Sicut telescopio tendo, dico: "Nox caelum, ostende thesauros tuos".
An SV705C camera was attached to a 130mm, F=650mm Newtonian fitted with a coma corrector. The scope was mounted on a Celestron AVX GOTO mount. The hand controller was connected to a Raspberry Pi computer running an INDI server for controlling the mount.
The Raspberry Pi was connected by a CAT 6 Ethernet cable to the network.
The mount was given a 2 star alignment and AstroDMx Capture was connected via a USB 3.0 cable and active extension cable to the imaging computer in the house, running AstroDMx Capture with added control features.
A Bahtinov mask was used to finely focus the scope on the last alignment star using AstroDMx Capture to view the Bahtinov diffraction spikes.
The mount was controlled via AstroDMx Capture and PHD2 for autoguiding via Ethernet. The Guide-scope was an SVBONY SV165 fitted with a QHY-5II-M camera. The camera cables from the SV705C and the QHY guide camera were connected directly to the imaging computer and guide computer respectively. The SV705C was running natively in AstroDMx Capture.
AstroDMx Capture was then used to send the mount to M33, the Triangulum galaxy, plate solve and then centre the galaxy in the field of view.
AstroDMx Capture was then used to capture 25 x 2min 30s FITS exposures of M33.
Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture saving FITS files of M33
Matching dark-frames were captured but were not used. The SV705C has a Sony IMX585 sensor with 2.9μm square pixels and displays no amp glow.
The FITS images were registered and stacked in Deep Sky Stacker and post-processed in the Gimp 2.10 and Neat Image.
M33, the Triangulum galaxy with an SV705C
Once again, the uncooled SV705C OSC camera has proved that it is a capable deep-sky imager. The experimental control features in AstroDMx Capture worked well and bring closer the time when they will be released incrementally as various sections are considered stable.
