New Imaging Toolbox - Beta Testers Required!

[IanL]

Now the light nights of the summer are upon us (in the Northern hemisphere at least), I have spent some of my spare evenings working on a new tool that I hope will be of interest and use to many of you.

Based on the new Aladin Lite tool developed by the CDS, the Imaging Toolbox (http://www.blackwate...ingtoolbox.html) contains many features of use to the astro-imager, whether using your own equipment or a remote observatory.

Features Include:

1. View a selection of all-sky image surveys directly from your web browser with no need to install plug-ins or extra software. You can explore the sky interactively by panning, zooming and dynamically switching between surveys.

2. Overlay the sky with a reticule which accurately reproduces the field of view of your camera and telescope / lens. Set the reticule size by directly entering the dimensions of your field of view if you already know them, or calculate them if you don't.

it is also possible to annotate the reticule with the field of view dimensions, pixel scale and the resolving power of your scope/lens. Great for evaluating prospective investments in new equipment!

3. Live read-out of your current RA and Dec as you explore.

4. Automatically zoom the field of view to maximise reticule at all times or have the reticule re-size as you zoom in and out.

5. Find almost any deep-sky target by common name or catalogue number (Messier, NGC, ICC, etc.), or choose from a list of popular imaging targets.

6. Go to any location using Right Ascension and Declination coordinates.

7. Reposition the target and rotate the reticule to work out the best way to frame your image, as well as changing the reticule colour to suit different sky backgrounds. A boon for those of you going over to the 'dark side' of remote imaging using hired equipment.

8. Calculate the field of view by choosing from a database of hundreds of popular telescopes, astronomical CCD and DSLR cameras. Also determine the effect of adding a Barlow lens or focal reducer/field flattener on your set-up.

9. Or calculate the field of view using camera pixel dimensions, resolution and the focal length of your scope or lens.

10. Or calculate field of view using camera chip dimensions and focal length.

11. Create a link to your current target and settings for bookmarking, sharing or posting on forums!

Full instructions for the imaging toolbox are here : http://www.blackwate...structions.html

Important notes:

- Aladin Lite is a beta test service developed by the CDS. As such it may have a few issues and no doubt changes and improvements will be produced in future versions. I have put a lot of work in to developing and testing the toolbox, but it is reliant on the underlying Aladin Lite tool over which I have no control.

- You will need a modern, compatible browser, as described in the instructions. I have found that Google Chrome 27 and Mozilla Firefox 21 (both on Windows 7) work fine. Microsoft Internet Explorer works in part, but definitely has problems displaying the Aladin Lite surveys so isn't really usable at the moment. (The problems are not in my code, hopefully it will get fixed by the developers of Aladin Lite or Internet Explorer eventually!)

I know it is a pain, but we are at the bleeding edge of next-generation web applications here, and it is worth the effort to try a new browser - if you are a long-time IE user, you'd be surprised at how much better Chrome is for example!

Please help me by testing on other platforms and browsers; for the technically inclined, your browser must have full support for the HTML5 canvas element and must have Javascript enabled.

- I have created a database of most of the current astronomical CCD cameras and DSLR cameras. This has taken a lot of research; surprisingly enough there is a lot of inconsistency about how specifications of camera chips are quoted by different camera manufacturers. Wherever possible I have gone back to sensor datasheets to get the correct figures, or used consistent methods to deduce them where datasheets are not available. (You'd be surprised at the significant differences between fields of view calculated using some camera manufacturers' chips dimensions vs. using their pixel size/resolution specifications). If you really think I've got it wrong, please supply corrections. I do not have all historical cameras, but I am happy to add them where you can provide me with the required information. Please see the instructions for details of how to do this.

- I am working on a database of most of the current telescopes available. This is a mammoth undertaking and I am only a quarter of the way through this job. I have covered some of the big name suppliers, but many are yet to be done. It is easy enough to plug in your own focal length and aperture in the meantime. Again I do not have (all) historical equipment but I am happy to add it if you supply details.

Please supply your feedback by replying here or leaving a comment on the imaging toolbox site; I'll do my best to respond. Thanks for your help!

(Moderators, hopefully this is the appropriate forum. I thought about putting it under 'Software' but most imagers seem to spend a lot more time here rather than there.)

[astromerlin]

Hi, A very useful tool, I've just used it and it works fine on my old winXP and Firefox ver 3.6.28

[billhinge]

Works for me on Safari 6.0.5 (webkit) on Mac OS X 10.7.5 - nice to see you got the Altair Wave Series 80mm F6 Super ED Triplet APO (80/480) in , I can pm you a couple of panasonic m43 camera specs if you like

see here

nice web app (I did some HTML5 web app coding a couple of years back)

[IanL]

Thanks for confirming that, by all means send me any camera specs you have. I am grinding through stuff, added about 150 more scopes today but still a ways to go just for things that are currently on sale.

I have been going through a period of renewing my web skills, learned a bit of jQuery this time as well as canvas. Mind you my first web site was plain old HTML on hacked together using VI on a slackware Linux distro that needed 25 floppy disks to install. That was towards the end of 1993, and I can reliably inform you it was somewhere in the region of web site number 5,000 globally and number 400 or thereabouts in the UK (there were few enough that they could actually be counted in those days!)

[billhinge]

Yes I recall the days of Mosaic on UNIX Sparc stations in the early days and Janet before that

What details do you need to add cameras to your list?

[gkec]

Interesting -- I'll try and remember to use it when I next plan an observing session. One suggestion is to be able to save camera/scope settings. I use the Web Storage API as it is dead easy to use.

[IanL]

Yes I recall the days of Mosaic on UNIX Sparc stations in the early days and Janet before that

What details do you need to add cameras to your list?

Yes, the whole Internet bookmarked in biro in a spiral bound notebook.

I need official camera model name and any variants you are aware of, sensor dimensions in CM (H & W) - the active imaging area if poss, pixel dimensions in um ( H & W), active resolution in pixels (H & W). If you know the chip name used in the camera that helps (some DSLRs used non-proprietary chips, but others like Canon, etc. use their own in-house chips so can't get the data sheets).

Interesting -- I'll try and remember to use it when I next plan an observing session. One suggestion is to be able to save camera/scope settings. I use the Web Storage API as it is dead easy to use.

You can save the entire configuration, camera and scope settings (or manually entered figures), current target location, zoom and rotation of the reticule. Once you have a view you want to keep, just click the 'create link' button at the bottom of the form and copy and paste the whole URL that is generated thus: Link to a Saved FOV

You can post the link in forums, add it to your browser bookmarks, or write it in your spiral bound notebook with a biro if you so wish (but it is rather long so probably not practical). The web storage API is a new one on me (been a few years since I did any serious web development), but looks like it would be equally easy to implement as another option (I already have all the fundamental code to create the data to be stored so it should be trivial to use). I'll give it a go when I get five mins, thanks!

[IanL]

Okay, I have finished my trawl of manufacturer's web sites and there are a total of 588 scope brand/models and 382 distinct cameras now available to try out; the A&M to Zhumell of kit you might say!

That makes for 224,616 different combinations to test. To be fair that can be reduced somewhat when you take in to account significant rebadging/sourcing of optical elements from suppliers, plus many of the cameras use one of 71 distinct Sony/Micron/Kodak (now Truesense)/e2V sensors.

Still it is a lot to choose from. Bear in mind that most of this is current kit, so if you have something ancient and not-too-dusty that you use for imaging, let me have the specifications and I'll include it.