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MaximDL Manual - UCSD Department of Physics

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1. COW Pod Cosscrara x E x E T j The Starlight Xpress cameras use open loop cooling so the cooler controls are not enabled when this camera is in use Note When configuring this driver in the Setup tab set Main CCD Camera to STAR2K MX7C and the Autoguider to Same as main camera Starlight Xpress SXV H9 For this driver choose SXV H9 on the Setup tab zizi EEr BEHT ma AHE erre Meee Coord ZO Asien Lad Seo quiere oe E j Brno Covent Ta Esp Chen Lipisis Praga rj Thi j fz The Starlight Xpress SXV H9 camera connects to the PC via a USB interface It optionally includes a second guider head in which case the camera works as a dual chip camera For autoguider support please select Same as main camera for the autoguider on the Setup tab When installing the camera for the first time the Starlight Xpress software should be installed first since the installation loads the camera firmware If multiple cameras are connected you can select the camera you want using Connect To When the autoguider head is installed you can swap the main camera and autoguider using Swap Chips The Update Progress setting is used to disable progress bar updates during image download Doing so can prevent horizontal streaking caused by pauses in the readout The Starlight Xpress cameras use open loop cooling so the cooler controls are not enabled when this camera is in use 4 36 Equipment Setup Video Direc
2. Chapter 8 Glossary Annulus Airy Disk Aliasing Aspect Ratio ADU Bias Frame Binning Butterworth Filter CCD Centroid Collimation Comma Separated Value CSV A ring the area between two concentric circles The disk of light that is produced by a telescope or other optical system when imaging a perfect point source such as a star assuming good optics and no atmospheric degradation of the image This disk is produced because of the wave nature of light and the limited size of the objective lens or mirror Distortion caused by sampling such as digital sampling of audio or the pixelated sampling a CCD performs on the incoming light If the sampling rate is too low the information will be distorted for example if you take a digital picture of lines that are spaced less than a two pixels apart you will not see the original lines Instead you will see ghost lines spaced farther apart The same effect makes wagon wheels appear to turn backwards in movies which are a series of pictures the samples updated only 24 times a second The ratio of width to height for the pixels in the image Normally one wants pixels with a 1 1 aspect ratio but many cameras which are based on video CCD chips have non square aspect ratios and must be interpolated to produce correct images Analog to Digital converter Unit The CCD detector outputs a voltage representing how many electrons were detected on a particular p
3. Supernova Search Tool Ajai Sehgal a member of the Puckett Observatory Supernova Search Team wrote a Supernova Search Tool for use with MaxIm DL It is an excellent example of how MaxIm DL s scripting interface allows it to be integrated with other applications The tool has been included as a bonus feature on the MaxIm DL disk The tool controls MaxIm DL to assist in examining before after image pairs when looking for supernovae It has been used to discover literally dozens of supernovae imi p eee E far El E L ho Sapara Es reh Tool YA oe F a eth E D E 4 a The initial screen allows you to select the Before and After directories as well as a location to save Reshoot images images that contain suspects which need to be followed up on The Before and After directories must contain sets of image pairs with the same names although they can be of different file types e g FITS and JPEG You can optionally turn on the Start from beginning check box to start at the first image Once you click Start the Supernova Search Control will pop up and MaxIm DL will 6 136 Command Reference be launched if it is not already open Move the Supernova Search Control to a convenient location say at the bottom of the screen to get it out of the way Every time you click the Next or Back buttons a new image pair will be shown You can also type in the image number into Current Index to go di
