StarlightLive V3.3 Released

[Paul81]

Hi all,

StarlightLive V3.3 is now available to download:

OSX: https://bitbucket.org/Paul81/starlightlive-downloads/downloads/StarlightLive.osx.3.3.zip

Win32: https://bitbucket.org/Paul81/starlightlive-downloads/downloads/StarlightLive.win32.3.3.zip

Bug fixes and some feature updates - from the README:

- Image display processing and stacking performance (speed) enhancements.
- Added option on the settings tab to select night mode which modifies the user interface to use a subdued dark room theme. A separate option also allows the main image display to be rendered in luminance-red pixel format.
- Added options on the settings tab to allow the display image to be mirrored horizontally and vertically such that image orientation can be corrected for different optical configurations.
- Added command line argument '-prepend-title-text <TEXT>' to allow a user specified string to be prepended to the window title bar such that it allows multiple sessions of the application being used concurrently to be easier distinguished.
- Modified exposures of 1 second or less to be timed via the H/W based timer in the camera as opposed to timed by S/W. This facilitates exposures of 1ms or greater. User interface has been modified to permit minimum exposure time of 1ms which is the smallest permitted by the camera. Exposures of greater than 1 second are stilled timed by S/W such that periodic ping and cooler read-out, in addition to exposure progress bar update still occur. Exposures of less than 250ms on interlaced cameras are no longer at half resolution. Non-binned exposures less than 1 second on interlaced cameras will expose for the required time on the odd field and then the required time on the even field. Therefore the time to take the exposure is double, but the total exposure time for the whole sensor is as requested. This does not apply for binned exposures which complete in the exposure time period.
- Fixed Bug: Modified histogram processing to help avoid issues when pixels become saturated (either black or white) which caused the display processing to select the wrong peak as the point of which to centre display stretching around.
- Fixed Bug: Non anti-aliased fonts being selected on some Windows platforms (fuzzy fonts).

The issue tracker is available at: https://bitbucket.org/Paul81/starlightlive/issues?status=new&status=open

Paul

 

[Ain Soph Aur]

Thank you Paul! Your tireless efforts with SLL are very much appreciated. I finally have some clear night skies forecast starting mid-week and looking for to new captures!

[DoctorD]

Hi Paul

Once again thank you for al the effort you put into SSL - each version gets better and better.

I've noticed a minor issue when running on OSx - I use two monitor setup (Macbook Air & external monitor) -  when I move SSL main window from one monitor to the other the image area goes black and does not refresh until I move it back to the original screen.

Moving the Image Display window between monitors works OK.

This is not a new bug - I have seen it in previous versions but forgot to mention it.

Clear skies

Paul

 

 

 

 

[Paul81]

Hi Paul

I think the issue you noticed is the same root cause as issue #11 on the bug tracker (https://bitbucket.org/Paul81/starlightlive/issues/11/v32-remote-image-window-zoom) - I was planning on looking into this one quiet evening as I don't have a second monitor for my Mac but I'm hoping I can replicate it when plugged into a TV - in theory it should be the same...!

out of curiosity, does the display come back if you modify one of the display settings (which forces a redraw) - say tweak the histogram stretch?

Paul

[DoctorD]

Hi Paul

The display does not come back when you modify the display settings - only when you return it to the original window where it was launched.

Paul

[Robrj]

Thanks for the updates Paul.  SLL is one of the main reasons I recently added a Lodestar X2 mono camera.  Now if only the clouds will cooperate.  

[Robrj]

Does Starlight Live work with any ASCOM filter wheel or just the Starlight Xpress models?

[Paul81]

It's only SX filter wheels, should work with all USB models!

[Robrj]

Okay, Thanks.  I figured as much but I thought I'd check.

[Robrj]

Paul, one thing that might be nice for a future Starlight Live version is the ability to clear the data from one channel only from a stacked image, specifically for  narrowband multispectral imaging.  I've had a couple of times where one particular channel gets bad images (focus issues or drift) and have wanted to be able to clear that channel only, instead of resetting the whole image.  I'm not sure if that's possible.

[stash_old]

Well done Paul - see a full page advertising spread ,in Sky at Night,featuring Starlight Live software.    Nice if they had just found space to acknowledge you 

[Paul81]

On 18/04/2017 at 21:04, Robrj said:

Paul, one thing that might be nice for a future Starlight Live version is the ability to clear the data from one channel only from a stacked image, specifically for  narrowband multispectral imaging.  I've had a couple of times where one particular channel gets bad images (focus issues or drift) and have wanted to be able to clear that channel only, instead of resetting the whole image.  I'm not sure if that's possible.

This is a good idea and shouldn't be to hard to implement. I have raised Issue #17 to document adding this as a new feature.

On 19/04/2017 at 09:47, stash_old said:

Well done Paul - see a full page advertising spread ,in Sky at Night,featuring Starlight Live software.    Nice if they had just found space to acknowledge you 

Haha - yeah I've seen that one a few times now :-)

[Martin Meredith]

Just as a laugh, I tried out the new 1ms minimum exposure tonight on Jupiter and it was still far too bright. Even with RGB filters I couldn't make out any details. So I used an H-alpha filter and lo-and-behold managed to see the belts!

Martin

[Ain Soph Aur]

Heya Paul. I suspect SLL v3.4 is coming soon. I am following your bitbucket dev site closely so suspect what may be in store, but can you give us a preview of what we can look forward to in the next release?

