New camera issues

[Astrogate]

Hi Chris and Jo

I was able to use my new Atik Infinity last night under average transparency, cold and mild humid conditions and I feel that there is something either wrong with the camera or software. I  first tried installing from the CD that came with my camera after carefully reading and following all instructions. There were issues that I will explain later, so I then went to the Atik web site downloads page and downloaded/installed the latest Beta version for Artemis/Infinity. I choose only what I needed like the Atik ASCOM driver, selected drivers, Maxim DL plugin for my Maxim DL software and Infinity.

** What I am noticing is that even at a pretty fast focal ratio of f/3.7 that I am using on my RC 10" scope I am needing much longer exposures then I should. I captured some screen shots and you can clearly see issues such as very long 90 second exposures and the peak of the histogram is still way over to the left side. Also the progress bar shows up as blue sections rather than a solid green bar as exposure counts up. Everyone else has a green progress bar and I am the only one with a different blue progress bar "very strange" please see screen captures. It seems that when using the viewer finder at 2 x 2 bin mode the sensitivity is there but using the video mode feature at 1 x 1 bin mode there is a big lack of sensitivity. You can clearly see an issue when looking at the single 30 second capture of M3 globular cluster.

I have tried re-installing, system restore, both CD and beta software with no changes. I also tried everything on my other computer and did get the green progress bar but then I was no longer able to connect to Infinity. Both computers are using Windows 7 Pro.

Hopefully you both have some suggestions or answers and if not then this camera will have to go back where I bought it from (an Astronomy store in the US).

Thank you!

Chris A