4. 6 126 Pseudo Color creates false color images from monochrome or color images Ten different schemes can be set up using the Color Scheme selector To name a scheme just type in the Color Scheme field At left are two color bars that form the translation index The gray levels left bar correspond to brightness levels in the selected image These are based on the current screen stretch settings changing the screen stretch on the selected image will change the effect of the processing Note you can adjust the screen stretch of an image while this dialog box is open if you first select the image with the mouse The right hand bar indicates what color the corresponding gray shade will be translated into The color scheme in this bar is created by drawing a line on the triangular color map The color map shows a gamut of color levels To draw a new color scheme select the desired slot in Color Scheme and click the Clear button if necessary to remove any previous lines Click once on the map on a color which you wish to correspond to black the exact red green and blue coordinates in color space are shown under Mouse Coordinates To set the point corresponding to white maximum brightness click a second point A line will be drawn between the two points and the color translation bar will be updated If the Auto Preview check box is on the Preview Image will show what the final image will look like to reposition the preview image dra
5. shapes We will remove the effects of the collimation error and reduce the effect of atmospheric seeing In this tutorial it is assumed that MaxIm DL has just been started To start MaxIm DL click on the program icon under the Start button s Programs sub menu It is also assumed that the toolbars are visible If not use the View menu Toolbar command to switch it on Open the N4565 CCD image in the Samples directory For help on opening files see the Open a File Tutorial Click the Zoom In button on the Toolbar once Notice how the star images are distorted by the collimation error Go to the Filter menu and select Deconvolve A tabbed dialog box will appear with Noise Model PSF Model and Deconvolve tabs First we need to set up the noise model This helps the deconvolution algorithm account for noise in the image Enter 36 6 e ADU the photoelectrons per ADU or Gain of the CCD camera This is necessary in order for the noise model to match the actual statistics in the image The value entered here is for the PC Lynxx camera for images from your CCD camera you can use the Photons Wizard to determine the correct value Next turn on Use Poisson distribution in Maximum Entropy To determine the correct background level click Auto Extract under Noise Extraction 2 9 Maxlm DL User Manual Tools SE a Hie Haia PSF hoii Discorrecien Panor Nora exi Espora Black Lera Dire O lar Parodi e Mee E racy
6. 6 114 noise amplification the algorithm will preferentially work on areas of the image that contain information The Poisson Noise distribution is required when using the Lucy Richardson method and is recommended when using the Maximum Entropy method on images from high performance cooled CCD cameras in the latter case you must check Use Poisson distribution in Maximum Entropy The e ADU photoelectrons per ADU setting is used to indicate the CCD camera gain and is required because Poisson noise statistics are based upon photon shot noise The value for e ADU is set automatically from the EGAIN keyword in the FITS header if present or can be entered manually or using the Photons Wizard which helps determine the proper setting for your camera The Background field is set just below the average background level in the image The Black Level Offset specifies the value of any offset that was added to the image before deconvolution and is set automatically to the negative of the value of the PEDESTAL keyword in the FITS header if present Otherwise set it to 0 for raw images or 100 if the image was calibrated in MaxIm DL ja Hot Medel PSF Model Daama Puan Hoop ON Baiga Jii Level st ks 4 miz hu 4 Fe ija Pore deban n bioan Entry Lindam Pipis Larrai g 1202 Pcia Esiet Taar a Aeneas A The usual choice for the Uniform Noise Level is the standard deviation of the pixel values in a part of t
7. Distribution 3 49 8 2 8 6 Dither 3 41 6 149 Dither Exposures 6 197 Divide 6 103 DLL 8 2 Document Object 7 2 Documents Object 7 3 Domes 4 1 Double Size 6 97 Drift Alignment 3 3 Driver Installation 4 1 DTA 4 2 4 8 Duplicate 6 26 Dynamic Link Library 8 2 Dynamic Range 2 6 2 9 3 2 3 17 3 34 3 53 6 25 6 64 6 98 6 101 8 2 Edit Menu 6 22 Edit Pixels 6 30 Edit Toolbar 6 54 Editing 3 45 Ellipse 6 27 Enter License 6 139 Entropy 2 9 8 3 Equalize Screen Stretch 6 24 6 64 Equipment Setup 4 1 Erosion 6 103 Error Codes 9 1 Even Field 6 33 Exit 6 22 Exponential 3 48 6 101 6 115 8 3 Export 6 50 Exporting Images 3 53 Expose Tab 6 140 Fast Calculation 6 15 Fast Fourier Transform 3 24 6 106 8 3 FFT 3 24 6 106 8 2 8 3 FFT Filter 6 109 FFT Filters 6 106 6 107 File Details 6 10 File Filter 6 2 6 10 File Format 1 7 2 2 3 26 5 1 6 1 6 3 6 10 6 12 6 98 File Formats 8 3 File Menu 6 1 File Toolbar 6 54 Filter 3 13 3 21 3 22 3 23 3 24 3 25 3 27 3 39 3 41 8 3 Filter Menu 6 103 Filter Toolbar 6 57 Filter wheel 4 28 Filter Wheel 6 175 Filter Wheel Setup 4 38 Filter Wheel Simulator 4 39 4 40 Filter Wheel Troubleshooting 9 10 Filter Wheels 4 4 Filtering 2 5 3 21 3 38 Filters 3 40 Finger Lakes 4 15 4 16 4 45 9 1 Finger Lakes Instrumentation 4 2 4 5 Finger Lakes Instrumentation CFW 1 4 45
