AstroDMx Capture for Linux test news on some Distro's including Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

This is the time of year when major Linux distributions make incremental releases. For Ubuntu, the new LTS (long term support) version 20.04, Focal Fossa has just been released. We have been testing the release version of AstroDMx Capture for Linux with this, and various other distributions, including some that we have not previously tested.

In the present round of tests, the following distributions were tested:

For bench-testing purposes, the tests were done using a nest-box camera, monitoring a Blue-tit nest.

1) Ubuntu 20.04, Focal Fossa LTS.

Tests were made on a new installations of the distribution, one on bare metal and another in a QEMU/KVM Virtual machine. Another test was made on an upgrade from 18.04 LTS through 19.10 to 20.04 LTS.

Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture for Linux running in an Ubuntu 20.04 Virtual Machine running on a Fedora Host

In the version that was upgraded from previously installed versions, there were no issues, but in the new installs, both on bare metal and in the VM, AstroDMx Capture for Linux, once installed, was very slow to launch; taking up to 20s to launch. Once launched, the software ran normally. Currently there is no known fix for versions of AstroDMx Capture 0.68.1 and below. Both issues detailed here will be corrected in the next version (0.70.1) which is due for release soon.

There appears to be a dependency issue with current versions of AstroDMx Capture for Linux on Ubuntu 20.04 and possibly other very new Linux distributions. If this problem is evident, then AstroDMx will fail to start. It's important to note that this issue is hardware dependent and so might not be evident in all installations. To diagnose startup problems, run the software from the terminal as follows:

cd /usr/local/AstroDMx_Capture/bin
./astrodmx_capture -D2

If this problem is evident, the following message will be displayed:

X Error of failed request:  GLXBadContext
Major opcode of failed request:  152 (GLX)
Minor opcode of failed request:  6 (X_GLXIsDirect)
Serial number of failed request:  139
Current serial number in output stream:  138

The fix for this problem is as follows:

cd /usr/local/AstroDMx_Capture/lib
mkdir backup
mv libstdc++.so.6 backup/
cd ../bin
./astrodmx_capture -D2

If the problem persists, then move all the dependencies except libwebcam.so.0,  libgphoto2.so.6.1.0 and libCKCameraSDK_x64.so into the backup directory. The following commands can be used to do this:

cd /usr/local/AstroDMx_Capture/lib
mkdir backup
mv libstdc++.so.6 backup/
mv libgcc_s.so.1 backup/
mv libpng16.so.16libz.so.1 backup/
mv libstdc++.so.6 backup/
mv libz.so.1 backup/

2) Solus 

Solus was installed on a QEMU/KVM Virtual machine running on a Fedora Host.
Solus is a Linux distribution that has been developed independently and is not based on any other distribution. It does not use .deb or .rpm installation files because it uses its own package manager called eopkg. This meant that the manual installer provided on the AstroDMx Capture website had to be used. Full instructions are provided and can simply be copied and pasted into the command line if required.
Once installed, the software ran perfectly.

Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture for Linux running in a Solus Virtual Machine

3) Manjaro

Manjaro was installed on a QEMU/KVM Virtual machine running on a Fedora Host.
Manjaro is based on Arch Linux and uses the pacman package manager, so neither .deb or .rpm installation files can be used. Once again, the manual installer for AstroDMx Capture had to be used.
Once installed, the software ran perfectly.

Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture for Linux running in a Manjaro Virtual Machine

4) MX Linux

MX-19 Linux was installed on a QEMU/KVM Virtual machine running on a Fedora Host.
MX Linux is based on Debian stable and uses the APT package manager. This meant that the .deb installation file could be used as with Ubuntu.
AstroDMx Capture for Linux installed correctly and ran perfectly.

Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture for Linux running in a MX-19 Virtual Machine

5) Zorin

Zorin Linux was installed on a QEMU/KVM Virtual machine running on a Fedora 32 Host.

Zorin is based on Ubuntu and uses the APT package manager. This meant that the .deb installation file could be used as with Ubuntu.
AstroDMx Capture for Linux installed correctly and ran perfectly.

Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture for Linux running in a Zorin Virtual Machine

6) Voyager

Voyager Linux was installed on a QEMU/KVM Virtual machine running on a Fedora 32 Host.

Voyager is based on Ubuntu 20.04 and uses the APT package manager. This meant that the .deb installation file could be used as with Ubuntu.

AstroDMx Capture for Linux installed correctly but had the issue mentioned for Ubuntu 20.04 and failed to launch. This was easily corrected with the procedure explained for Ubuntu 20.04

Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture for Linux running in a Voyager Virtual Machine

7) Pop!_OS

Pop!_OS was installed on a QEMU/KVM Virtual machine running on a Fedora 32 Host.

Pop!_OS, by System76 is based on Ubuntu 20.04 and uses the APT package manager. This meant that the .deb installation file could be used as with Ubuntu.

AstroDMx Capture for Linux installed correctly but had the issue mentioned for Ubuntu 20.04 and failed to launch. This was easily corrected with the procedure explained for Ubuntu 20.04

Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture for Linux running in a Pop!_OS Virtual Machine

Motion Detection and AstroDMx Capture used for nature study

Nicola has been working on Motion Detection in AstroDMx Capture so that the software can be used for monitoring wildlife cameras. There is considerable potential for using AstroDMx Capture for wildlife monitoring as well as microscopy, in addition to its primary purpose of Astronomical imaging.

The nest box was retro-fitted with a cheap endoscope USB inspection camera with a 7m cable, long enough to bring the video feed inside the house. Then an active USB extension cable takes the feed to the computer.

Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture for Linux monitoring the nest box

Two eggs in the nest. These eggs will be added to over the next few days 

until they are ready to be incubated

The female blue tit in the nest box with her eggs

The male blue tit bringing in some food for the female

Animation of Motion Detected frames of the Male feeding the female

Now, with 4 eggs in the nest

5 Eggs

AstroDMx Capture for Windows running Motion Detection to monitor 

the nest box from the outside

SVBONY SV305 camera fitted with a TV lens being used to monitor the activity 

outside the bird box

Image captured by AstroDMx Capture with Motion Detection

Animation of Motion Detected frames of a Blue Tit visiting the nest box

Motion detection is an important way of capturing images just at the time when there is activity and thus having only useful data captured. Nest box cameras and other outdoor cameras used for monitoring wildlife activity can be monitored efficiently in this way using AstroDMx Capture.

Preparing for meteor showers with an all-sky camera and AstroDMx Capture

A ZWO ASI178MC camera with an all-sky lens was mounted on a static tripod

The camera was mounted in an elevated position so that it would have a 

good view of the sky

The camera was set to 30s exposures and Tiff images were captured with AstroDMx Capture for Windows

Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture for Windows capturing 30s exposures

Image showing a meteor

The constellations of Hydra, Leo, Gemini, Auriga. Perseus, Cassiopeia, Cepheus, Draco, Bootes, Ursa Major, Ursa Minor (with a meteor passing through) are all clearly visible.

Closer view

The exposure and gain settings will have to be optimised, but this setup should capture meteors in meteor showers.

37.3% Venus with a ZWO ASI178MC camera and AstroDMx Capture for Linux.

A Skymax 127 Maksutov was mounted on an HEQ5. A ZWO ASI178MC 14-bit camera, fitted with an SVBONY IR/UV cut filter and a Televue 3x Barlow.

AstroDMx Capture for Linux was used to capture a 10,000-frame 16-bit SER file of Venus using a Region Of Interest of 800 x 600 with a reticle to facilitate position keeping. Region of Interest nudge was used to keep Venus close to the centre of the field of view during capture.

Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture for Linux capturing the SER file of Venus.

The best 10% of the frames in the SER file were stacked in Autostakkert! 3.1, wavelet processed in Registax 6 and post-processed in The Gimp 2.10

37.3% Venus

Keeping a mount permanently outside

My HEQ5 mount has lived permanently outside for the past 10 years. When I first put the mount outside, I had expectations that corrosion would quickly take its toll and that I would just have to accept it as the price for having a mount that required virtually no alignment (after an initial accurate alignment) and would be available for use at a moment’s notice.

