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ASI120 flakiness on Astroberry

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This post is more of a "heads up" for anyone contemplating buying/using an ASI120MM/MC (the puck-shaped versions, not the "mini" 1¼" version) with an Astroberry for guiding than anything else. As far as I'm aware, there is no fix for the issue described below.

In short, just look at the following gif of my ASI120MM operating in PHD2 on an Astroberry RPi3B+:



It does the same thing with the internal Ekos guider.

That jumping around isn't just a visual artifact, either: the guiding software thinks it's real and tries to compensate.

I have found that extending the exposure length to 2.0, 2.5 or 3.0 seconds tends to diminish the issue. PHD2 seems to be slightly better at handling this phenomenon than the internal Ekos guider, but there's not a lot in it. When using the internal guider, it frequently stops and restarts guiding due to RMS being exceeded.

My ASI120MM has been updated with the ZWO firmware (yes, using the -compatible firmware file, and yes, run from a Windows box with the Windows firmware updater from ASI), so that's not the cause or a solution.

Additionally, in conversation with another astrophotographer, I've been able to confirm that the generic T7 / T7C astrocameras (pinkish with a slim 1¼" profile, pictured below - they outwardly looked to be well designed) available on eBay, Aliexpress and Amazon etc. also suffer from the issue when used on an RPi. However, I haven't experienced the same issue when using it directly from a Linux laptop running Ekos, though I believe others have.

3 years 10 months ago #53634
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Replied by S on topic ASI120 flakiness on Astroberry

My two asi120s have been having issues liked this for a very long time on rpi3/Indi and recently also under windows 10. If there is heavy USB traffic from other devices it seems to become worse. I'm hoping the rpi4 will be better, with the new USB chip, but it seems these cameras never actually worked well...
3 years 10 months ago #53635

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This is a well known issue with the USB controller within the camera. Without going into too much detail. It is using non-standard sized data packets which Linux handles poorly due to code in the kernel that treats it as a security vulnerability.
I do own the USB 2.0 version of the ASI120mm. The USB 3.0 version does not suffer from this issue, nor does the mini.

That being said, since upgrading to a Raspberry Pi 4, I have found it will perform acceptably for autoguiding with the compatibility firmware and exposure settings commonly used for guiding.
3 years 10 months ago #53637

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Interestingly, the 120MM mini still needs to be used with 8 bits and not 16 bits. The driver will drop to 8 bits silently. If PHD2 is set up to use 16 bits, the screen will go white and the guide star will be lost. The PHD ASI driver is 8 bits only.
3 years 10 months ago #53689

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