8. Right click on any point in the graph to display a pop up menu showing the name of the file contributing that point and the three files immediately before and after Files which were processed are checked while those for which Exclude was checked are not You can change the inclusion exclusion status of any of these files by clicking on its name in the pop up menu The graph is immediately drawn with or without the affected point The Save Data button allows you to save the photometric data to disk as a Comma Separated Values CSV file These files are compatible with other software such as Microsoft Excel which can be used to perform additional analysis Precision allows you to set the numeric format for magnitudes in the file You can also use the Load Data button to import previously saved data and add it to the plot See the Open Photometry File command for more information and note that you cannot display the original images tags or filenames for imported data points Command Reference The Print button allows you to print the graph The standard Windows print dialog box will appear Jas ri ae hve amp a m You can adjust the appearance of the plot using the Plot Settings button The Photometry Plot Settings dialog box will appear You can change the appearance of the lines and symbols for the various tagged items Select the object whose curve you want to edit in the Symbology list Select the Symbol you
9. SkyObserver and Starry Night Pro For a complete list see http ascom standards org ACP Observatory Control Software ACP Observatory Control Software available from DC 3 Dreams S P is designed for automating and remotely operating observatories It uses MaxIm DL CCD for all camera control operations ACP provides completely automated scripted control allowing hundreds of images to be taken a night without human intervention ACP also contains a built in web server for remote control Two versions are available one for intranet operation and one for full remote control over the Internet E rare Lira Fran YI For more information please see http acp3 dc3 com ASCOM Dome Control Panel The ASCOM Dome Control Panel is an open source program written by the makers of MaxIm DL It works as an ASCOM hub intercepting telescope control and status information in order to calculate the required coordinates for the dome slit It also provides functions for homing parking opening closing etc Dome Control is installed with the ASCOM Platform Also included is the POTH Telescope Hub which can also provide a dome interface 5 5 Maxlm DL User Manual dl ALLA Dee Central Maret tae Coreei 11055 Erir Ta 14 ra er copa wE s MET iF Osta r OF Tw Es l EL ALLE FocusMax FocusMax is a third party tool that integrates with MaxIm DL CCD to provide enhanced autofocus capabilities It is fast and extreme
10. click anywhere on a column to set e Partial Row click and drag to select a portion of a row e Partial Column click and drag to select a portion of a row The selected region will be added to the table automatically Keyboard Map Generation This works the same as Mouse Map Generation except that the coordinates are entered manually using the X Y Begin and End edit boxes When the correct values are entered click the Add button to add it to the table Entries can also be deleted or modified First select the desired entry in the table by clicking on the item in the leftmost column of the row Mode column If you wish to modify the entry change the appropriate edit field and click Modify If you wish to delete the entry click the Delete button Add Noise This command is used for cosmetic improvement of images Adding a small amount of noise can cover up minor blemishes It can also solve the problem of areas with gradual 6 93 Maxlm DL User Manual changes in brightness the human eye is very effective at detecting the shift from one color or brightness level to the next resulting in a banded or contoured appearance Mach bands Adding a small amount of random noise can eliminate this visual effect is The Amplitude of the noise can be controlled as can the Type of statistical distribution Gaussian noise is typical of CCD images and is usually the best choice When Gaussian is selected the Amplitude controls the
