Release of version 0.78.5 of AstroDMx Capture for Linux for all Linux platforms

 Nicola has released version 0.78.5 of AstroDMx Capture for Linux for all Linux platforms. 

USB3.0 Lumenera cameras have been implemented but remain untested. USB2.0 Lumenera cameras are however not supported as there is no Lumenera SDK support for USB2.0 cameras under Linux.

There are specific releases of the software for modern and for older CPUs

In addition to some bug fixes, there is improved Region Of Interest nudging to enable the user to track the movements of the object being imaged at high speed if there is some drift.

Nicola is now working on making a release of AstroDMx Capture for Windows

Release of AstroDMx Capture for macOS

 I am pleased to announce that Nicola has today released the macOS version of AstroDMx Capture.

AstroDMx Capture for macOS was used to capture data on the Waxing, 85% gibbous Moon.

An 8” Celestron Nextstar SCT fitted with a 0.63 focal reducer/field flattener, was mounted on a Celestron AVX GOTO mount. A QHY 5L-II-M camera was placed at the Cassegrain focus and AstroDMx Capture for macOS was used to capture 2000 frame SER files of different regions of the Moon.

The best 40% of the frames in the SER files were stacked in Autostakkert! The resulting images were wavelet processed in Registax 6 and post-processed in the Gimp, Affinity Photo and ACDSee.

Click on an image to get a closer view.

Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture for macOS capturing data on the Tycho region of the Moon

The Tycho region

Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture for macOS capturing data on the Mare Serenitatis region of the Moon

The Mare Serenitatis region

Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture for macOS capturing data on the Plato/Sinus Iridum region of the Moon

The Plato/Sinus Iridum region

Sadly this version of AstroDMx Capture for macOS does not have support for the SV305 and SV305Pro cameras as to date, SVBONY have not produced a macOS SDK.

Nicola is now working to finish the Windows version of AstroDMx Capture and has modified the website to make it easier to find and download the correct version of AstroDMx Capture.

AstroDMx Capture can be downloaded from the website https://www.linux-astro-imaging.uk/

Maintenance release of AstroDMx Capture for Linux version 0.78.3.2

Nicola has made a maintenance release of AstroDMx Capture for x86-64 Linux.

Some users were experiencing a problem of the software crashing on startup. This was traced back to a problem not in the software, but in the CPU instruction set of some older x86-64 CPUs. This has been rectified in the maintenance release.

If users of version 0.78.3 have experienced no problem at startup then they should do nothing and just use the software as usual. Only if they experienced the startup crash should they install the maintenance release 0.78.3.2. There is absolutely no functionality difference between the version 0.78.3 and the maintenance release 0.78.3.2. The maintenance release just fixes the startup problem for older CPUs.

Meanwhile work continues on the macOS and Windows versions of AstroDMx Capture.

M27 with AstroDMx Capture for the Raspberry Pi, 64 bit Ubuntu MATE Pi OS, and an SVBONY SV305 camera.

A Skywatcher Explorer 130 PDS 130mm, f/5 Newtonian was mounted on a Celestron AVX GOTO mount. An SVBONY SV305 camera was placed at the Newtonian focus. 

A Raspberry Pi 4B was running  64 bit Ubuntu MATE for the Pi. AstroDMx Capture for the Raspberry Pi was used to capture 30 x 60s exposures of M27, the Dumbbell nebula with matching dark-frames

The best 26 exposures were aligned and stacked with Deep Sky Stacker. The final image was post-processed in the Gimp 2.10, Affinity Photo, Neat Image and ACDSee.

Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture for the Raspberry Pi capturing data on M27

The final image of M27

Once again, the SV305 worked nicely with the Raspberry Pi running a 64 bit operating system.

Even after a release of the software, the testing continues; looking for anomalies and possible bugs. The combination of the SV305 and AstroDMx Capture for the Raspberry Pi, is proving to be a very useful, low cost imaging platform.

Meanwhile Nicola continues to work on macOS and Windows versions of AstroDMx Capture.

AstroDMx Capture for Windows, macOS or Linux (Including Raspberry Pi) can be downloaded freely here:

https://www.astrodmx-capture.org.uk

The SVBONY SV305 and the Raspberry Pi working well together.

A Skywatcher Explorer 130 PDS 130mm, f/5 Newtonian was mounted on a Celestron AVX GOTO mount.

An SVBONY SV305 production camera was placed at the Newtonian focus.

AstroDMx Capture for the Raspberry Pi was run on a Raspberry Pi 4B with the 32 bit Raspberry Pi OS. This system was used to capture 40 x 30s exposures of the globular cluster M15 as 16 bit Tiff files with matching dark-frames.

The best 36 frames were aligned and stacked in Deep Sky Stacker. The resulting image was post processed in the Gimp 2.10, Affinity photo, and Neat image.

Click on an image to get a closer view.

Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture for the Raspberry Pi capturing data on M15

The display transforms and the non-destructive display controls allow the 16 bit image preview to be nicely visualised.

Final image of M15

The system worked very well with the 32 bit version of Raspberry Pi OS (previously called Rasbian). Previous problems were due to us using a pre-production prototype that had different firmware. The camera always worked with te 32 bit and 64 bit versions of Ubuntu MATE for the Pi.

