Nicola has implemented AstroDMx Capture for Windows ARM on a Snapdragon powered laptop.
The computer used was a Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3x 15in Snapdragon X1-26-100 powered Windows ARM computer.
The imaging equipment used
For deep sky imaging we used an Askar 71F quadruplet apochromatic astrograph refractor paired with an SVBONY SV605CC OSC camera. The scope was fitted with an Altair V2 magnetic 2” filter holder containing an IR/UV cut filter and an iOptron iEAF motor focuser. An SVBONY SV165 guide-scope fitted with a QHY-5II-M guide camera was mounted on the imaging scope
Snapdragon X1-26-100 specifications
- Core Count: 8 Oryon CPU cores
- Clock Speed: Up to 2.97 GHz - 3.0 GHz
- Graphics: Qualcomm Adreno GPU (1.7 TFLOPS)
- AI Performance: 45 TOPS Hexagon NPU
At the time of writing, the Snapdragon ARM processors have started to gain traction in the laptop For deep sky imaging we used an Askar 71F quadruplet apochromatic astrograph refractor paired with an SVBONY SV405C OSC camera. The scope was fitted with an Altair V2 magnetic 2” filter holder containing an IR/UV cut filter.and mini computer markets. Snapdragon laptops are characterised by being very power efficient and by being able to run for extended periods on battery power. From the astronomical imaging point of view, this is new technology and very few camera manufacturers have produced Windows ARM drivers or SDKs. This situation is bound to improve as these computers become more popular.
In our deep sky imaging experiments we used AstroDMx Capture on the Snapdragon Windows laptop and controlled the SV605CC OSC camera as well as the mount and iEAF focuser via an INDI server running on a Fedora mini computer. Guiding was done by PHD2 autoguiding running on a separate Fedora Linux laptop. In our H-alpha solar imaging experiment we used a Touptek GPCMOS01200KPF OSC camera running natively and a Coronado Solarmax II 60, BF 15, H-alpha telescope.
Deep Sky Imaging
Screenshots of AstroDMx Capture imaging deep sky objects
Markarian's chain
M3
One hour's worth of 3 minute exposures was captured on each of the objects as FITS files. The data were processed in PixInsight, SetiAstroSuitePro, GraXpert and Gimp3
Markarian's Chain
M3
Solar H-alpha imaging
Lenovo Snapdragon powered laptop connected to the H-alpha imaging equipment
Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture streaming H-alpha solar data
Two overlapping 1000-frame SER file panes were captured. The best 50% of the frames were debayered and stacked in Autostakkert!4, wavelet processed in waveSharp 3 and finished in Gimp3
The Solar disk in H-alpha
In conclusion, the first light tests of the Snapdragon powered Windows 11 computer were successful and showed that these relatively low cost, powerful and energy efficient are very suitable for astronomical imaging, and would be very useful for imaging in the field. It seems to us that the future of laptop computing could lie with ARM powered machines. When astronomical camera manufacturers produce ARM drivers and SDKs it is likely that more astronomical imagers will switch to these types of machines as they upgrade their computing equipment.