11. fi Hie bia T ai Com E mr Ha Caida ios neem E r Sre lieg pis T idea cure al onl H R RiT C hadas E a C piacai Pini el ATA S vabi ing Moms MaxPoint also provides a hub which allows multiple programs to access the telescope at once 4 58 Equipment Setup Telescope Simulator The Telescope Simulator is a very powerful tool for testing scripts and learning about the operation of the telescope control features When activated a floating window appears that simulates the hand paddle of the telescope You can directly manipulate the telescope position from the hand paddle and watch the position change in the Telescope Control window The Setup dialog allows you to set the Site Information for the virtual telescope and select what type of mount it emulates The Always on Top check box controls whether the hand paddle floats on top of all other windows The Advanced gt gt button allows you to view a set of controls for switching on and off various functions of the telescope simulator The ASCOM Platform must be installed for this option to appear TheSky Controlled Telescope This driver allows you to link MaxIm DL to Software Bisque s TheSky planetarium software This allows you to control any telescope compatible with TheSky including the Paramount and also to use facilities such as TPoint The link will also transfer RA Dec coordinates from TheSky into MaxIm DL for addit
12. rasca 2 E C linia A S Fulin The Output Range is used when preparing a file to be saved in a format that has limited range The input range maps Min input to zero and Max to 255 4095 or 65535 depending on the settings i e output value input value output range input range Any values that exceed the limits are clipped The Unlimited setting disables all limiting and is recommended when performing Gamma and Log stretches it is appropriate when the image will be saved in floating point format Curves This command allows you to specify a transfer curve for the image The line graph is a mathematical transfer function with input along the horizontal axis and output along the vertical axis A flat line from bottom left to top right corner has no effect on the image Clicking on the graph area places control points which describe the curve The effect of these points depends on the Curve Type setting When Piecewise Linear is selected MaxIm DL generates a curve by drawing straight lines between each of the control points When Spline is selected a smooth curve is generated that is guaranteed to pass through each of the control points Selecting Modified Spline is the same as selecting Spline except that MaxIm DL automatically adds additional points to the curve to smooth it out still further Certain combinations of control points can produce curves with unexpected characteristics when using the Spline function but this probl
13. 02d 41m 10s 7 708 Gl HD219018 SAO128034 To calibrate your exposures take an image of one of these stars taking care to ensure that it is at a high altitude to avoid extinction Then simply use the Color Balance command to determine the proper scaling Another approach is to use a photographic grey scale card available from Kodak and sunlight Arrange for your telescope preferably shielded from sunlight to image a grey card placed in sunlight It will probably be necessary to stop down the instrument to reduce the light levels sufficiently to take an exposure without saturating The White Balance command is a simplified version of the same command which allows you to select a region of the image by creating a drag rectangle with the mouse It is more suited for lab imaging applications e g calibrating microscope imaging where a large white are can be imaged You can also adjust color balance using the Color Adjust command This command allows you to see the image with various adjustments applied and then pick the image with the best appearance Color Saturation Some processing commands such as Digital Development Processing can reduce the color saturation of a color image This can be compensated for using the Color 3 43 Maxlm DL User Manual Saturation command It is also possible to exaggerate color to make it more visible Note however that it is quite easy to overdo this and create an artificial