I took a number of precautions to minimise the effects of the expected corrosion. The legs of the mount and all of the leg clamping screws were sprayed with WD40. (More recently, I have used a different anti-corrosion product, ACF-50). Periodically re-applying to keep the protection current.

I wrapped the legs individually in cheap, plastic tarpaulin held in place with Duck Tape, having first applied WD40 or ACF-50. When I first checked for corrosion (after about two years) I was surprised to find none underneath the tarpaulin leg wrappers. The leg wrappers have to be replaced every couple of years because the cheap plastic tarpaulin photo-deteriorates and becomes damaged by the wind. When they are replaced, the metal legs are re-coated in ACF-50 spray.

The protected legs

To protect the mount head from the weather, two, heavy duty chimenea covers are placed over the mount, held in place by a high quality bungee with closing fasteners.

The mount, protected from the weather

Bungee fasteners

To prevent the mount from being accidentally moved, each foot was cast into a small concrete base. The concrete was then coated with a waterproofing compound so that it would not be damaged by frost.

A cemented tripod foot

With this arrangement, a scope can be placed on the mount quite quickly, and be ready for use in just a few minutes.

Whether an arrangement like this would be suitable for you depends partly on the security of your location and how secluded your site is from prying eyes. I have been fortunate on these counts and find the permanent outdoor location of the HEQ5 to be an ideal solution. Of course, security measures are also in place to protect the mount and premises.

Using AstroDMx Capture for monitoring a nest-box

Although AstroDMx Capture for Linux/macOS/Windows has been written primarily for astronomical imaging. It does have other imaging applications such as microscopy imaging and nature imaging. I am a professional biologist as well as being an astronomer, and these secondary applications of AstroDMx Capture are of considerable interest to me as well as to Nicola, who is writing the code of the software.

We have set up a waterproofed nest box on a north-facing wall of the house, to avoid the intense heat that would be experienced by a nest box on a southerly facing wall.  The nest-box has been equipped with an endoscope camera pointing directly down into the nesting area. The nestbox has been in place since January.

The nest-box

The cable from the endoscope camera can be seen coming from the nest-box.

As I write this article, the nest-box has been adopted by blue-tits and a nest is in the process of being built.
The beauty of this technique is that is does not intrude on the occupants, who are unaware of the surveillance.

The Ubuntu laptop being used to monitor activity in the nest box.

The female blue tit can be seen as she brings nesting material into the box and carries out the laborious process of nest construction.

AstroDMx Capture for Linux is set to capture 1 frame per second into a SER file. This SER file can then be used in a variety of ways to show the activity in the nest-box.

Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture saving frames, one every second into a SER file

One image from the SER file

After 24h considerable progress has been made

Animation made from a SER file

Nicola is working on a feature for AstroDMx Capture that will facilitate this kind of nature study.

C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS) with AstroDMx Capture for Windows

A Bresser Messier-AR-102-AS f/45, ED refractor was mounted on an HEQ5 GOTO mount and a QHY 5L-II-M camera was placed at the prime focus.

AstroDMx Capture for Windows was used to capture 60s exposures of Comet C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS).

Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture for Windows capturing 16-bit (12-bit ADC) 

data on the comet

27 images were stacked in Registax 5.1, stacking on the comet

The star-trails indicate the movement of the comet over the 30 minutes of imaging.

The stacked images were post-processed in The Gimp 2.10, FitsWork and Neat Image.

Reprocessed image of the comet using a stack on the stars and 

combining comet data from the above stack.

The QHY camera was stable in AstroDMx Capture for Windows.

Further testing of DSLR Live-View with USB tethered cameras in AstroDMx Capture

Last night we were testing the properties of the Live-View controls in AstroDMx Capture, using a Windows 10 computer.

A Canon EOS 4000D DSLR was placed at the Cassegrain focus of a Skymax 127 Maksutov. AstroDMx Capture for Windows was used to control the camera and to capture data.

