Waxing Moon with AstroDMx Capture for Linux and a QHY 5L-II-M camera

The Skywatcher Star Discovery, 6", f/5 Newtonian is a very good OTA. 6" rings can be fitted with no fouling of the integral dovetail bar. The scope can then be used with an EQ mount.

In this image, the Star Discovery 6" Newtonian is attached to a Celestron AVX GOTO mount

A new version of AstroDMx Capture for Linux is tested here. Nicola is almost ready to release this version. There have been bug fixes, other efficiency changes under the hood, some slight GUI changes and the QHY 5L II cameras have been implemented.

The imaging setup

Six overlapping panels of the 68%, waxing Moon were imaged with a 6 inch Star Discovery Newtonian OTA mounted in rings and mounted on a Celestron AVx GOTO, EQ mount and a QHY 5L-II-M camera. AstroDMx Capture for Linux was used to capture 2000 frame SER files for each panel. The best 50% of the frames in each of the SER files were registered and stacked in Autostakkert!2.6.8 running in Wine. The six resulting images were stitched in Microsoft ICE running in Wine. The resulting image was wavelet processed in Registax 5.1 also running in Wine. The final image was post processed in the Gimp 2.9.

Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture for Linux running on Linux Mint

68%, waxing, gibbous Moon

UBUNTU 17.10

The following test was done with Ubuntu 17.10, the latest version of Ubuntu, without the now defunct Unity desktop, and with a slightly non-standard Gnome 3 made to look like Unity. AstroDMx Capture worked with this desktop without the very basic rendering of Unity.

Eleven overlapping panels of the 48%, waxing Moon were imaged with a Skymax 127 Maksutov mounted on a Celestron AVx GOTO mount and a QHY 5L-II-M camera. AstroDMx Capture for Linux was used to capture 2000 frame SER files for each panel. The best 50% of the frames in each of the SER files were registered and stacked in Autostakkert!3 running in Wine. The resulting images were wavelet processed in Registax 5.1 also running in Wine. The 11 resulting images were stitched in Microsoft ICE running in Wine. The images were combined and post processed in the Gimp 2.9.

The imaging setup

Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture for Linux running on Ubuntu 17.10

One panel of the eleven captured

Final image of the 48% waxing Moon

The final tests are being done and then another significant set of cameras, the QHY 5L-II will be available with AstroDMx Capture for Linux

Update on DFK .AS camera problems with USB 3

It has been known for some time that DFK astronomy cameras have a problem with USB 3. Specifically in YUYV format the camera streams video but the controls for exposure, gain etc do not work, where they work fine in USB 2. This is a problem with Windows and Linux. On Nicola's website http://www.linux-astro-imaging.uk/  where AstroDMx Capture for Linux can be downloaded, she gives a hack that routes the data from the USB ports through the EHCI controller, instead of the xHCI controller. On newer laptops that often have USB 3 and USB 2 ports, the USB 2 ports are often also routed through the xHCI controller, which means that the DFK also doesn't work correctly with the USB 3 or the USB 2 ports on these machines.

Nicola's hack will also work on these laptops, causing both USB 3 (which knows that the DFK is a USB 2 device) and the USB 2 ports to work correctly with the DFK. However, on the latest laptops, which only have xHCI controllers, the hack doesn't work.
However, none of this matters, because even without the hack, the Bayer mode works correctly and either Bayer or RGB SER or AVI files can be saved. The simplest solution is to select the Bayer mode when connecting the DFK camera to AstroDMx Capture for Linux.

90%, Waxing, gibbous Moon in 16 bits, with AstroDMx Capture for Linux

90%, waxing, gibbous Moon tonight. Captured as 2 overlapping 16bit SER movie files, using AstroDMx Capture for Linux, an f/5.5 ED refractor mounted on an iOptron Cube Pro, AZ GOTO mount and a QHY 5L-II-M camera. The SER files were stacked in Autostakkert! 2.6, stitched in Microsoft ICE and wavelet processed in Registax 5.1, all running in Wine. The final image was processed in the Gimp 2.9 and Pinta. It should be noted that the QHY camera has a 12 bit ADC not a 16 bit ADC. This means that images are captured with 4,096 levels of brightness (not 65,534 levels as with a 16 bit ADC) The 12 bit data are however, placed in a 16 bit container at capture time. Nevertheless, 4,096 levels are an improvement on 256 levels of 8 bits. 12-16 bits will be more valuable for deep sky images with wide dynamic range objects.

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