AstroTux

James,

as you know I've had your software sat on my machine for some time, but have not been able to test it until now :sad: !! I think I've learnt that testing astro-software in the field is not like any other software testing, you have to wait until everything is just right before you can begin . Well on Tuesday night the clouds were not around, all my stuff was easily to hand, nothing else needed adjusting or testing, I was in a comfortable environment at home, nobody expected me to do anything else, etc., etc., so I finally got down to it .

What can I say? Having tried numerous other capture programmes under Linux, yours is easily the most instinctive to use - just look at the pictures, play with the sliders and away you go. Others such as wxAstrocapture and qastrocam-g2 have all the relevant features scattered under different tabs, which can lead to confusion when being used in a dark environment. I always used to find that I had forgotten to do something leading to the capture of loads of unusable data.

No such problems with oaCapture. I was able to get useful data straight away using my SPC900 and the 'little scope' ( AstroMaster 130 ). My first target was Mars and the ability to run at a full 15 frames/sec allowed me to capture lots of information quite quickly, and to perform many runs at different settings - very useful. I then moved on to the full moon and using the focal reducer took just two runs of 600 frames at 10 frames/sec, one of the top half and the other of the bottom half. A quick bit of maths and you can see that I took just 2 minutes of moon data, but it was extremely easy.

Then, on to the processing. Thankfully I didn't have to problem of loading .avi files into Registax ( V6.1.0.8 ) as I'd been through this with you and had installed the utVideo codec under Wine. I decided to start with the Lunar work as I was more confident of the results. This was where the work began!! I did not realise that oaCapture produces so much more data than other Linux capture programmes. Loading 600 frames at 640x480 into Registax, then aligning and stacking them took about 30 minutes on an AMD dual-core 64-bit machine running at 2.8GHz. However, more data is better in my mind.

Just for you, here is the result - slightly out of focus, very crudely processed, then stitched together using Hugin...........

15th April 2014, 600 frames top half, 600 frames bottom half,

SPC900 + 2x focal reducer, Celestron AstroMaster 130

As you can see I need to improve my astro-photography skills, but I'm quite happy with this as it was the result of a test. I just need to remember to use my cornflake packet Bhatinov mask next time. As I'm typing this my other system is chuntering away processing the Mars data, so hopefully something good may come out.

Anyway, many thanks James for an excellently useable application. This is going to be my capture programme from now on. The only improvement I can suggest is support for the SPC900 LX mod .

All the best, and keep up the good work,

Alan

And here we have 1280x960 mono with 2x binning to 640x480

James

Just wondering how many glasses of something strong I would need to be able to replicate that view :grin: ...........

It looks like you are rocketing along with this code.

If you are interested I have several SPC900s and I think that one of them has been modified for RAW colour mode. If not it could be very easily converted as I have the software to do it. If you would like your code tested with one I'm quite willing to do this for you. You can always email me if you wish.

As you can see I'm now back from our sojourn to Snowdonia and Sixpenny Handley.

all the best,

Alan

James,

forgot to say, if you want to send me the binary I'm running 64-bit Linux Mint Mate.

cheers,

Alan

Actually Alan, as I have most of the controls working this evening, I could punt the binary over your way if you want to give it a whirl to see if you get anything on-screen.  It will be useless for anything else, but you might at least be able to test the camera to see if you can get it to work on Mint 15.

James

James, that would be a great idea.

I've tried cheese and it works with the camera, but the necessary control is not there. User and factory settings cannot be restored with wxAstroCapture using V3 of the Linux kernel, and things such as frame rate, gain, etc. do not work at all. This is a shame as I had previously loaded the macros provided by Martin Burri, et al, into the camera from a windows system, and everything worked using V2 kernels.

If you would like me to test it you can send it to alan@alanlmilne.co.uk . Just one small problem though, as always I am just about to embark on another of my walking holidays ( tomorrow morning ) followed by a couple of days at the Sixpenny Handley star party, so it may be a week or more before I can let you know the outcome.

Hope this helps, all the best,

Alan

ps. whilst typing this the T-ring for my Canon EOS has just popped through the letter box, but it won't stop me wanting to use the SPC900........ :grin:

Nice one James :icon_salut: .

I've just moved to Linux Mint 15 myself as I just can't get along with Ubuntu any more, but it seems I've hit a snag. The 3.80 kernel does not seem to play happily with the SPC900NC, although the device is recognised as such. wxAstroCapture and various others do not seem to be able to control it.

Is this something to do with V4L2, or the kernel driver for the SPC900? No matter how much I search there is very little information on t'inerweb about this.

Do you have any ideas on this, and is there anything I can do? I'm quite happy working with GTK+ and libusb, etc., in C. As you probably know I'm mainly a hardware guy but use C a lot for embedded devices - just not C++. Also if you need anyone to test your software please count me in.

It would be nice to see the SPC900 properly supported again. In order to control it my 'field' laptop still runs Ubutnu 10.04......... :grin:

Looking forward to the potential release of your software,

all the best,

Alan

As had been said you could use the LM317 with a pass transistor to up the current, or you could use the LM338, but if you are going to drop from 13V down to around 2V at 6A that's a lot of power going to waste ( around 66W :Envy: )!!! You're going to need a good heatsink and it will keep you warm on those cold winter's nights :grin: .

I'd go with the switch-mode boards as they use a voltage buck mechanism that is much more efficient and generates far less heat than a straight forward voltage regulator.

Hope this helps,

Alan

Not just a giant of Astronomy, but also of the Xylophone and Humour. I still have all the Patrick Moore books I bought as a kid, including his Moon Flight Atlas.

I think NASA also owe him a great debt of gratitude for his outstanding work on mapping the Moon, as do we all in the way that he championed amateur astronomy. It still astounds me when his notebooks are presented on the TV as I know that I would not have the patience or the abilities that he showed through his observational prowess.

I also still remember him playing the Xylophone and dancing on some TV show ( can't remember if it was Parkinson or The Morecombe and Wise Show ) and could never quite get that out of my mind whenever I saw him. He was so much larger than just a presenter of an Astronomy programme and will be greatly missed by many; even those who did not follow S@N.

All the best Sir Patrick.