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ZWO color camera problem

Roland Christen
 

Hi astro-imagers,

I have been using a ZWO 6200C color camera here at our factory observatory to test scopes, flatteners etc. I recently aimed it at a nearby blue water tower and was shocked to find that the color image showed the tower red, along with a red sky. The red lights on top of the tower came out blue. The green grass came out green. I did the color conversion in MaximDL from the raw image. After splitting the color image into RGB channels, I mapped the red to the blue channel and vice versa. That resulted in a proper color image.

I can't for the life of me figure out how Maxim-DL could mix up the conversion or whether it's something in the ZWO ASCOM driver that is amiss. Clearly the red pixels are being assigned to the blue channel, and the blue to the red channel in the color image.

Anyone know where to look for a solution, other than re-mapping every image?

Rolando



--
Roland Christen
Astro-Physics
Gregg Ruppel
 

sounds like de-bayering matrix is mixed up...

On 5/18/2022 11:55 AM, Roland Christen via groups.io wrote:
Hi astro-imagers,

I have been using a ZWO 6200C color camera here at our factory observatory to test scopes, flatteners etc. I recently aimed it at a nearby blue water tower and was shocked to find that the color image showed the tower red, along with a red sky. The red lights on top of the tower came out blue. The green grass came out green. I did the color conversion in MaximDL from the raw image. After splitting the color image into RGB channels, I mapped the red to the blue channel and vice versa. That resulted in a proper color image.

I can't for the life of me figure out how Maxim-DL could mix up the conversion or whether it's something in the ZWO ASCOM driver that is amiss. Clearly the red pixels are being assigned to the blue channel, and the blue to the red channel in the color image.

Anyone know where to look for a solution, other than re-mapping every image?

Rolando



--
Roland Christen
Astro-Physics 
-- 
Clear skies,
Gregg

Visit my astronomy & astrophotographyt site
greggsastronomy.com

--
Clear skies,
Gregg
www.greggsastronomy.com
Kevin Cook
 

Roland - Gregg is right.  I think most ASI cameras, including your 6200MC camera, use the RGGB pattern for the Bayer mosaic.  Possibly something in Maxim DL reset your Debayering pattern to something other than RGGB?   Maybe a software update to Maxim DL reset that parameter.  There could have been a driver update in ASCOM, but hard to imagine that ZWO would input the incorrect Bayer pattern for their own camera.  Even when some processing software has a Automatic setting for Debayering, I always manually select the RGGB just to minimize any possible errors.  Kevin Cook


On Wed, May 18, 2022 at 11:55 AM Roland Christen via groups.io <chris1011=aol.com@groups.io> wrote:
Hi astro-imagers,

I have been using a ZWO 6200C color camera here at our factory observatory to test scopes, flatteners etc. I recently aimed it at a nearby blue water tower and was shocked to find that the color image showed the tower red, along with a red sky. The red lights on top of the tower came out blue. The green grass came out green. I did the color conversion in MaximDL from the raw image. After splitting the color image into RGB channels, I mapped the red to the blue channel and vice versa. That resulted in a proper color image.

I can't for the life of me figure out how Maxim-DL could mix up the conversion or whether it's something in the ZWO ASCOM driver that is amiss. Clearly the red pixels are being assigned to the blue channel, and the blue to the red channel in the color image.

Anyone know where to look for a solution, other than re-mapping every image?

Rolando



--
Roland Christen
Astro-Physics

Brian Valente
 

>>> Even when some processing software has a Automatic setting for Debayering, I always manually select the RGGB just to minimize any possible errors.  Kevin Cook

agreed on this point.

PixInsight doesn't even work when choosing auto debayer, i must select rggb, so I don't know if the bayer pattern is embedded in the fits header. Setting the bayer pattern manually should solve this

On Wed, May 18, 2022 at 12:24 PM Kevin Cook <kvc3509@...> wrote:
Roland - Gregg is right.  I think most ASI cameras, including your 6200MC camera, use the RGGB pattern for the Bayer mosaic.  Possibly something in Maxim DL reset your Debayering pattern to something other than RGGB?   Maybe a software update to Maxim DL reset that parameter.  There could have been a driver update in ASCOM, but hard to imagine that ZWO would input the incorrect Bayer pattern for their own camera.  Even when some processing software has a Automatic setting for Debayering, I always manually select the RGGB just to minimize any possible errors.  Kevin Cook

On Wed, May 18, 2022 at 11:55 AM Roland Christen via groups.io <chris1011=aol.com@groups.io> wrote:
Hi astro-imagers,

I have been using a ZWO 6200C color camera here at our factory observatory to test scopes, flatteners etc. I recently aimed it at a nearby blue water tower and was shocked to find that the color image showed the tower red, along with a red sky. The red lights on top of the tower came out blue. The green grass came out green. I did the color conversion in MaximDL from the raw image. After splitting the color image into RGB channels, I mapped the red to the blue channel and vice versa. That resulted in a proper color image.

