
Color camera connection diagram (depicted without EFW):
Mono camera connection diagram (depicted with EFW, OAG& Guide
camera):
Additional options are available to adapt ASI cooled cameras to different
apertures, interfaces and thread standards:
1. 1.25” nose-piece
6. M42 21mm extender
2. 1.25” filter (optional)
7. OAG
3. M42-M48 adapter
8. Focal reducer (optional)
4. T2 extender 11mm
9. M42-M42 adapter(male to male)
5. M42-M48 16.5mm extender
10. ZWO EFW
Controlling your camera through ASCOM
ASCOM is a standard platform for astronomy software, many astronomy
imaging programs support ASCOM. When you want to use ASCOM to
control the camera, the ASCOM Platform(6.2 or newer) must first be
installed. After you have installed the ASCOM Platform, you may then
install the ASI Camera ASCOM driver.
There are two ASI cameras that can be chosen in setup dialog. Please
select “ASI Camera(1)”for main camera and “ASI Camera(2)”for guide
camera, if you need to control two ASI cameras simultaneously for
imaging and guiding.
For a single-camera setup, you can just use “ASI Camera(1)”to setup
your ASI camera.
In the ASCOM settings dialog, we provide 3 different gain and offset
settings for DSO imaging:
Highest Dynamic Range and Unity Gain and Lowest Read Noise
You can add own presets if you wish as well (select the “…” option):
You can select a predefined setting depending on your conditions.
Then press “Set”button to apply the preset and press “OK”to save the
settings.
The Highest Dynamic Range setting gives better results with longer
exposures, as well as with brighter (light polluted) skies. This setting
avoids saturated stars, provides good SNR and very low read noise.
If you preferred shorter exposures with the lowest possible read noise,
for narrow band imaging and play “lucky imaging” techniques, or because
of mount tracking limitations, we recommend the Lowest Read Noise
setting.
Trouble shooting problems with your ASI camera
Q: Why is my camera cooler not working?
A: Please check and verify that a 12V DC power cable is connected and
the red LED is on. This power cable may come from an AC-DC adapter, or
a 9V-15V battery, and the connector must be a 2.1x5.5mm center
positive standard.
The red LED indicates that the external power supply works.
The fan will only be running when you enable the camera cooler in
compatible software. The fan will not run when the cooler is not powered
and running.
Q: Why is the preview screen completely white but the FPS appears to be
normal? (in SharpCap)
A: If you can see the fps meter in SharpCap change over time, then the
camera is most likely operating correctly. This issue may occur because
the camera is overexposing. You must reduce the exposure setting or
reduce the gain setting, until you can see the image from the camera.
Q: Why is the preview screen is black and the FPS stuck at “0”?
A: The camera may be having trouble communicating effectively with the
computer. This may be due to your USB configuration. Please try reducing
the “Turbo USB” slider from a high value like 100 to a lower value like 40 to
60.
Q: Why won’t my camera run continually on a laptop without external
power?
A: This is because of the power saving mode of your laptop. By default
many will allow the USB power to be suspended when the computer
enters a Low Power Mode. You need to disable power saving option of
the USB port:
For long imaging sessions, it is highly recommended that you disable
power management on your computer, or at the very least, change the
configuration so it may not put the computer to sleep. Even if you disable
the power saving mode of the USB port, many power saving settings will
still allow the computer to enter a sleep mode, which will still affect your
imaging session.
Q:Why does “Unknown device” show in the device manager after
connecting the camera?
A: This is because the driver did not install properly. Try installing the
driver again. You may need to configure any anti-virus software to allow
the installer program to run.
As a last resort, you may try to close any anti-virus software and
re-install the driver. (NOTE: Make sure you only install an ASI camera
driver downloaded from the ZWO web site or from the CD-ROM, and not
from any other driver suppliers, to prevent issues with malware!)
You may also update the driver manually if re-installation doesn’t work.
Right click the “Unknown device”, choose the “Update Driver
Software…”option and choose the driver directory. Normally, the driver
directory is:
C:\Program Files (x86)\ZWO Design\ZWO_USB_Cameras_driver\
This manual suits for next models
5
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