For the purposes of this article, an INDI camera is defined as a camera for which there is an INDI (Instrument Neutral Distributed Interface) driver. Some INDI camera drivers are very good, whilst others are less so.
In the experiments done here, the INDI server for controlling the mount, focuser and camera is running on a Raspberry Pi that we have attached to the scope.
The equipment used
The scope was an 80mm ED refractor F=440mm, the mount was a Celestron AVX GOTO mount. The Raspberry Pi was powered by a Goodmans 10000mAH power pack. The AVX mount and Pegasus Astro focuser were powered by two separate 12v RAC Jump Start power packs. The guide-scope was an SVBONY SV165 fitted with a QHY-5II-M camera. The INDI camera was an Atik 314E OSC CCD camera.
For this experiment, PHD2 auto-guiding was running on a separate Fedora Linux Laptop; however, there is no reason why this could not have been running on the Same Linux laptop that was running AstroDMx Capture. AstroDMx Capture was running in debug mode to collect data on everything that was happening, including any anomalies that might have occured. There is no reason why the computers involved could not have been Windows or macOS computers. Everything was done over WiFi; however, if possible, it is better to hard wire the Ethernet when large amounts of data are being transferred.
Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture gathering FITS data from the Atik 314E which was running as an INDI camera.
The mount was initially given a three star alignment and the last alignment star, Deneb, was used to focus the telescope using a Bahtinov mask with the focuser controlled by AstroDMx Capture. AstroDMx Capture then sent the scope to M27, an image was captured for plate-solving and the object was then placed in the centre of the field of view.
14 x 5min FITS exposures were captured of M27 along with matching dark frames.The images were calibrated, registered and aligned with Siril, and post processed in the Gimp.
M27
This test worked perfectly and it is intended to carry out similar tests on other INDI cameras. If an INDI driver does not control a camera in a stable manner or handle its controls properly, it is possible that a supplementary INDI driver may have to be written for cameras we are working with.
The next release of AstroDMx Capture will not contain the advanced features being tested here, it will however contain support of the SV705 camera along with changes to the ROI system.