I can't for the life of me figure out how Maxim-DL could mix up the conversion or whether it's something in the ZWO ASCOM driver that is amiss. Clearly the red pixels are being assigned to the blue channel, and the blue to the red channel in the color image.

Anyone know where to look for a solution, other than re-mapping every image?

Rolando



--
Roland Christen
Astro-Physics



--

dvjbaja
 

Check your histogram at time of shooting.  Indeed it reads like an incorrect bayer matrix setting in the software for the camera.  

What is the new product you are coming out with?  LOL

jg
Roland Christen
 


I always manually select the RGGB just to minimize any possible errors.  Kevin Cook
I would love to set the debayering to RGGB, but nowhere in Maxim is this setting possible. I have looked everywhere, no settings in either the ZWO driver or in Maxim.

Roland

-----Original Message-----
From: Kevin Cook <kvc3509@...>
To: main@ap-gto.groups.io
Sent: Wed, May 18, 2022 2:23 pm
Subject: Re: [ap-gto] ZWO color camera problem

Roland - Gregg is right.  I think most ASI cameras, including your 6200MC camera, use the RGGB pattern for the Bayer mosaic.  Possibly something in Maxim DL reset your Debayering pattern to something other than RGGB?   Maybe a software update to Maxim DL reset that parameter.  There could have been a driver update in ASCOM, but hard to imagine that ZWO would input the incorrect Bayer pattern for their own camera.  Even when some processing software has a Automatic setting for Debayering, I always manually select the RGGB just to minimize any possible errors.  Kevin Cook

On Wed, May 18, 2022 at 11:55 AM Roland Christen via groups.io <chris1011=aol.com@groups.io> wrote:
Hi astro-imagers,

I have been using a ZWO 6200C color camera here at our factory observatory to test scopes, flatteners etc. I recently aimed it at a nearby blue water tower and was shocked to find that the color image showed the tower red, along with a red sky. The red lights on top of the tower came out blue. The green grass came out green. I did the color conversion in MaximDL from the raw image. After splitting the color image into RGB channels, I mapped the red to the blue channel and vice versa. That resulted in a proper color image.

I can't for the life of me figure out how Maxim-DL could mix up the conversion or whether it's something in the ZWO ASCOM driver that is amiss. Clearly the red pixels are being assigned to the blue channel, and the blue to the red channel in the color image.

Anyone know where to look for a solution, other than re-mapping every image?

Rolando



--
Roland Christen
Astro-Physics

--
Roland Christen
Astro-Physics
Dean Jacobsen
 

On Wed, May 18, 2022 at 12:33 PM, Roland Christen wrote:
would love to set the debayering to RGGB, but nowhere in Maxim is this setting possible. I have looked everywhere, no settings in either the ZWO driver or in Maxim.
 
Roland
 
It is RGGB.  Check out SharpCap.  I think that they have a free version [I use the Pro version with the polar align tool]  SharpCap will debayer it for you.
 
--
Dean Jacobsen
Astrobin Image Gallery - https://www.astrobin.com/users/deanjacobsen/

Gregg Ruppel
 

Convert color under the color tab….

Gregg

Visit my astronomy & astrophotography site
www.greggsastronomy.com

On May 18, 2022, at 12:50 PM, Dean Jacobsen <deanjacobsen@...> wrote:

On Wed, May 18, 2022 at 12:33 PM, Roland Christen wrote:
would love to set the debayering to RGGB, but nowhere in Maxim is this setting possible. I have looked everywhere, no settings in either the ZWO driver or in Maxim.
 
Roland
 
It is RGGB.  Check out SharpCap.  I think that they have a free version [I use the Pro version with the polar align tool]  SharpCap will debayer it for you.
 