[alphatripleplus]

I'm wondering if anyone has been able to successfully use saved darkframes from a previous session in vsn 3.3? I know some people have had this difficulty and it has been mentioned previously - I'm not sure if Paul has been able to reproduce the dark subtraction issue. For me, if I create a dark frame, I can use it during the current session, but if I start a new session or attempt to restore a previously saved dark frame in the current session, I find the Display Processing sliders do not work and I pretty much have to take a fresh dark. For most viewing, I will just forgo darks and use the defective pixel removal tool, which works very well (Thanks Paul). However, for H-alpha captures I find that darks are very worthwhile, and it would be great if I could use saved darks from previous sessions. I don't see the darkframe issue listed on Paul's Bitbucket site, so I am assuming that  we may still face this issue in vs 3.4?

[Hibou]

It's been a while now since Paul Shears has posted (and even longer for me). I use Starlight Live 3.3 for scientific imaging, and have a short guide on http://neutronoptics.com/starlight.html

I agree that it's a great application, and it would be even better if there was an "automatic" option for the image display as in programs such as Nebulosity, Artemis Capture, Artemis Infinity etc. As it is, you have to manually bracket the intensity distribution between the black and white levels.

Do people know if Paul is still working on this great application, or even how to contact him ?

Alan

[HiloDon]

Hi Alan,

Good to see you back.  Paul has been absent for a while and hasn’t visited SGL since July last year.  We all miss him and were worried about him.  We did find out through Terry at SX that he was ok, but extremely busy with his work related projects.  We are all hopeful that he will return some day and continue to support Starlight Live.  In my opinion, it still remains the best live viewing software available.  I still use it here at the VIS on Mauna Kea.  If Paul returns, it will be big news in the EAA community, and it will be posted in this forum.

Don

[RobertI]

On 25/05/2018 at 21:38, Hibou said:

It's been a while now since Paul Shears has posted (and even longer for me). I use Starlight Live 3.3 for scientific imaging, and have a short guide on http://neutronoptics.com/starlight.html

I agree that it's a great application, and it would be even better if there was an "automatic" option for the image display as in programs such as Nebulosity, Artemis Capture, Artemis Infinity etc. As it is, you have to manually bracket the intensity distribution between the black and white levels.

Do people know if Paul is still working on this great application, or even how to contact him ? 

Alan 

Hi Alan,

Thanks for the link to your short guide, I have a couple of questions if you don't mind:

"IMPORTANT ! Set the Max Pixel Displacement and Max FWHM to ZERO (0)" - I don't actually know what this setting is or what is does, but I had assumed if your tracking was poor, you would need to set this figure higher in order to get the the software to stack, but if it needs to be set to zero, then I guess that's not the case! Can you explain what this setting does and why it should be zero. Thanks.

"Defective Pixel Removal doesn't remove noisy pixels" - so is it a case that it is doing something, but just doesn't remove 'hot' pixels? I must admit I have found that sometimes hot pixels are a problem even with this ticked, but as always, I assumed it was something I was doing wrong. Any explanation appreciated.

Thanks

Rob

[Hibou]

12 hours ago, RobertI said:

"IMPORTANT ! Set the Max Pixel Displacement and Max FWHM to ZERO (0)"

"Defective Pixel Removal doesn't remove noisy pixels" 

Hi Rob. My short guide is mainly for non-astronomy use of Starlight Live (SLL) so I have left things out ? HiloDon has posted a more complete guide. 

Max Pixel Displacement: I understand that SLL tries to correct for small shifts of the FOV between frames (tracking errors etc). So it uses the positions of bright stars to register the current frame against the sum/average, correcting for the shift. Then Max Pixel Displacement would be the maximum shift allowed and Max FWHM must be used for selecting stars for registration. My scientific cameras have a fixed FOV, and no stars, so SLL can't correct frames for FOV shift. But you should certainly experiment with it for astro-imaging. 

Defective Pixel Removal : I am not sure how that works in SLL. I assumed it tries to replace anomalously bright/dark pixels with the average of surrounding pixels, but it doesn't remove all bright pixels, I suppose because some of the isolated pixels might be stars not noise, and of course it wouldn't work if adjacent pixels were bright. For my purposes I would switch it off, and use imageJ to clean up the image, removing noise, de-interlacing etc, and only then bin if required. ImageJ is like Photoshop for scientists including astronomers. I prefer collecting raw un-binned, unfiltered data and cleaning it up afterwards ?

Alan. 

 

[geminijk]

My 3.3 version now keeps crashing on start up!   I just updated the log on a similar issue on the BitBucket site. I'm extremely concerned about this program now, as I don't see any updates there on that site since April 2017!!

I'm so incredibly disappointed, as I consistently speak highly of this program, and the LSX2 on blogs, forums, podcast etc and now its just not working. I have been restoring my Mac and it worked fine for 2 sessions. Now it won't start. This happened one time before, and from the logs it seemed it was related to the FITS directory and it was a fix for me to get working by simply starting up the program after I ensured the directory was valid.  Now I have no clue. 

 

Attached my log file here, actually the crash report. I wanted so bad to be on NSN, now this.  I'm considering just loading up Windows on bootcamp, but honestly I love SkySafari and its what I use to control the scope. Just hate to part with it, and of course have a nice Mac sitting there doing well, nothing. 

 

John

 

Starlight Live Error Sierra.docx