14. 3 20 3 23 8 4 Lognormal 6 101 8 4 Look and Feel 6 15 Lossless Compression 8 4 Low Pass 3 21 3 23 6 103 8 4 Low Pass Filtering 3 21 LRGB 6 122 6 154 LRGB Imaging 3 15 Lucy Richardson 8 4 Lucy Richardson Deconvolution 6 117 Luminance 3 41 6 100 8 5 LZW 6 1 6 3 Macros 6 46 Magnitude 3 19 6 39 8 5 Magnitude Calibration 6 42 Magnitude Range 6 66 Main CCD Camera 6 175 Make Pixels Square 6 97 Manual Star Shift Only 6 7 6 83 6 89 Manual 2 Stars 6 7 6 84 6 90 Manual Conventions 1 14 Manual Filter Wheel 4 5 4 46 Manual Stretch 6 35 Map Generation 6 93 Master Frames 6 80 Matching Large Optics 3 13 Matching Small Optics 3 13 MaxIm CCD 6 34 MaxIm DL CCD Objects 7 2 Maximum 6 39 6 51 Maximum Entropy Deconvolution 2 9 6 117 8 5 Maximum Likelihood Estimate 8 5 Maximum Number of Stars 6 66 Maximum Percentile 6 38 MaxPoint 4 58 5 7 Index Meade 4 2 4 5 4 18 4 19 4 20 4 47 4 48 9 5 Mean 6 51 Median 6 39 6 86 6 103 8 5 Median Filtering 3 40 Memory 1 1 Menu Tab 6 61 Minimum 6 39 6 51 Minimum Number of Stars to Identify 6 67 Minimum Percentile 6 38 Mirror 6 29 Missing Telescope And Focuser Drivers 9 2 Modified Spline 6 99 Monitor Calibration Tool 3 35 Monitor Setup 3 34 Monochrome 6 154 Mosaic 6 1 6 23 6 154 Mosaics 3 44 Most Recently Used 6 22 Mouse 1 10 Move 6 162 Move Commands 6 168 Move D
15. 4 10 4 41 9 1 Application Object 7 2 Arcsec 6 40 Area 6 41 Area Plot 6 51 Arrange Icons 6 138 ASCOM 4 6 7 3 ASCOM Dome Control Panel 4 7 5 5 ASCOM Hubs 4 6 Aspect Ratio 6 2 6 22 6 96 6 97 6 113 6 155 8 1 Astrometric 6 8 6 41 6 84 6 90 Astrometric Resynchronization 6 150 Astrometry 3 51 6 65 Audible Alarms 6 20 Audine 4 2 4 14 Auto Correlation 6 6 6 83 6 89 Auto Star Matching 6 7 6 83 6 89 Auto Calibration 6 142 Auto Center 2 26 6 180 Auto Dark 6 158 Auto Full Screen 1 10 Auto Stretch 6 11 6 12 Autodark 6 162 Auto Dark Subframe Extraction 6 143 Autofocus 3 6 Autofocus Tab 6 182 Autofocus Troubleshooting 9 11 Autofocus Tutorial 2 27 Autoguider 3 7 4 28 6 175 Autoguider Calibration 3 8 Autoguider Troubleshooting 9 7 Autoguiders 4 1 Autoguiding 2 21 3 7 Automatic Map Generation 6 93 Automatic Stretch 6 36 Automatic Stretch Setup 6 38 Autosave 6 148 Average 6 39 6 51 6 86 6 103 10 12 Background 6 114 Background Average 6 40 Background Removal 3 38 Background Standard Deviation 6 40 Backlash 6 165 Backlash and Stiction 3 9 Bad Pixel 6 92 Basic Operation 1 6 Basic Setup 2 12 Basic Stretching 3 18 Batch Save and Convert 6 11 Bias Frame 3 2 3 28 6 75 6 141 6 154 8 1 Bicubic Resample 6 5 6 29 6 82 6 88 6 112 Bin 6 32 Binning 3 5 3 6 3 12 3 15 3 26 3 46 6 32 6 123 6 143 6
16. Canal Puna image S Fl aj Sato Fil Fon Color Smoothing This command smoothes the color variations in the image without affecting the overall 6 130 Command Reference image sharpness Color composites can often contain color noise especially when CCD cameras with have low blue sensitivity are used Since the human eye is more sensitive to brightness variations than color variations the appearance of an image with color noise can be improved without losing sharpness This command is also useful for single shot color cameras Due to the arrangement of color filters on the detector color aliasing effects can appear around bright stars A mild filter with this command removes the unwanted color effects Ha Files Type oK RT Lo Pa A O famal Lo Paz Caro Eini LPi Hre Amped U e Dat oer Fil FFT Harina id Madam Hed Carol X tom Em 3 wep faro y Aja A Aste Fal been The Filter Type options work identically to those in the FFT Filter and Kernel Filter commands The Set User Filter button also works identically to the control of the same name in the Kernel Filter dialog For FFT Filters the Cutoff field controls the strength of the filter The Cutoff radius is entered as a percentage of the image dimensions Entering a smaller value produces a stronger filter i e it increases the radius of the blur The Weight field percent is used to control how much filtering
17. Horizontally siinne enia aese assi aiei 6 138 Tile Verncally erin eee i da sets a te e e banda e ET 6 138 Arrange ICONS airn ie a ii is 6 138 HEEPMENU ss rer e a eE e set be TET ET llo re 6 138 Help TOpiesicciscdecviig Raiesis deveiss A A 6 138 Check FOr Updates t ee e ee hte 6 139 Enter License isc sseccccesauvesss gieaindesessseadatwessssdeesdevansbassecdensdevasessdsacsacess ees 6 139 Register Onlin zy o enea e nea aa an E E E 6 140 About MAXIM D E E A A E OIE NEEE ROCE NON 6 140 CAMERA CONTROL WINDOW occccccccccnncncnonononnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnonononononononononnnnnonononononnnnnns 6 140 Expose Tab oiaiian ii rios 6 140 Settings TADA ia 6 142 Sequence Tab iii cs 6 147 FOCUS TAD ll ios iaa deci 6 157 Inspect Tab oiiire ikir ri kite sear er riiai 6 158 Guide Tabrani r r SERIE PONE EEA E E A SOR EE AA EREA PESOS 6 160 Setup Tabores e E TE E TONE es 6 174 TELESCOPE CONTROL WINDOW cccccceceeeceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeseseeesesseeeseesesssseeeeeeeees 6 177 Telescope Tabacos aia radiante 6 177 Catalos Tab A A 6 179 Center Tab AAA AA A iaa 6 180 FOCUSCE LAD as ISA E a e E eS iso dis 6 182 Autofocus TAD seccivecccsccesssetscesseascevadeescveadedsesuodsescuadedsdenederssanacesesencdeuaer 6 182 Setup TAD oor ris hes A sca ales vie RES 6 185 SBIG AO 7 CONTROL WINDOW oococcccccnnnnnonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnonononononnnonnnnnonononononononos 6 188 Overview of AO 7 Operati0M oooooccnonocncnnonannnnannnonanannnnnnnnnocnana conan anccnnnos 6