--
Dean Jacobsen
Astrobin Image Gallery - https://www.astrobin.com/users/deanjacobsen/

--
Clear skies,
Gregg
www.greggsastronomy.com
Frank Widmann
 

From the MDL manual:

Many cameras produce images that are offset slightly from the nominal starting position. This results in a misalignment of the Bayer pattern, which in turn produces grossly incorrect colors. This can be corrected in the Convert Color command by adjusting the Offset X and Offset Y values; simply dial in different values until you get reasonable looking color. More often you simply need to tweak the color balance; this can be done in the Convert Color command as well.

Frank

On May 18, 2022, at 11:55 AM, Roland Christen via groups.io <chris1011@...> wrote:


Hi astro-imagers,

I have been using a ZWO 6200C color camera here at our factory observatory to test scopes, flatteners etc. I recently aimed it at a nearby blue water tower and was shocked to find that the color image showed the tower red, along with a red sky. The red lights on top of the tower came out blue. The green grass came out green. I did the color conversion in MaximDL from the raw image. After splitting the color image into RGB channels, I mapped the red to the blue channel and vice versa. That resulted in a proper color image.

I can't for the life of me figure out how Maxim-DL could mix up the conversion or whether it's something in the ZWO ASCOM driver that is amiss. Clearly the red pixels are being assigned to the blue channel, and the blue to the red channel in the color image.

Anyone know where to look for a solution, other than re-mapping every image?

Rolando
Brian Valente
 

I suggest fiddling with the offsets would be a fallback approach if changing the bayer pattern did not work



On Wed, May 18, 2022 at 1:03 PM Frank Widmann via groups.io <fjwidmann=aol.com@groups.io> wrote:
From the MDL manual:

Many cameras produce images that are offset slightly from the nominal starting position. This results in a misalignment of the Bayer pattern, which in turn produces grossly incorrect colors. This can be corrected in the Convert Color command by adjusting the Offset X and Offset Y values; simply dial in different values until you get reasonable looking color. More often you simply need to tweak the color balance; this can be done in the Convert Color command as well.

Frank

On May 18, 2022, at 11:55 AM, Roland Christen via groups.io <chris1011=aol.com@groups.io> wrote:


Hi astro-imagers,

I have been using a ZWO 6200C color camera here at our factory observatory to test scopes, flatteners etc. I recently aimed it at a nearby blue water tower and was shocked to find that the color image showed the tower red, along with a red sky. The red lights on top of the tower came out blue. The green grass came out green. I did the color conversion in MaximDL from the raw image. After splitting the color image into RGB channels, I mapped the red to the blue channel and vice versa. That resulted in a proper color image.

I can't for the life of me figure out how Maxim-DL could mix up the conversion or whether it's something in the ZWO ASCOM driver that is amiss. Clearly the red pixels are being assigned to the blue channel, and the blue to the red channel in the color image.

Anyone know where to look for a solution, other than re-mapping every image?

Rolando




--

Frank Widmann
 

From the MDL manual:

Many cameras produce images that are offset slightly from the nominal starting position. This results in a misalignment of the Bayer pattern, which in turn produces grossly incorrect colors. This can be corrected in the Convert Color command by adjusting the Offset X and Offset Y values; simply dial in different values until you get reasonable looking color. More often you simply need to tweak the color balance; this can be done in the Convert Color command as well.

Frank

On May 18, 2022, at 11:55 AM, Roland Christen via groups.io <chris1011@...> wrote:


Hi astro-imagers,

I have been using a ZWO 6200C color camera here at our factory observatory to test scopes, flatteners etc. I recently aimed it at a nearby blue water tower and was shocked to find that the color image showed the tower red, along with a red sky. The red lights on top of the tower came out blue. The green grass came out green. I did the color conversion in MaximDL from the raw image. After splitting the color image into RGB channels, I mapped the red to the blue channel and vice versa. That resulted in a proper color image.

I can't for the life of me figure out how Maxim-DL could mix up the conversion or whether it's something in the ZWO ASCOM driver that is amiss. Clearly the red pixels are being assigned to the blue channel, and the blue to the red channel in the color image.

Anyone know where to look for a solution, other than re-mapping every image?

Rolando
Calypte
 

Hmm.  I have a ZWO 2600 MCP that I bought several months ago.  My original intent was to do a Hyperstar setup, totally independent of my observatory.  But nobody has scopes.  I've only tested the 2600 MCP to the extent of plugging it in and seeing that the LED lights up.  I haven't looked at this forum much recently.  You now have my attention.  I'll be following your posts about this.
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