Triggering Astrophotography cams via Stackshot/WeMacro?

[Lou Jost]

I've just bought a cooled-sensor monochrome MFT astrophotography camera, the QHY163M, for microscope work. Does anyone know how I might trigger it via the Stackshot or WeMacro controllers?

The sensor cools to well below freezing to reduce noise. Could be interesting for our BW work.

[elf]

Perhaps a better question would be how do you control stackshot or wemacro from a computer . If that is possible, then you could write a simple program to coordinate the two.

p.s. You can also use an oscilloscope to decode the signals between the computer and the QHY163M.

[nucleobyte]

It would be helpful to know more about how this unusual camera needs to be triggered. The canon digital camera I am familiar with uses weak pull-up on the shutter signal line which is triggered by connecting to low (gnd), also provided by the camera. This allows any simple switch mechanism to work, mechanical, relay, opto-couple, etc. I use opto-couplers in my devices which works well. I assume the commercial products also produce some form of a switch on a pair of wires to a camera adaptor. What does this camera need to fire the shutter?

Edit: on looking up some info on this camera, it looks like may be entirely contolled from the USB. In that case you will probably have to approach controlling the whole system from the computer side, rather than letting the stacking controller take charge.

[Lou Jost]

Yes it is USB-controlled. So indeed the question is "how do you control stackshot or wemacro from a computer" ...

I don't have this camera in my hands yet. I may try to just let the camera and rail run independently and set the camera timings so that shots coincide with the rail's stationary periods.

[Lou Jost]

Looks like I can use the time-lapse feature of the control software to synchronize the camera and rail movements.

[rjlittlefield]

Yes it is USB-controlled. So indeed the question is "how do you control stackshot or wemacro from a computer"

If the camera comes with control software, and you have a StackShot, then one possibility is to use the "robot" capability in Zerene Stacker to press the shutter button of the control software at the same time that a shutter press is sent to the StackShot controller.

--Rik

[Lou Jost]

Wow, I hadn't noticed that. I do have ZS Pro but was never able to get the Stackshot interface to work. Will try again when I finish my work.