18. If Ignore Pixels Over is checked then any value exceeding the specified Command Reference value will also be excluded from the mean standard deviation calculation The Sigma Clip algorithm works as follows Once the mean and the standard deviation of the input pixels are known the pixel that is farthest from the mean is selected MaxIm DL will then calculate the number of standard deviations between the mean and the outlier pixel s value If the outlier pixel s value is fewer than Sigma Factor standard deviations from the mean then the calculated average is assigned to the output If the outlier pixel s value is greater than Sigma Factor standard deviations from the mean then the outlier pixel is discarded from the set of input pixels and the mean of the inputs is re calculated excluding the outlier The new mean is then assigned to the output pixel When using the SD Mask algorithm a similar technique is used The SD Mask algorithm works by repeatedly applying the same process to the image for a number of times given by the Number of passes With each pass the input images are normalized to the same intensity level see above for a description of normalization Then for each pixel in the output image the standard deviation of the set of input pixels is calculated If the standard deviation exceeds the Sigma Factor note that this parameter has a different effect and purpose than in Sigma Clip then the median of the input values is as
19. a low pass filter to the image to smooth out these sharp color variations This can also be fixed using the Color Smoothing command When one of the Optimized conversion settings is chosen in Select Camera the Undersampled option will become available Enabling this setting causes the algorithm to exaggerate the resulting colors slightly This produces more accurate colors when the image exposure was too short to provide good color information This command only works on raw monochrome images taken with the Starlight Xpress MX5 C and MX7 C cameras Using this command on images from other cameras will produce gibberish Convert RGB 6 134 This command converts RGB encoded CCD matrices to a color image Two examples of compatible cameras are the SBIG ST 2000XM Color and Starlight Xpress SXV H9C Monochrome images taken with the camera are actually encoded with RGB information in adjacent pixels These sensors have an alternating pattern of color dyes in front of the pixels The Convert RGB command converts this color information into the standard RGB color plane format used by MaxIm DL and other programs and provides for color balancing A 3H xi Soaking me T Hien ox oo Mid E Tv Di Coro Geen ion PP sen ae fe fio Revel Sealey Background Level aw a Gian 1517 Mp me 53 Feet o J dato Ful icmn Color images from CCD cameras typically require a background level adjustment This is accompli
20. apiet enc raadi ls ba catuan re ren d eee er ee oe a mmi berrion Calculate ures ba bebe gees mihe peed eed patted NER INH Serer var corde bo carers be cae Flatten Background The Flatten Background command can be used when the image background level 6 119 Maxlm DL User Manual 6 120 across the frame varies in a systematic way and not due to the subject itself Causes of these kinds of variation include a radial falloff in brightness due to instrumental vignetting the proximity or inclusion in the image of bright stars or planets or gradients due to sky glow moonlight or light pollution Such problems can be reduced or even eliminated in many images by using this command You specify four or more regions of the image to sample the command then estimates the background level at those positions and fits either a plane or a higher degree polynomial surface to the measured background at those locations The resulting surface is subtracted from the image thus reducing the variations Because the command is interactive you can preview the result and decide to add delete or move sample points You can also work around any foreground objects that would bias the background extraction in the Auto Remove Gradient and Auto Flatten Background commands xj Dacha ea D Core Bah arde Cancel Eakad background span E Pree lye From Background Fit pick the model you would like to use Simple bilinear or Complex 8
