Although the Raspberry Pi 4B has a 64 bit ARM SOC, the default Rasbian Operating system for the Pi has been 32 bit. There is now available an advanced Beta 64 bit Rasbian operating system.
Nicola compiled AstroDMx Capture for the Raspberry Pi for 64 bit ARM architecture and tests done so far indicate that it works fine. However, this only for the SV305. There are issues with the SDK and the SV305 Pro. There are also issues with the 32 bit ARM SDK and a 32 bit Pi OS. The issues will be documented and reported to the SVBONY developers.
In the absence of clear skies, the SV305 camera was coupled with a dissecting microscope.
Click on an image to get a closer view.
The SV305 connected to a dissecting microscope with a tiny snail on the stage
The raspberry Pi station with dual screens and an SSD drive for storing results, the SV305 camera and a microscope, using AstroDMx Capture for the Raspberry Pi.
The snail shell can be seen on the left hand monitor, with capture controls on the right hand monitor
Screenshot, incorporating both of the screens, showing the main preview windows of AstroDMx Capture for the Raspberry Pi, and the camera controls on the right hand screen
The snapshot feature was used to capture high-quality, uncompressed Tiff images
Snapshot of the snail shell
Screenshot showing one of the snail's eyes
Snapshot of the snail's eye
The camera worked perfectly in this test and was also used to capture SER files as well as long exposures. When we get clear skies, we shall test short and long exposure astronomical images with the SV305 and the Raspberry Pi.
It will not be long before there is a release of a 64 bit version of AstroDMx Capture for the Raspberry Pi supporting the SV305 camera.
Meanwhile testing will continue to explore some apparent issues with the 32 bit version of the SDK.
Now that an SV305 Pro is in our possession, it is clear that the SDK has issues at both 64 bit and 32 bit versions, both for the Pi and X86. It is early days, and there has to be more work done to resolve the issues. However, it can be considered progress in the sense that the SV305 works with a 64 bit Raspberry Pi OS.
AstroDMx Capture for Windows, macOS or Linux (Including Raspberry Pi) can be downloaded freely here:
