Driver issue with Titan

[Simon de Visscher]

Dear all,

I raise here a problem that is not spectroscopy-specific but not far from it since it concerns the Atik Titan that is nowadays probably mostly used by spectroscopists I guess there are many Titan users here and perhaps some faced the same problem. Here it is:

I recently bought from a shop in UK a (quite cheap) Titan aimed at being used on the ALPY. I have already an Atik414ex which works without any problem in W10. But I fail using the Titan, even connecting it through PhD2 or Prism or even Artemis Capture.

I have the latest core software fully installed as well as ASCOM 6.4-SP1. The link between the Titan and the atik driver is not done automatically, that's fine I select the driver repo manually: Atik Cameras/Drivers/64Bit and it finds it.

This is my first question: the selected driver for the Titan is named 'Synoptics High speed' (see picture attached). Is this expected? According to W10 the driver works fine. But the camera remains undetected by Prism, PHD, etc...

I have read here and there that Atik driver evolution was problematic at some point, with some backward compatibility issues in particular...

Any idea before I put the Titan in my musem of oldies ?



Cheers,

Simon

[Robin Leadbeater]

You could try ATIK technical support, they are generally very helpful

The mention of Synoptics drivers rang a bell with me. I don't know if it is the same problem but there were some old cameras on eBay at the end of last year which were advertised as atik cameras but were in different cases. I asked atik about them and this is what they said

"We have seen those cameras on ebay, they are old "Synoptics" cameras. The drivers for them would need to come from Synoptics and they will only work with very old Atik software."


I have an old USB1 ATIK16ic-s still running under win 10 using USB1 legacy drivers on the ATIK download page (but not via ascom)
https://www.atik-cameras.com/legacy-software-downloads/
It might be worthwhile trying the drivers there
Their artemis captures software sees it and it works on phd by selecting "Atik Gen3,mono"

Cheers
Robin

[Simon de Visscher]

Hi Robin,

Thanks a lot for the information, although it does not really sound like a a good news
I'll try anyway the old USB1 legacy drivers and contact Atik technical support (I did a post of the forum but no reply so far).

Cheers,

Simon

[Hamish Barker]

I am using a Titan which Peter Velez has kindly loaned to me, but I'm using it with kstars/ikos, on raspberry pi (astroberry distribution), not windows.

As it is cooled (but not controlled temperature, just whatever the TEC achieves) it does work fine as a reasonably low noise guide camera (for longer exposures), although I guess CMOS cameras now achieve much lower read noise with smaller pixels.

It does seem to be a little fussy in terms of power. I had some issues getting it to reliably connect until I changed a usb cable, and used a usb hub with external power supply. The 12v socket only supplies the TEC, so uncooled you can operate with only usb if desired.

with a good usb cable and power supply, it works fine with the standard atik driver on kstars/ikos.

[Simon de Visscher]

Hello,

I had today the answer from Atik support (very reactive btw): it seems that my camera is not a Titan but a ~15 y-o Synoptics Art 5.5mp (according to Atik, I could not find anything about such a camera on the web). For what I understand, Synoptics had a kind of OEM partnership with Atik long time ago, which can lead to the confusion (same case,..). The trick is : check if there is the Atik badge on the case.
This badge is not present on mine. So that’s basically the end of the story, 180£ to the trash.

I’ll now try to find a (real) titan or Atik 314 Or perhaps check on the side of recent cmos-based camera, but for what I can find they all weight at least 450 grams, which becomes heavy for the Alpy mechanics I guess.

Cheers,

Simon

[Tom Love]

HI Simon - the ZWO CMOS cameras mostly come in at a little under 450g. I use one on an Alpy, and it seems pretty solid.

[Simon de Visscher]

Hello Tom,

Thanks for the feedback and for pointing me this point about ZWO cameras. I previously had a look to QHY ones which are a bit heavier. Anyway that’s a good news !

Best,

Simon

[Alun Halsey]

Hi Simon,

Looking for a Synoptics driver online I came across this web page https://www.driverscape.com/download/sy ... ra-%28a%29 I downloaded and unzipped with no issues and looking through the setup information page I noted that the "Synoptics High Speed" driver is included with the Atik cameras,could be worth trying if you haven't done so already.

drivers.JPG (140.38 KiB) Viewed 5307 times

Best Regards
Alun

[Simon de Visscher]

Hello Alun,

Yep I tried that already but without success. Thanks for looking at this

Best,

Simon