21. as for a Schmidt Cassegrain telescope focus the telescope with an eyepiece move the focus out 1000 steps and then pull the eyepiece out of the focuser until the image is sharp Measure the distance the eyepiece is moved You also need to set the Target 1 2 Flux Dia The Half Flux Diameter is a measure of how large the star images are in pixels obviously we want them to be as small as possible The target needs to be set somewhat higher than the optimum typically by 2 pixels This is required because the measurements are made on either side of focus not right at focus Typical values are 5 to 7 but it depends on how small your star images are at best focus You should also set up the exposure for the camera In the Find mode coarse focus the images are usually binned to speed up readout usually Bin 2x2 will do The Subframe Width and Height are used during fine focus smaller values speed 2 29 Maxlm DL User Manual 2 30 up the process but if they are too small the star may shift out of the box and the focus procedure might fail Once the settings are made click OK to close the dialog box Usually you only need to set these once After this focusing requires but a single click Now click the Start button Focusing takes a minute or two as MaxIm CCD first performs coarse focusing then switches to fine focus mode and determines the change in star image size on both sides of the region of best focus and fin
22. directory For help on opening files see the Open a File Tutorial On the File menu choose the Save As command Set File Format to JPEG Turn off the Auto Stretch check box The File Details box will now show Warning Selected file format cannot Maxlm DL User Manual accommodate largest pixel value in image Please enable Auto Stretch or use Stretch button to scale image Now turn on the Auto Stretch check box The message will change to NOTE Maximum pixel value exceeded Auto Stretch will rescale image buffer When Auto Stretch is on any image that will not fit into the range of the file format is automatically adjusted based upon the current Screen Stretch settings This means that any data outside the range displayed on the screen will be lost so make sure this is what you really want to do If you want to adjust the stretch manually click the Stretch button The Stretch dialog will appear If you set Permanent Stretch Type to Linear Only Input Range to Screen Stretch and Output Range to 8 bit you will get the exact same result as Auto Stretch Now click Save to save the file Camera Control Tutorials The MaxIm CCD camera control window is a powerful utility with many options and modes of operation It is highly recommended that new users follow this tutorial to learn the basic concepts of operating the camera The tutorial uses a CCD camera simulator The simulator behaves like a CCD camera but requi
23. of course turn dithering off altogether by clicking on the dither command in the menu that is currently checked In either case the size of the random excursions from the nominal center position is controlled by the Maximum Dither Deviation command which brings up a small dialog allowing you to enter the desired maximum excursion in pixels Maseru Deviate Ampiide cl didas in pc ET ie Enter a value up to 10 pixels and click OK or click the X Cancel button to dismiss the dialog without changing the dither amplitude Select the Setup Mosaic command to display the dialog used to define the geometry and placement of a mosaic at each tile of which the complete sequence is to be automatically captured You must also ensure that Capture Mosaic is checked in the Options button menu If you turn this option on and the telescope is not connected MaxIm CCD will display a reminder that you must do so before starting the sequence The Continue Mosaic command is enabled if you aborted the previous mosaic before it completed If Continue Mosaic is checked starting the sequence will resume capturing the mosaic from where it left off This allows you to suspend a mosaic in the event of clouds incipient dawn etc and continue later when conditions permit The information needed to continue the mosaic is stored as the settings of the Setup Mosaic dialog so 6 149 Maxlm DL User Manual 6 150 with certain exceptions you must not cha
