Homebrew code - Lodestar Live update

[obs30]

I settled on the SX Lodestar as I needed a camera whereby the USB command set was available. SX publish theirs, where as other manufacturers (Atik, Brightstar, ASI) do not.

Hi Paul81,

This is great. I just ordered the Lodestar yesterday and found this post today. I settled for the Lodestar also because of its great support for Mac OS X with Nebulosity and PHD... and because of its sensitivity ;-)   On the IT side I am using a MBP 2011/i7/8GB. My Orion (USA) SSAG is running under Win7 via Parallels. Not perfect but works well.

Could you tell me, where exactly you found the Mac OS X drivers for the Lodestar?  I might try some programming myself. I could only find the ASCOM and 64bit USB2 drivers, both for Windows.

BTW, do you offer your software for download? I am actually mostly programming in Matlab and SciLab and hence know... code is always just close to being perfect, but never right there ;-) So I have no issues with beta versions or something like v0.02.

[obs30]

I settled on the SX Lodestar as I needed a camera whereby the USB command set was available. SX publish theirs, where as other manufacturers (Atik, Brightstar, ASI) do not

.

 ... well, I guess should have read further... Do you use these "drivers" snippets ...

http://www.sxccd.com/software-development ?

[Paul81]

Hi obs30!

Yep the webpage you referenced is what I have been using to develop the camera interface code. I use libUSB on Mac and Linux to perform the low level interface to the device. Recently, I have been unifying the Windows and Unix camera interface - this has been giving some grief. libUSB isn't as seamless on Windows, so I am using the SX driver. It actually gives a simple read / write interface, so I can use the same higher level control code for all platforms. The issue has been device discovery - still working that front. All works nicely in Unix land though - so if you do develop some code then following the notes on the SX website should be fine - I got something going in an hour or two.

I am sorting a few niggles out and then I can make a copy available. I need to look into how to bundle a Mac app (all my professional work is embedded and targeted at vxWorks, Linux or bare metal). The app is dependent on QT and libUSB but that it is it.

Once I have something available will post a notification out.

[obs30]

Hi Paul81!

Thank you for the insight! This will help me getting started.

The Lodestar should arrive this week. I am curious on how it will perform… weather permitting

[NickK]

I'm not sure if Apple have relaxed the store rules since I was a registered developer but they used to demand:

a) 100% native code without shared libraries etc

100% native GUI - no QT

So the linux libraries would have to be deployed within the application which would cause a problem too.

[simonct]

I think QT will be fine (link) - it sounds like they're mainly concerned that you adhere to the HIG. Bundling any dynamic libraries in the app is also fairly straightforward once you get the hang of it.

Paul81 - have you been in touch with Terry at SX ? I'm sure he'd be fascinated with what you're up to !

Simon

[Paul81]

Currently I have no plans to release via the app store - I think you have to be a paid Apple developer to do that? I was just planning on releasing a dmg to download - so would expect someone installing the app to click the OK that it originates from the web rather than the app store. If its any consolation, there are no root privileges required to run.

I'll ping the guys at SX a mail - I guess I need to send them a courtesy email regarding the name 'Lodestar Live'. I had intended to change the name at some point, but it has kinda stuck...

Good news is I got my AZ EQ6GT yesterday, so once I have got it set-up, and time and weather permitting I can go through some more run throughs of the app and look to get it out there. 

[NickK]

Yup with the apple store you'll need to pay. Also the certificate that you use is refreshed on a yearly basis so once you're in the store you'll need to keep up the yearly tax. If you're using a tty that would also be difficult as it changes the filing system.

Usually good product names pick themselves so I wouldn't worry about it. Only implication is that it sounds like it only supports one camera in the range..

[uhb1966]

Thanks for reminding me about Lynkeos. I gave it a go a while back but hadn't stuck with it for some reason, I'll take another look.

Btw, have you any experience/opinions on the OpenCV library ? I appreciate you're rolling your own code but this seems to have some interesting alignment capabilities. My own app has a fairly primitive offline automatic alignment feature which is fast but only deals with translations so far which limits its usefulness. I've dabbled with OpenCV before and it seems pretty quick, especially with the boost threadpool library. Looks like it's starting to support OpenCL as well.

Lynkeos only major drawback is that it cannot yet stack pictures at different angles, bad for people without a german eq mount...