Another session testing advanced features of AstroDMx Capture being developed by Nicola. The image was acquired, centred and imaged with AstroDMx Capture. Auto-guiding was done with PHD2. The feature being tested was to do an imaging run with the object on the east of the meridian, capture an image for plate-solving, perform a meridian flip, plate-solve the image previously captured, send the mount to the coordinates specified by the plate solve, plate solve a fresh image and automatically centre the object. To get the image orientation the same as in the original batch of images, the preview (and hence the captured images) must be flipped and flopped. When dark-frames are eventually captured at the end of the session, they must be copied and flipped and flopped to be used to calibrate the first set of images (The equivalent of rotating through 180 degrees). (This is because any amp-glow will have to be in the correct position relative to the captured images). This procedure worked perfectly in the tests.
Nicola is preparing a program to flip and flop FITS or TIFF images to facilitate the use of a single set of dark-frames with meridian-flipped data.
The equipment used
We used an 80mm f/5 Apochromatic Triplet refractor with a field flattener on an AVX mount, an L-eNhance narrowband filter in an Altair magnetic, 2" filter holder and an SVBONY SV405CC OSC camera. The guide-scope was an SVBONY SV165 fitted with a QHY-5II-M camera.
The FITS data were calibrated and stacked in Deep Sky Stacker and post processed in the Gimp 2.10.
Click on the image to get a closer view
Stack of 1 hour 15 min, of 3 min exposures of the Eastern Veil nebula.
The next release of AstroDMx Capture will be a simple feature-release to expand the range of supported cameras, update SDKs and fix issues.
The next major release will contain some of the advanced features that have been discussed in previous posts. Nicola has decided to update AstroDMx Capture for all operating systems incrementally as the advanced features are implemented. This is instead of implementing all of the planned changes before a major release is made, and extending the time period before they are available for use.
This is a major undertaking and is being done in available time. When a major release is imminent, it will be reported here.
