JamesF

Well, having read more on the website it's not entirely clear to me what exactly it's based on, but it does use the same 3.8 series kernels that I have been using for development on Mint 15 and reading between the lines I infer that it's based on Precise, which would make it 12.04 LTS. There are some oddities that have cropped up recently. For instance I have built it against libtiff5 which is part of Mint 15, but appears not to be present (nor installable as a package) in Ubuntu 12.04, so those sorts of things do need ironing out. I'm actually in the process of installing a couple of machines (32-bit and 64-bit) with a number of recent Linux variants as well as around fifteen different virtual machines, so I should have a fairly good idea of what the next release works on and what it doesn't. I'll add Distro Astro to the list of VMs to install. Eventually I will get it all built as a package (or several, perhaps) like any other, but it all takes time James

I think the current Distro Astro is based on one of the Ubuntu LTS releases, but I'm not sure which one. I know there are kernels that don't support the SPC900 very well and I've found issues with the Lifecam and Xbox cameras in some kernels (and made patches for them). I'll see what I can find out. James

Thank you, Alan. I'm really pleased you've found the application so good to use and I think you've done well with that image. It's not often you see a lunar image done with an SPC900. It's a pleasure to have such positive feedback. The next release of oacapture is almost ready and in fact would have been out before now but for some last-minute updates to track changes to the ZWO SDK. As well as support for the QHY5L-II (at least the mono camera, which is all I have) there is a new camera control window that gives access to all the controls for the connected camera (including the "private" functions supported by the SPC900). I would attempt to get everything sorted this weekend, but my wife has decided that I will like my office much more if she decorates it this weekend, so I'm busy dismantling everything and packing it up for a few days. LX mode is on the list of enhancements, but not something I've got my head around yet. I know Robin (he of SharpCap fame) said that LX mode was a real pain to get working. For the following release I think I'm probably going to concentrate on support for OSX and perhaps adding a skeleton for support of filter wheels. Motorised filter wheels are a bit more tricky to handle than cameras as they generally seem to appear as USB-connected serial devices and there's no way for the software to tell for certain what is really on the other end of the serial port. Part of my intention with oacapture was to require minimal input from the user from the point of view of saying "device X is my camera, device Y is my filter wheel and device Z is the mount" (for instance), so I need a tidy way for the API to be able to say something like "there's definitely a filter wheel connected here" or "these two devices may be filter wheels, but I can't tell; the user must choose". James

I think I'm pretty much there with the QHY5L-II now. I don't have HDR support enabled yet. but I think that's about it. I may well leave that for another time as I'm really not convinced it's particularly useful for astroimaging. I've also been working on adding a settings pannel to show all the camera controls at the same time and as part of that I've managed to sort out support for the "undocumented and private" controls for the SPC900, so in the next release they should all be available like this: Most are still available in the main window as well via the drop-down, but it is now possible to see all the settings at the same time. James

That's a very nice image Experimenting with the exposure times is definitely worthwhile. I'm not sure there can be any hard and fast rules. I am currently (from memory) using 1/500th @ ISO200, but I have to use a mirror lockup delay otherwise I get ghosting in the image because of the vibration caused by the mirror moving. James

That's a very good effort, I'd say. I'm wondering, just looking at the image, if we're seeing quite a bit more of the western limb than usual at the moment. Though it might well just be that I'm seeing quite a bit more of the Moon than has been usual over the last six months James

Always good to see people getting out there and trying it. Even better when the weather co-operates and it's possible to get a good run in. James

Got the temperature reading sorted last night before bed I also (re-)found the source for the MT9M034 I2C driver for the Linux kernel as used on the Beagle Board which turned out to be quite a useful source of information in that I now know what most of the I2C registers are supposed to be. The two clearly aren't quite identical. but there's some interesting stuff to look into as a result. For instance, the QHY driver does binning in software after the image has been downloaded from the camera whereas the Beagle Board driver makes it look as if that is possible on the camera chip itself. It may also support flipping the image horizontally and vertically in the hardware, which doesn't even get a mention in the QHY driver. James

Thank you, Jake. I don't know what the Windows SDK is like, but I have the open source one for Linux and it's, umm, well, a bit odd, let's say. I knew I'd have to re-write the code anyhow as I want it in C and to match my existing API so I've really only used it as reference documentation. There is some stuff that I just don't get; for example it has some sort of HDR mode that is unpacked into an image in a most unusual manner, but I think I can leave that for the time being. James

Couldn't swim at the same time as the kids tonight because on Fridays the club takes the entire pool, so instead I took the laptop and QHY5LII, sat in the sports centre cafe and ironed out most of the remaining issues with the camera. I need to sort out reading the temperature and do some tidying up, but I think the hard work for supporting this camera is all done now James

Well, it's been slow work as I've actually had the opportunity to get out with the scope recently, but I'm getting close with the support for the QHY5L-II. I am at least now getting images out of it. They're just not quite right. As tonight's "clear sky" is full of fogginess, instead I have used it to image a light switch James