SBIG 8300 and SBIG ST-i Guiding camera - how to connect

[Forum_2014]

Hi, my friend Josef has a brandnew SBIG
8300 with filterwheel and a brandnew SBIG ST-i Guider camera for
use on his telescope.
-
He just bought Astroart 5.0 for camera control.
WE downloaded and installed the d_sbig.dll Driver.
The ST-8300 is recognized by Astroart we can image with it.
The ST-i if connected "standalone" is recognized by Astroart and we can image with it.
BUT,
We cannot use both camera at the same time.
After Setup of the 8300 we want to Setup the
ST-i guiding camera but the
SETUP Button for the guiding camera stays gray.

What did we miss or what setting did we do wrong that
only 1 camera can be connected and not both together?

The latest CCD503 - piccdgui.dll has also been copied into
the Astroart Directory.
Using CCDOPS from SBIG we can use both cameras as
wanted. But we want to use Astroart!

Any hint what we missed is highly appreciated.

Gerald and Josef

[Forum_2014]

Hi,
for the moment the solution is to create another copy of d_sbig.dll (call it d_sbig2.dll).

Before doing that, I suggest to try with two sessions of Astroart, and verify that every session is able to connect to its camera (you will have to select "USB 2nd device" in the second session).
(The method of two Astroart sessions could be useful to autoguide as well).

By the way, if you can connect to both cameras with two sessions of AA, then you will be able to do that also with the "d_sbig2.dll" trick.

[Forum_2014]

Hi Fabio!
Thanks again for coming back so fast.

Yes, with two sessions everything worked as wanted. The 2 cameras were working at the same time.

But, when we ran the 2 sessions we did not save/download the images at the same time. I expected
generation of same Name "NoName000.aa5 at the same time, therefore
we captured and downloaded in one session with the St-i and afterwards in the other session with the ST8300.

Thanks for clarifying the 2 setting questions.
WE will have another try in one session using both cameras with your parameter.
We will try to save/ download in both sessions at the same time.
We will Keep you updated.

Thanks for your Support
Gerald and Josef

--------------

Hi Fabio!
Still no change.
Opening the ST8300 in one Astroart session and opening the
ST-i in another Astroart session allows imaging and guiding.

However, its somehow confusing having 2 sessions with separate duplicate windows open at the same time.
We would really appreciate a solution in Astroart where only one Astroart
session allows the use of the STF8300 AND the ST-i guiding camera.

By the way, we connected the whole configuration (STF8300, ST-i, SBIG 8300-Filterwheel)
to our friends Notebook where the imaging software Maxim is installed.
It ran as wanted and expected from the first power on.
Maxim allows handling of both cameras in one session and window.
No need to copy and rename Drivers, no need of multiple sessions which confuse the user.

We hope Astroart will perform also like Maxim very soon? Or even better?
Otherwise the investment in Astroart as Imaging Software was wrong...

a little disappointed
Gerald and Josef
(and the 2 additional experienced CDD users Manfred and Franz who also
tried to help us but also could not get Astroart to work properly)
P.S.:
Please let us know if it needs more than 4 CCD-astroimaging-experts to operate Astroart
with ST8300 and ST-i. This is no challenge we have them at our hands.
But not at every evening...

[Forum_2014]

Hello,
I'm sorry, after some checks I can confirm that the "dll2" suggestion works only with other cameras (Starlight, Ascom, etc.), not with SBIG.

The current Astroart SBIG driver can run two CCDs in the same session only if they are in the same camera, (this was the main feature of SBIG cameras until now).

The new version of our SBIG driver will solve the problem, it will be ready next month.

By the way, running two sessions is not so bad, you can minimize the guiding session and .. forget about it, its image window, the guide window, etc. often is only a "disturb" when you are operating/analyzing the main CCD.
This is true if you autoguide for 30 minutes or more on the same object. Obviously, if you move the telescope to other objects every 5 minutes then one session is always better.

[Forum_2014]

The updated SBIG camera is available at:

http://www.msb-astroart.com/ccd_en.htm

The only minor glitch is that the option 1°Device/2°Device is currently not saved, so it's required to set it before connection.