The Raspberry Pi 4B (also the 3B) in combination with the SVBONY SV305 camera makes a good imaging platform for long or short exposures. The SV305 is a very good, low cost astronomical imaging camera that now has its range extended across Windows, Linux and Linux for the Raspberry Pi ARM architecture. The same is true of the SV305 Pro.

AstroDMx Capture for Windows, macOS or Linux (Including Raspberry Pi) can be downloaded freely here:

https://www.astrodmx-capture.org.uk

Mars with AstroDMx Capture for Windows, an 8” SCT with a 2x Barlow and an SVBONY production SV305 camera.

 

Until now we have been working with a pre-production prototype of the SVBONY SV305. Nicola has implemented this camera in AstroDMx Capture in Linux X64 and Linux for the Raspberry Pi (32 bit and 64 bit), and Windows. The tests reported here are with the production model of the SV305, which has newer firmware and works with the SDK for the platforms mentioned above.

A Celestron 8” SCT was mounted on an AVX GOTO mount. The scope was fitted with a 2x Barlow and an SVBONY SV305 camera was attached.

Mars was imaged using AstroDMx Capture for Windows using a region of interest of 800 x 600. A frame-rate of just under 100fps was used to capture a 5min Time-Limited SER file of 27,000 frames.

SER Player was used to process the file for gamma and gain, and re-save as a SER file. The processed and the unprocessed SER files were stacked in Autostakkert! 3. The best 15% of the frames in the processed SER file were stacked and the best 20% of the frames in the unprocessed SER file were also stacked. The resulting images were wavelet processed in Registax 6, post-processed and combined in the Gimp 2.10.

Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture for Windows capturing a SER file of Mars

Note the edge reticle with a centre indicator defines the limits of the region of interest.

The final image of Mars

Again, these results show that the SVBONY SV305 camera is a very capable device at a very reasonable price and that it has been implemented very well in AstroDMx Capture.

AstroDMx Capture for Windows, macOS or Linux (Including Raspberry Pi) can be downloaded freely here:

https://www.astrodmx-capture.org.uk

AstroDmx Capture for macOS and AstroDMx Capture for Windows.

As mentioned in the previous post; Nicola has been working on the implementation of our 12 bit Lumenera Infinity 2-2C microscope camera in AstroDMx Capture for Windows. There is currently no support for Linux and no SDK for macOS for this particular camera. The implementation is almost complete and I have done a little testing with some microscope slides.

AstroDMx Capture for Windows streaming data on a TS Jasmine leaf

High quality Tiff snapshot of the leaf TS

Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture for Windows streaming data on a root cap

I also tested AstroDMx Capture for Windows with an 8” Celestron SCT fitted with a 6.3 focal reducer, field flattener. A ZWO ASI178MC, 14 bit CMOS camera was placed at the focus of the SCT.

60 x 15s exposures of the globular cluster M2 were captured with matching dark-frames

AstroDMx Capture for Windows capturing 16 bit Tiff files of M2

The images were dark-frame corrected and Stacked in Autostakkert! 2 and the resulting image was post processed in Affinity Photo, the Gimp 2.10 and Neat image.

The final cropped image of M2

AstroDMx Capture for macOS was tested with an Atik 314L mono CCD camera on the Celestron 8” SCT with the 6.3 focal reducer.

30s Tiff images with matching dark-frames were captured of the globular cluster M15 and 35 images of M2. The data were dark-frame corrected and stacked in Deep Sky Stacker. The final images were post processed in Affinity Photo and the Gimp.

AstroDMx Capture for macOS capturing data on M15

The final cropped image of M15

Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture for macOS capturing data on M2

Final cropped image of M2

These tests show that progress is being made towards the release of macOS and Windows versions of AstroDMx Capture in addition to the implementation of another camera in the Windows version, the Lumenera Infinity 2-2C.

AstroDMx Capture for Windows, macOS or Linux (Including Raspberry Pi) can be downloaded freely here:

https://www.astrodmx-capture.org.uk

AstroDMx Capture for macOS, a Bresser Messier-AR-102-xs f/4.5 ED refractor, an Atik 314L mono CCD camera with a H-alpha narrowband filter.

Nicola has been working on implementing the Atik 314L and other Atik cameras in AstroDMx Capture for macOS and we have been testing the implementation.

The scope/camera combination were mounted on a Celestron AVX mount.

AstroDMx Capture for macOS was running on a MacBook Air computer.

40 x 60s exposures were captured of M16 as 16 bit Tiffs with matching dark-frames.

The images were stacked and dark-frame corrected in Deep Sky Stacker and post processed in the Gimp 2.10 and Affinity Photo.

Click on an image to get a closer view

Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture of AstroDMx Capture gathering data on M16, the Eagle nebula.

The non-destructive software controls in addition to the image transform rendered the Eagle nebula easily visible in the preview.

M16 final image showing the ‘Pillars of Creation’.

Nicola is spending a little time implementing our Lumenera Infinity 2-2 CCD microscopy camera in AstroDMx Capture for Windows, which is causing a slight delay in finishing the macOS version. However, this is timely because we are waiting to see if SVBONY will produce a macOS SDK for the SV305/Pro. We will not wait long before release, but it has given a little time to work on our own camera for our microscopy. I shall publish results here when the Lumenera implementation is finished.

AstroDMx Capture for Windows, macOS or Linux (Including Raspberry Pi) can be downloaded freely here:

https://www.astrodmx-capture.org.uk