Month: July 2017

The initial setup was very easy.  The camera was a basically one piece.  I screwed in the eyepiece adapter and put on the cover.  I was going to use it as a guider so was only interested in the USB cable.

There was a small CD with drivers and a manual.  I read the manual and it said to install the driver and then test via some included software.  That all seemed to work fine.

Next, I looked for updated drivers.  The driver was to download the existing one and it removed the included software also.  But, I figured the new drivers were probably better.  I also found an updated manual. 

The manual suggested downloading SharpCap and FireCapture.  I downloaded and installed both.  They both seemed to connect to the camera and something was displayed though without being in a telescope and preview image was just a solid color.

But everything seemed to be working and ready to try in a telescope.

It has been on my plan to get an USB camera for the next step in astrophotography after trying afocal.  However, in planning for the solar eclipse, I thought it would be better if I had a live image on the laptop screen then to have the family take turns looking through the eyepiece of the Lunt telescope. 

I had seen a lot of postings about ZWO cameras so did some research into the models.  I was thinking about maybe getting something in the $300 range but then decide to get the entry-level model for around $100 figured it would be fine for solar viewing and wouldn’t have to worry if I picked the wrong model.

I selected the ASI034MC.