Monday 23 April 2018

Experiments with a low cost SVBONY SV105 camera and AstroDMx Capture for Linux

The SVBONY SV105 camera is very sensitive and a ND13 filter was attached to an extender tube attached to the camera. In all experiments, unsaturated data were collected.


This allowed the diagonal to be removed, and the camera directly attached to the focusing tube of a Bresser Messier AR-102XS, f/4.5, 102mm, ED refractor.

AstroDMx Capture for Linux was used to capture an unsaturated, 2000 frame SER file of the 9.4% crescent Moon. All of the data were collected unsaturated in the following tests.

Screenshot of AsroDMx Capture for Linux capturing the SER file


The best 75% of the frames in the SER file were stacked in Emil Kraaikamp's Autostakkert! 3.1.0 currently under beta testing. Running in Wine 3.5 on a Fedora Linux laptop.

The resulting image was wavelet processed in Registax 5.1 also running in Wine and post processed in the Gimp 2.9.



Another test was made using a Skymax 127 Maksutov

The SVBONY SV105 camera was fitted with an extension tube with a ND13 filter. (the extension tube was needed because the camera nose-piece is not threaded to take a filter.) The camera assembly was attached to a Skymax 127 Maxutov mounted on a Celestron AVX, EQ, GOTO mount. AstroDMx Capture for Linux was used to capture a 2000 frame SER file of the Mare Crisium region of the 17.2%, waxing, crescent Moon. The best 75% of the frames in the SER file were stacked in the beta version of Autostakkert! 3.1.0 running in Wine 3.5. The resulting image was wavelet processed in Registax 5.1 also running in Wine and post processed in the Gimp 2.9.




A third test was made using a Newtonian modified to hold a filter in the focuser tube.
A Celestron Omni SLT 150mm, f/5 Newtonian was mounted on a Celestron AVX, EQ, GOTO mount. An SVBONY £35 SV105 camera was placed at the Newtonian focus and a ND13 filter was used. AstroDMx Capture for Linux was used to capture 1500 frame SER files of three overlapping panes of the Moon, with real-time flatfield correction. The best 80% of frames of each SER file were stacked in the beta version of Autostakkert! 3.1.0. running in Wine. The images were stitched together in Microsoft ICE running in Wine and the final 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 capturing a SER file of part of the Moon

Final mosaic



A fourth test was done with the Bresser Messier AR-102XS ED, f/4.5 refractor
The Bresser Messier AR-102XS ED, f/4.5 refractor, was mounted on a Star Discovery AZ GOTO mount. An SVBONY SV105 camera was attached to an extension tube with a Baader green continuum filter fitted, and it was placed at the prime focus of the refractor.
AstroDMx Capture for Linux was used to capture a 1000 frame SER file of the Moon using real-time Flat-field correction.

Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture for Linux capturing the SER file

The best 90% of the frames in the SER file were stacked inthe beta version of Astrostakkert! 3.1.0 running in Wine 3.5. The resulting image was wavelet processed in Registax 5.1 also running in Wine and the final image was post processed in the Gimp 2.9.


The use of the Baader 1.25" Solar Continuum Filter, 10nm bandpass, centred on 540nm, served to reduce the amount of light (because the camera is very light sensitive and requires filtration in order not to saturate the sensor). Moreover, because the light is almost monochromatic, there are no dispersion effects in a refractor, notwithstanding the fact that an ED refractor was used in this experiment.