The Equipment setup

The whole purpose of Live-View for astronomical imaging is to facilitate rapid focusing and correct positioning of the object in the field of view. Once an apparent good focus has been achieved, the camera can be set into a loop where images are displayed in quick succession and by setting the displayed image to a large percentage of its maximum resolution, the focus can be refined if necessary. When the image is focussed, images can be captured.

In this experiment, the camera was set to maximum resolution fine JPEG mode. This puts the camera into 8-bit mode. The property of the Live-View controls being studied was the ability to change the exposure and ISO while Live-View is taking place. It is important to do testing on real Astronomical objects in addition to considerable bench-testing, in order to see the effects of changing the controls in various combinations dictated by the imaging session. These tests provided information that has allowed Nicola to make code changes that produce more efficient operation and stability.

The camera was set to capture Tiff files, which in this case were 8-bit tiffs. There is little point in using 16-bit while capturing a bright subject such as the Moon. AstroDMx Capture for Windows was used to capture 100 images.

AstroDMx Capture for Windows capturing 8-bit Tiff files

The images were stacked in Autostakkert! 3.10, wavelet processed in Registax 5.1 and post processed in The Gimp 2.10.

Lunar image

The additional control available in Live-View will have to be extensively tested with both Canon and Nikon cameras. Not all camera manufacturers support USB tethering, and those that do, don’t necessarily support all cameras, Live-View, or all controls. This evening’s work was another step along the journey to a release of a version of AstroDMx Capture with DSLR Live-View.

32-bit Linux support and also DSLR live view for AstroDMx Capture.

Although there is diminishing support for 32-bit among Linux distributions, there are still a lot of reasonable spec 32-bit laptops out there that could become useful imaging machines. Moreover, there are still 32-bit Windows 10 netbooks that are low spec devices that struggle to have enough resources to even update Windows.

Although not straightforward, we have installed 32-bit Debian on our Asus EeeBook

Nicola has compiled a 32-bit version of AstroDMx Capture for Linux.
The 32-bit version of AstroDMx Capture for Linux saw first light by imaging the 97.6% waxing, gibbous Moon.
A QHY 5L-II-M camera was placed at the Cassegrain focus of a Skymax 127 Maksutov and the 32-bit version of AstroDMx Capture for Linux was used to capture 2,500-frame SER files of two overlapping regions of the Moon in the Copernicus, Kepler, Reiner Gamma region.

The imaging setup

Screenshot of the 32-bit version of AstroDMx Capture for Linux capturing Lunar data

The best 75% of the frames in each SER file were stacked in Autostakkert!, wavelet processed in Registax 6, and post processed in The Gimp 2.10. Microsoft ICE was used to stitch the two resulting images into a two-pane mosaic.

Two-pain mosaic of the Copernicus, Kepler, Reiner Gamma region

Closer view

It is hoped that the 32-bit version of AstroDMx Capture for Linux will give a new lease of life to older or low spec newer laptops and netbooks as Linux imaging machines.

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DSLR Live-View

Nicola has also implemented Live View for supported DSLRs. It should be noted that Live View is not a high-resolution view and the actual resolution is camera specific, with a maximum of full HR resolution. However, Live View can be used as an initial focusing aid before putting the software into the DSLR Loop function to repeatedly show preview images at high resolution to refine the focus, before stopping the Loop and starting the capture of images.

The Live-view functions were tested in AstroDMx Capture for Windows but will be present on all platforms. This is quite an exciting implementation as it provides more functionality than is normally found in Live-View. This will be reported on when the implementation is complete.

A Canon EOS 4000D DSLR was placed at the Cassegrain focus of a Skymax 127 Maksutov and the camera was tethered to a Windows 10 laptop running AstroDMx Capture for Windows.

The imaging setup

Screenshot of AstroDMx for Windows showing Live-View

Closer view

The image can be scaled as usual to aid with focusing.

Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture for Windows Capturing DSLR images of the Moon

The images were stacked in Autostakkert, wavelet processed in Registax 6 and post-processed in The Gimp 2.10

A Stacked, processed, lunar image

Closer view

When all of the new functionality of the DSLR Live-View has been implemented it will be released as a new version of AstroDMx Capture for Linux, and will be fully implemented in the macOS and Windows versions before release.