Bit of solar video, bit of Lodestarlive...

[James]

It hasn't been the best few months for my imaging and the next month or two won't be good either of course being summer but I've been playing around with video... yesterday evening I figured I'd try a little solar viewing through my Borg 77, a Borg white light solar filter and a PD Cam... it stopped the kids kicking a football at the neighbours fence and windows so all good!

I've attached a screen shot from my laptop - you'll see that the first thing I need is either a camera with a bigger chip or a different scope as the sun doesn't quite fit!

In the evening with a great big full moon shining I gave Paul81's Lodestarlive a little twirl, I need to play with some settings and work on my focus but I've attached a couple of screenshots from my laptop taken with a Lodestar through an 8" reflector.

The views using Lodestarlive were a little 'nicer' than the views using my PD Cam - on the fly histogram adjustment etc make a very nice difference. I can't wait to see what happens with on the fly stacking etc that I believe Paul is working on.

James

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Very nice results

[Martin Meredith]

Nice work -- still waiting for a clear view of M57 this year... What exposure and F-ratio were you using? 

Martin

[James]

The M57 and M82 screenshots were 30 seconds through an 8" F/4 Quattro, the M13 was (I think!) 10 secs.

I have to wait a while for the Ring to clear a neighbours house but my eastern view is my best aspect so it's not too bad, it clears the house around 11.30 now

James

[Martin Meredith]

Thanks James. It's good for me to see what these objects look like through a range of scopes. A Quattro is something I'm considering too.

I notice too that you're using very little gamma/contrast. Did you play around much with these settings? I find myself whacking the gamma up to over half and setting the contrast near the top of the range, but then I'm using a different scope (80mm F/6 achromat).

Tonight is predicted to be clear here so I have some of the summer objects in my sights...

Martin

[James]

I didn't play around much with the settings as I found that the merest twitch could make a big change... based on using a PD Camera with my Borg 77 and then with the Quattro I can ease off on the settings a bit (to be expected I guess!).

The colours were wrong and I found that every time I changed one channel the others went out. I could have really concentrated on it but was enjoying the view

James

[Paul81]

Looks like a  good set of first images to me!

You can adjust all colour channels at once by ticking the 'Modify All' box. Afterwards you can then shift each channel around individually to give a good colour balance (using the brightness slider). Based on DoctorD's and Martin's data, I tend to stretch all channels using gamma and contrast, and then shift the red channel left a little using brightness (I only have the mono camera...)

There are some up and coming changes for colour though. The CYGM to RGB matrix I am using was derived by pointing the camera at a colour test card, however I think for astronomical objects this tends to yield an unbalanced result, so I am planning on allowing the user to apply a permanent tweak to suit their taste. I am also going to be changing the gamma, brightness and contrast a little to allow better stretches, and also add colour hue / saturation controls. This is all planned for after live stacking though - that is foremost in the works! 

[James]

 This is all planned for after live stacking though - that is foremost in the works! 

"Bated breath" just doesn't really cover it....  

I did try a little fiddling with each channel but found that the smallest movement I was capable of making on my trackpad made a huge difference to the results so I backed off from fiddling and just enjoyed the views...

James

[Paul81]

I'll look to put something into the display processing control to allow a finer grain of control. A design goal for the project was to keep the app real estate to a minimum so it would work well on small displays common on netbooks - it seemed like a lot of people use these as field computers for astro work. The off shot of this is that the sliders are quite small, so granularity of control is limited. Perhaps I'll add a 'fine control' checkbox, or allow fine controls with the keyboard. I'll have a think - its pretty easy stuff to add!

Integration of live stacking is going quite well. It is really interesting watching the picture build up and finer detail start to come into view. I have uncovered a few issues (that have only become evident by watching the build up on a per exposure basis rather than just seeing the end result with my test harness) which I need to sort but it is getting there. I have a couple more UI elements to finish and then I plan on creating a video of it running. Hopefully this should be by the end of the weekend.

