Lodestar-C & Lodestar Live first light

[DoctorD]

Hi

I received a Lodestar-C camera for Christmas (Thanks MrsD)!

My primary aim is not astrophotography, rather I'm interested in electronically assisted viewing in as near real time as possible and in colour. Oh and just to make it interesting I want to do this using my Macbook Pro!

Due to weather and personal/work commitments it's been difficult to get any quality time under the stars with the Lodestar, however I did manage to grab a half an hour and point the camera an M42. Some would say that this is not the ideal subject due to the high dynamic range, however it did give me chance to play with a beta version of Paul81's Lodestar Live application running on a Macbook Pro (you can follow Paul's development of Lodestar Live here: http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/202377-lodestar-live-december-update/#entry2142775).

I used my INED70 F6 refractor with a Celestron F6.3 SCT reducer working at about F4.2 mounted on my Minitower (which was carried outside in one go!) and an exposure of 20 seconds (I think). 

Lodestar Live is very simple to use and allows real time processing of the images which are captured and displayed continuously with the option to save each file in raw and/or processed formats for later stacking if you so desire. About 4 to 5 frames per second is possible allowing easy adjustment of focus and framing.

The raw Lodestar data is in 16 bit format which allows a very wide dynamic range to be captured and by adjusting the realtime processing settings in Lodestar Live you can stretch the image to see the details you are looking for. 

Here's a few screen grabs of the camera and software in action:

Single frame, no stretch:

Single frame with some stretch & gamma adjust:

Single frame with more stretch & gamma adjust:

Lodestar Live does not yet support automatic de-bayer of the raw colour data, so as a trial, I used Deep Sky Stacker to do the de-bayer colour conversion and apply a similar stretch and gamma adjustment. 

De-bayered single frame (in DSS)

A big thank you to Maurice (Nytecam) for his inspirational posts on the Lodestar-C which lead to my acquisition of the camera and Paul (Paul81) for his work on Lodestar Live.

More to come as and when I get time under the stars - the Lodestar looks like a great replacement for my SDC 435 - larger chip, much lower noise, exposures up to 1 hour and at 20 seconds exposure no apparent AMP glow combined with 16bit digital capture with no PAL colour encoding. Interestingly it's only twice the cost of the SCB4000 which has a similar sized sensor without the other advantages of the Lodestar.

Clear skies

Paul

[DoctorD]

And here's M45 showing the possible FoV of the Lodestar with a little refractor:

No nebulosity captured but the image was taken under heavy light pollution at 20 seconds exposure with no LPF.

[allcart]

Thanks for posting this paul. It looks like this software could make the Lodestar C a useful addition to the VA arsenal. This could potentialy turn an osc imaging camera into a video ccd camera. If Paul81 can somehow incorporate the debayering algorithm as well it would be fantastic for Lodestar C owners and make it a great relatively low cost  cam for electronically assisted viewing.

I wish Paul81 great success with Lodestar live and I hope he can make this software compatible with windows pc's.

.

[shirva]

Nice bit of work with the loadstar guys...as allcart says it looks to be a great success. ..davy

[nytecam]

Excellent work Paul and Paul81 - most impressive - keep those shot and tweaks coming :-)

[Spacedout]

Congratulations on the new cam Paul and nice work too!

[Paul81]

So happy to see the program being used   and some great shots of M42 and M45!

The bayer decoding work is underway (though slowly as I am on holiday at the mo - do not want to suffer the Mrs wrath too much...). For the folks with Windows PCs then I started some work on unifying the camera control code between my own Mac / Linux based stuff and the SX Windows Drivers - I need to complete this then Lodestar Live can be tried and tested by the Windows folks too. The unification is important, as I do not want Windows users to have to faff with installing other drivers for the camera (i.e. just keep their native SX ones).

The nice wide FoV of your refractor is lovely... I have found astro stuff seems to be cheaper (once you take into account the exchange rate and you claim GST back at the airport) here in Oz. I succumbed to temptation and added a 21mm Ethos to the collection (which worked out 130 GBP cheaper - how could I refuse?!) so I best not look at a nice 72/80mm refractor....

[allcart]

Any further updates or images to add Paul.

Or any advances in the software application Paul81.

[Paul81]

Any further updates or images to add Paul.

Or any advances in the software application Paul81.

Nothing major to report, I am back from holiday so there should be some progress to report in the near future. I have been working on bayer decoding and colour processing, and I have also added the ability to save and restore master (median stacked) darks. This allows you to avoid having to capture darks when working at the same approx temperature.

[geminijk]

Can't wait until this is released!  I am waiting to purchase a Lodestar just for this very purpose. Thanks for your efforts!

John

[iksobarg]

Helloo,

I'm just joining the thread here. I've got a lot of catching up to do. Looking all this good stuff up, I am!

Back soon \o

John