Lodestar Live Version 0.7 (Beta) Download

[Paul81]

Hi All,

I am too lazy to create a proper website at this stage, plus I'd like to wait until I have all the main features implemented, so below are links to download Version 0.7 of Lodestar Live, for both OSX and Windows.

There should be a readme file in the ZIP containing installation details - it is as simple as un-zipping the file and double clicking though! (Windows users might need to install the Visual Studio 2010 x86 redistributables).

OSX: LodestarLive.app.0.7.osx.140325.2015.zip

Windows: LodestarLive.0.7.win32.140325.2015.zip

From the change log here is what is new in 0.7:

- Added support for Windows platforms.

- Better CYGM colour decoding (bilinear interpolation and new transformation calculation). The funky colours around stars should now be gone and colour rendition is better (based on an image of a colour test card)

- New zoom function - draw zoom box using mouse to zoom. Right click to zoom out.

- Text overlays on exported images. The contents of the overlay are what you set on the image export tab.

- Fixed 'crash' when camera is unexpectedly disconnected. If you accidentally yank out the USB cable whilst in the middle of a session it should just work again when you plug it back in

- Restricted focus measurement to smaller central area for faster processing. When focus measurement is enabled a target rectangle appears on the display. Position the star in that area to yield measurements.

I am currently working on live stacking, so currently it is still only a single image stack (although dark frames do accumulate, and I would recommend at least 5-10 dark frames).

Any issues and comments then let me know and happy near real time deep sky observing! 

[Martin Meredith]

Thanks Paul. Will give it a whirl as soon as the skies permit!

Martin

[shirva]

great news for the hobby

[DoctorD]

Hi Paul

Thanks, runs fine on  my MBP - dark frame subtraction looks good too and I like the new zoom feature, much easier to use than the previous version!

Many thanks for all the effort you have put in and I'm looking forward to the version with stacking.

I've recently upgraded to an HEQ5 Pro and I'm running EQMAC for enhanced control so I canoe go for longer than 30s exposures - just waiting for some clear skies when I'm at home to try it all out.

CS

Paul

[shirva]

How's the eqmod on the mac paul ..I think its the best thing since sliced bread. .I run mine with cdc and wireless via eqtooth.the control with eqmod is fantastic

[DoctorD]

HI Davy

I've not had chance to try it out for real, but inside it looks great!!

I'm kinda dreading having to polar align - that's why I've stuck with AZ mountain the past, but I'm sure it cannot be that hard.

Clear skies

Paul

[shirva]

Watch the tutorials on utube..chris has made it easy to follow.

[Martin Meredith]

Just to say the new version is working very smoothly for me. Like Dr D says, the selectable-region zoom is really useful, especially when used with fast exposures for checking how bad the seeing is! Having used the tool a few times now I really appreciate the immediacy of the various sliders (even in the best quality mode). They makes fast live tweaking possible. The images I've been posting probably needed no more than 5s of sliding -- plenty of time before the next one comes in. 

Looking forward to seeing some more snaps!

Martin

[Paul81]

Glad the new zoom is working out well. I ended up hating the old one so knew it had to change! Any other suggestions / feedback are always welcome!

I actually have to confess I have yet to optimise the RGB image processing, it is all regular C++ code at the moment. I have started working on the SIMD optimisations and expect them to be in the next version. That should make it even zippier!

There might be an interim version whilst I am still working on stacking - I suspect stacking will take me a while given the usual pulls of modern life but in the mean time there are some tweaks, optimisations and fixes.

[Paul81]

Just noticed SX have released the Lodestar X2 - the new version of the Lodestar but with a Sony ICX829 sensor which claims to have about double the sensitivity of the ICX429 in the original Lodestar.

Hmm.. If they produce a colour one I might be tempted to save my pennies...

[DoctorD]

Hi Paul

Probably worth dropping Terry at Starlight an e-mail asking about a colour version - twice the sensitivity would be awesome!

CS

Paul

[Paul81]

Bug report on V0.7 (thanks to Martin) - be careful how you drag the zoom window. It only works if you drag top to bottom, left to right, any other direction will result in error.

Already fixed and will be in V0.8 (I suspect this version will be out soon!).

[nytecam]

Hi Paul81 - nice work !   Lodestar Live v0.7 loaded fine - without checking for extra Windows files or ASCOM thingies on my W7 laptop.  Currently connected to Lodestar-C OSC cam + 'C' mount 8mm fl lens aimed out patio doors towards garden.  Refresh rate @ 20ms exp is blazingly fast but have puzzled how to get a colour image - just monochrome -what am I doing wrong?

BTW - on colour extraction there doesn't seem to be an pixel offset option [as is normal in SX Lodestar-C s/ware] and haven't found the zoom button.  Tried Utube for tutorial referred to above but only got music channels Lodestar and Lonestar

Keep up the good work.

[nytecam]

Here's my garden colour shots via SX s/ware and LodestarLive ;-)

[Paul81]

Hi Maurice!

Glad you got it up and running OK. One of my design aims was to make installation as easy as possible as it's so annoying having to install and check and million and one things.

In terms of colour, have you checked the 'One Shot Colour (OSC)' checkbox in the Exposure Control tab? Annoyingly there is no automatic way to distinguish the Lodestar-M and Lodestar-C so you need to check that box to engage the colour decoding. I am also sure the colour decoding won't fully work for exposures of less than 250ms. The reason is that exposures less than 250ms only read the odd field of the interlaced frame for speed, which means half the colour data is missing. I haven't done too much to address this yet as such short exposures are only really meant for focusing and framing. If your lens has an iris it might be worth closing it as much as possible and then use a longer exposure. Colour should work fine at 250ms and above (which reads both fields to yield a complete frame). I'll no doubt sort this in some future version.

