Hi,

Thanks for the tip off about that. I assumed the ZWO cameras would work well with linux and the Pi 4, because as you say the ASIAIR is a rather expensive way to buy a Pi. It seems odd that they don't have good driver support for essentially their own product. There does not seem to be many comparable cameras in the price range as the ZWO options. It now gives me 3 options:
- Get a new ZWO camera and hope they address their driver issues
- Look at getting a cheap laptop that can run Windows 10, though those similar in price to a camera (£200-£250) have low memory and 64Gb eMMC memory as storage. (my old laptop was a netbook for £150, but tablets killed off that market)
- Getting a ZWO camera and join in with the dev efforts on a driver. I've got a lot of linux experience and development skills, though never touched video drivers before.

Dçn't know what your main target is. If it is deep-sky (single frame capture) then there is no problem. (Except that sometimes when I use 2 zwo cams thru indi, guiding and capturing, there can be some hangs with the camera) If you go planetary, that's another story. But when using ROI and not the full frame, cameras seem to get their speed. Can't speak for the RPI since I do most solar, and then I need the max frame and highest frame rate possible. Could not do that with the 178 on both an Intel 4790k or AMD Ryzen (4core) with Linux. (With Windows on these machines no problem). The ASI120MM-S (USB3) has smaller sensor, so less Mbytes and works better under Linux. So probably sensor resolution (Mb) is making things go bad beyond a certain point.

Regards,

Paul

Let me know what do you see when you type in " Sudo rpi-eeprom-update " in terminal?

@PDB, I'm mostly doing solar system imaging. My scope is a Celestron NexStar 90SLT, so at 90mm on an altz, I'm not going to be doing much in the way of DSO. I'm interested to see what I can get from it, but I'm not holding high hopes.

@TomAstro, I get

FYI, the ASI120MC USB 2 version DOES NOT work properly at all on INdI, even with the ASI firmware update, as has been said it’s not even supported anymore by ASI. Some people have managed to hack together something that works, but you really need to know what you are doing, and even then I am not sure how consistent it really is....

Cheers. I think now it is down to new camera or new laptop. I'd prefer a new camera and run astroberry off a Pi, but I'm struggling to find a good model at a good price that would work with the Pi. The ASI224MC at £219 (UK) was looking good until I found the issues people had been having on anything other than Windows

I can recommend the ASI120MC-S or MM-S. Both are USB3 cameras and work very well. I have been using several of them on different setups for over 3 years now and haven’t had any issues at all.

Now I see why your ASI120MC having an issue. Please read this post, indilib.org/forum/general/7656-solution-...era-and-usb-hub.html

I am using ASI120MC til now without any issue. Good luck

Thanks for the suggestion, but that didn't work for me.

Same as before, the camera is detected and it also picks up some bits such as temperature, but no images and no preview on oaCapture or FireCapture. Odd that yours worked, was there anything else you needed to do?

My firmware now looks like:

2 more questions:

1. Have you update the *compatible" firmware from ZWO? This is a MUST.
2. Have you switch from RAW16 to RAW8 bit? ASI120MC needs RAW8 bit to works.

Thank you so much for your help. I had the wrong firmware. changing that has the camera now working and I don't need to get a new one (though having looked at spec it is tempting still!)

The internet has lots of annoying icons over it like 'pin it', 'tweet it'. It needs a 'send this person some beer' system. If it had one, I'd be having a good few clicks on your icon.

If anyone else has the same problem, these are the steps put together, that got it all working:

- sudo rpi-eeeprom-update
- If this is the latest then it will cause a problem
- See indilib.org/forum/general/7656-solution-...era-and-usb-hub.html

- Prevent auto-updating of firmware with:
sudo systemctl mask rpi-eeprom-update
edit /etc/default/rpi-eeprom-update to:
FIRMWARE_RELEASE_STATUS="stable"

- Downgrade the firmware following:
www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=250990
$ unzip vl805_update_0137ab.zip
$ chmod a+x vl805
$ sudo ./vl805 -w vl805_fw_0137ab.bin
$ sudo reboot

- Verify on reboot:
$ sudo rpi-eeprom-update
BCM2711 detected
Dedicated VL805 EEPROM detected
*** UPDATE AVAILABLE ***
BOOTLOADER: update available
CURRENT: Thu 3 Sep 12:11:43 UTC 2020 (1599135103)
LATEST: Fri 11 Dec 11:15:17 UTC 2020 (1607685317)
FW DIR: /lib/firmware/raspberrypi/bootloader/stable
VL805: update available
CURRENT: 000137ab
LATEST: 000138a1

- Downgrade ASI firmware
- Windows required
- Download the firmware upgrade tool from astronomy-imaging-camera.com/software-drivers
- Select the file with the -compatible filename

- In KStars, EKOS, Camera -> Controls, set the format to Raw 8 Bit and turn streaming on
- Monochrome with 'graph paper' overlay?
- Under FireCapture, enable colour with the Debayer function.
- In oaCapture settings:
- Camera: force frame formet to RGGB8
- Demosaic: Demosaic preview and output data, set Bayer format to auto or RGGB8
- You may have to reset the camera or disconnect - connect.