[HiloDon]

Hi Paul,

I recently got the SX Lodestar X2 and have been using your Lodestarlive s/w. I am very pleased with the results and I'm having a great time. It was good to hear that you're going to put in a finer control for the sliders. I would be happy with a keyboard control after selecting the slider button. Right now only the black level button is highlighted and you can control it from the keyboard, but the other buttons won't highlight. I'm fairly new to astronomy, but I think I'm making some progress with this near live viewing. I have posted some images here. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks for all your efforts. Can't wait for the stacking option.

[allcart]

I can't offer any constructive advice, but that is a very nice M51.

[Martin Meredith]

They're great images. It's a lot of fun, isn't it! What sort of exposures were you using?

Martin

[Paul81]

It looks like you have got the hang of it to me! That is a superb set of images! I really like M20, its an object I have never observed myself, visual or video. It is very low from my location and doesn't really rise above the trees / houses. It's great to see what other people observe, and its rewarding for me to hear other people are getting enjoyment out of the app as well. 

I am guessing that was at the ED120s native F-ratio? Wow! The X2 is really showing how sensitive it is, especially with your Hawaiian skies.

Slider fine adjust is easy enough, as is the keyboard control, I've put these suggestions down in the 'todo' list. I'm always open to any suggestions, I may not be able to do them all, but its great to have feedback. Im looking to ditch the gamma slider and only have brightness and contrast (so shift and stretch). With the contrast it will only be stretch, rather than compress and stretch as is current. I don't think anyone is compressing their histograms, and I think more stretch would be appreciated, so the contrast top end will be increased considerably.

I am a bit conscious that there is an increased user base now, so I don't want to remove features or change some of the core stuff [removed word]-nilly without a reasonable feeling that the change is a positive one. The good news is the code is all under config control, so if a change causes an impact it is quite simple for me to roll-back!

[HiloDon]

Thank you all for the feedback. The exposures ranged from 10 to 30 seconds. I think the Whirlpool was 45. When I go that long, I get quite a bit of noise, so I use a dark subtraction. That seems to limit the dynamic range and the adjustments are a bit touchy. Paul, correct me if I'm wrong, but your stacking routine should help this problem. The scope is a 100 ed with a FR of 9.0. I used no reducer. Nytecam gave me some ideas for an efinder I made from my Samsung SCB2000 that really helps find things. Attached is a shot I got of the Antennae galaxies. It was a 15 second exposure and I should have tried longer with the dark frame subtraction. Will try again tonight if it's clear.

[V Pascal]

Hi Paul,

I recently got the SX Lodestar X2 and have been using your Lodestarlive s/w. I am very pleased with the results and I'm having a great time. It was good to hear that you're going to put in a finer control for the sliders. I would be happy with a keyboard control after selecting the slider button. Right now only the black level button is highlighted and you can control it from the keyboard, but the other buttons won't highlight. I'm fairly new to astronomy, but I think I'm making some progress with this near live viewing. I have posted some images here. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks for all your efforts. Can't wait for the stacking option.

Don,

Great results with very short exposure times. This really shows the power of this type of camera (and specifically the SX Lodestar X2) for essentially real-time deep sky observing. Will be really useful for public observing/outreach. I am inspired to try this myself.

Aloha,

Pascal

[Martin Meredith]

Slider fine adjust is easy enough, as is the keyboard control, I've put these suggestions down in the 'todo' list. I'm always open to any suggestions, I may not be able to do them all, but its great to have feedback. Im looking to ditch the gamma slider and only have brightness and contrast (so shift and stretch). With the contrast it will only be stretch, rather than compress and stretch as is current. I don't think anyone is compressing their histograms, and I think more stretch would be appreciated, so the contrast top end will be increased considerably.

Hi Paul

I've been using gamma+contrast quite a bit but lately switched more to brightness+contrast with similar results. Yes, having a bit more top-end on contrast would be useful. A minor suggestion would be the option of automatically adding exposure times to saved images/FITS. 

Thanks

Martin