The software has the CFA (colour filter array) pixel offsets pre-programmed so there should be nothing to adjust on that front. Zooming is accomplished by dragging out a zoom selection area box by holding down the left mouse button over the image display. You will get a green box as you move the mouse. When you let go of the left mouse button it will zoom in on that area. Right clicking zooms back out. In V0.7 make sure you drag top to bottom, left to right (see previous post) - this bug has been fixed and will be in the next release and you will be able to drag in any direction!

I think when the app is out of the beta phase I'll do some youtube video tutorials. I have held off as I am pretty sure there will be some user interface changes (I have some ideas for better display processing controls). Getting the stacking going is my current main focus so I am only digressing to address any bugs / minor tweaks they might arise.

Let me know how you get on, and I look forward to seeing some example images in your extremely capable hands! 

[nytecam]

Many thanks Paul for your quick response and clarification of some of the s/ware options.  It's a most impressive piece if work - well done.   I did at dusk see colour in my images from the multi-coloured solar powered LEDs in the garden and they were a good match !   But the sky was cloudy tonight for a real test

[nytecam]

I'm in the obsy - here's M82 +SN from a few minutes ago via LodestarLive in 15s exp @ f3.3 30cm SCT

[nytecam]

and M81 Bodes Gx ---again just raws eg no flats/darks or tweaks via LodestarLive and SX Lodestar-Mx2 mono - well done Paul81

[nytecam]

When I saw my last night's results here in the morning I realised I'd forgotten that within the obsy it's truly dark and whilst the posted imaged looked fine at the time they were much too dark. Here's amends/tweaked M87+quasar jet, M64, M1, and M97 - exposures 15s or 30s under gibbous moon - hope they look better ;-)

[DoctorD]

Hi Maurice

How are you finding Lodestar live compared to the standard SX software - are there any features you'd like to see added. You've been at this short exposure imaging for longer than most!

Clear skies

Paul

[Martin Meredith]

Great images Maurice! I must look for the M87 jet.

Last night I went back to a bit of visual star-hopping just to keep my hand in    but I suspect the Lodestar 'eyepiece' will be back again soon.

Martin

[rkc]

Playing with LodeStar Live today with a view to using it as my "holiday" setup - one thing I noticed immediately during daytime testing is that the minimum exposure of 0.02 seconds is too long. With a sensitive camera live the Lodestar, and a fastish scope, even 0.001 seconds (the minimum that the SX Lodestar app supports) is a little too long, but is manageable with a suitable aperture mask. 

[Paul81]

Great set of images Maurice! I must also try to get the M87 jet at some point too. Video assisted observing is great for galaxy season as galaxies are the DSOs that really suffer with LP.

How are you finding the V2 version of the Lodestar Camera? There is some nice detail in the images, should be even more when the live stacking is up and running. The newer camera does seems to be more sensitive for the same exposure time. I wondered if SX would use the same firmware in the camera as the regular Lodestar - it must be the case as the SW runs fine.

rkc - I have a longer term todo to look at the exposure times. Currently the exposures are timed in the software, and the lower ones are not 100% accurate but they are only intended for focusing really so not a massive push. I want to move the lower exposure times over to using the camera hardware timer, and in doing so I can go down to 1msec as a minimum. Ideally when focusing you want the camera readout to be in the linear range of the sensor. As I tend to focus on bright stars even 20ms saturates. Its not a big deal, the star fitting function deals with it just fine, but I think you would get a slightly steadier result if there were no saturation. Software timing is fine for the longer exposure times - the odd msec or so doesn't matter when your exposure is 30 secs!

I have been a bit miffed the last two nights - lovely and clear but I am out tuesdays and wednesdays so missed out  . I am very happy to see other folks getting some good use of the app though! I am thinking of releasing v0.8 at the weekend. v0.7 seems like it has been given a reasonably good workout and so far only 1 bug  . V0.8 brings some tweaks plus the fix to the zoom. Stacking is progressing nicely. I will soon be asking for donations of datasets to help integration and testing - I need 'good runs' (20-30 sub-exposures and 10 ish darks) of different objects from different set-ups. I'll put more details when I post V0.8 and put a link to a public dropbox folder for upload.

No plans tonight and low and behold its cloudy outside! Grrr...!!

[nytecam]

Playing with LodeStar Live today with a view to using it as my "holiday" setup - one thing I noticed immediately during daytime testing is that the minimum exposure of 0.02 seconds is too long. With a sensitive camera live the Lodestar, and a fastish scope, even 0.001 seconds (the minimum that the SX Lodestar app supports) is a little too long, but is manageable with a suitable aperture mask.

Haha - aperture masks - my 1st try at scope with LovestarLive night before last started in late twilight but the camera knew the sky was bright! My 8cm off-axis stop = f/13 but imaged still swamped so had to do 2cm stop = f/50 and shot the gibbous moon but only the terminator @ 20ms not saturated ! Also did Jupiter + sats, Sirius and M42 @ f/50 by then later dark enough to remove stop to full 30cm aperture @ f/3.3 for M1. Must await a dark sky from now on ;-)

[nytecam]

Thanks Paul - here's a couple images from last night under a gibbous moon and this afternoon. Hickson 50 Gx-Gp @ 1.8 BLY range in 30s via LodestarLive - data on image - it's near Owl PN. Only a handful of visual observers have seen all 5 gxys - most via a 48" Dob Stateside!

Second pic my combo of garden shots via Lodestar-C with SX s/ware and LodestarLive s/ware - colour in the latter so weak that it needed a double 100% saturation pass through Gimp but work out ok. Well done Paul again ;-)