We are pleased to announce that Nicola has released Version 2.0.2 of AstroDMx Capture.
Aside from bug fixes, camera implementations and UI redesign, AstroDMx Capture is now much more capable.
This release contains major advances in functionality that astro-imagers will find useful for their imaging.
The code base now exceeds 98 KLOCS (thousands of lines of code) with 19 KL (thousand lines) of internal documentation, giving a total of 117 KL The code is written from scratch and does not use any GPL licensed code or contravene any other Open-source licences.
To put these 117 KL in an understandable and realistic perspective I will use a method that I have used before:
The book 'iWoz', the autobiography of Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, is a fairly typical book in terms of size, if not content. It has 30 lines of text per page and 342 pages.
Therefore, if the whole of AstroDMx Capture was to be printed book fashion; to hold all of the lines of source code and internal documentation in AstroDMx Capture, it would require more than 11 printed volumes, each the size of 'iWoz' to contain everything; and the code base is growing. The code is multi-threaded and uses polymorphism when needed, which is, in part, responsible for the efficiency and responsiveness of the software.
To say that AstroDMx Capture now has support for INDI would be an understatement. Controls for using an INDI server have been baked into the AstroDMx Capture UI. This includes INDI configurator controls that allow the configuring of an INDI server directly from AstroDMx Capture.
The INDI server used can be on the same computer as AstroDMx Capture or it can be located on a separate computer such as a Raspberry Pi. With Linux and macOS an INDI server can run natively on the imaging computer. With Windows, which cannot natively run INDI servers, we have demonstrated that it is a simple matter to set up an Oracle Virtual Box running Linux on the Windows machine and to run the INDI server within the virtual machine; thus achieving the end of running the INDI server on the same Windows computer as AstroDMx Capture for Windows.
The INDI server can be used by PHD2 to auto-guide the mount, either from another computer, or from the imaging computer.
This new functionality allows AstroDMx Capture to do a number of things in addition to the capturing of images. The following list is not exhaustive, but is indicative of the increase in functionality found in this release.
AstroDMx Capture can:
(1) Populate the mount's hand controller with all of the required information such as location, altitude and exact time.
(2) Control the mount fully. The mount can be sent to a huge number of Deep Sky objects or catalogued stars. The latter allow the mount to be sent to a star very precisely and optimise the composition of the image to be captured.
(3) Plate solve and then send the mount precisely to the position intended by correcting the mount's position.
(4) Use a previously captured image to plate solve and centre the field of view in the same place as in the image.
(5) Control an electronic focuser such as the Pegasus fucuscube V2.
(6) Control an electronic filter wheel.
(7) Control INDI driven cameras. At the moment this is a work in progress.
(8) Save profiles of settings and also equipment used.
It should be noted that all of the functionality from previous releases remains; such as the native implementation of cameras that will achieve much better frame-rates than an equivalent INDI driven camera. INDI cameras should only be used if there is no native implementation of a camera.
The AstroDMx Capture UI is more complex than that in previous versions, however, it is very intuitive to use and sections of the UI can be hidden if they are not required.
The AstroDMx Capture UI in action
Extra non-destructive preview visualisation controls have been added and many of the controls can be used in conjunction with each other to optimise the visualisation of an object being imaged.
Nicola will be putting some documentation on the download site shortly. This should help people to get started with the new functionality. In the meantime, explore the software.