24. to below 1 0 and adjust until you are happy with the effect in the Preview Image At this point some additional explanation of the Preview Image is in order You will notice that the Screen Stretch window is still available if it is not on you can turn it on using the button on the Toolbar Which image the Screen Stretch window affects is determined by the state of the Auto Preview push button and by where the focus is that is on which window you last clicked If Auto is off both the image buffer and the Preview Image always adjust together If Auto is on the Preview Image actually becomes a different image and is separately adjustable When you start a command dialog or after clicking on it the Preview Image has the focus and is therefore adjusted If you click on the main image window or its title bar it gets the focus and the Screen Stretch window will now adjust it instead To adjust the Preview Image again click anywhere on the dialog box You can also preview the result of the processing on the Full Screen Refer to the documentation of the Preview Image in the Command Reference for details of Full Screen previewing Histogram Specification 2 8 Histogram Specification is similar to Log or Gamma stretching but allows more direct control by allowing you to specify the exact shape of the desired histogram if you have not already done so open the DG_HaleBopp fits file in the Samples directory For help on opening files s
25. whether the entity being added is a command or a new menu 1 Select the appropriate entry in Categories so that the item you want to add is shown in Commands 2 Using the left mouse button click and drag the item from the Commands list to its desired location As you are dragging a small grey rectangle representing the item is shown attached to the mouse cursor arrow in addition a boxed x is shown just to the lower right of the arrow if the mouse cursor is not in an appropriate location for dropping the item releasing the mouse button at this point simply cancels the drag operation 3 When the mouse cursor is over a toolbar a heavy black I beam indicator appears between the two closest buttons showing where the new item would be placed if you release the mouse button On menus which open automatically as the mouse cursor travels over them and on vertically aligned toolbars the I beam indicator is horizontal Simply move the mouse so that the indicator is where you want the item to be placed and release the mouse button To move a button from one toolbar to another or to a different position on the same 6 59 Maxlm DL User Manual toolbar click and drag the button from its original location to its desired destination Again the mouse cursor indicates when the drop will be successful however dropping an existing button or menu as opposed to one from the Commands list in the Customize dialog will remove it from the sourc
26. 3 50 Guide to CCD Imaging Calibration and image stacking should be done first Hot and dead pixels should be fixed If the camera does not produce square pixels it is recommended that you interpolate them to a square aspect ratio before proceeding It is strongly recommended that any other processing functions be deferred until after deconvolution is run If you are using a Uniform noise model you might also try experimenting with the Uniform Noise Level A higher noise level will reduce the convergence rate making it easier to converge and a lower one will increase it For either noise model some experimentation with the Background Level may also be in order since selecting a proper background level is essential for good results You can use subframe deconvolution to determine whether your settings will work Deconvolution algorithms use Fast Fourier Transforms this means they work only on images whose width and height are both powers of two dimensions e g 256 512 1024 2048 If your image size is not of this form it will be padded up to the next larger size If your image is just slightly larger than a power of two it is best to crop it slightly this will produce better convergence and faster processing One problem is the tendency for deconvolution to dig round holes around stars donuts To minimize these make sure the background level is set appropriately For non scientific applications these donuts can be cosme
27. 6 122 RMS Window 6 172 Root Mean Square 8 6 Roper 4 3 4 21 Rotate 6 29 Rotate 180 6 29 Rotate Image 6 144 Rotate Left 6 29 Index Rotate Right 6 29 Rotational Gradient 3 40 6 111 Ruler 6 27 Run Script 6 21 Same as Main Camera 4 9 Same As Main Camera 6 175 Same As Main Scope 6 19 Sample Scripts 7 1 Santa Barbara Instrument Group 4 24 4 25 Save 1 12 6 9 6 11 Save All 6 11 Save As 6 10 Saving 2 11 Saving Images 1 8 SBIG 4 3 4 5 4 22 4 23 4 24 4 25 4 26 6 1 6 10 6 188 9 2 9 6 SBIG CFW 6A 4 52 SBIG CFW8 4 51 4 52 SBIG Filter Wheels on Serial Port 4 57 SBIG Parallel 4 53 SBIG ST 2000XM Color 6 134 SBIG ST 4 4 24 SBIG ST 5 4 25 4 51 SBIG ST 6 4 52 SBIG ST 6 4 25 SBIG STV 4 52 SBIG Universal 4 22 SBIG Universal Filter Wheel 4 50 SBIG Compatible Filter Wheels 4 50 Scaling 8 6 Screen Stretch 6 64 Screen Stretch Window 6 34 Script 6 152 Scripting 7 1 Scripting Languages 7 1 Scripts 6 21 SCSI 4 20 Search Area 6 66 Select Images 6 3 6 63 6 64 6 86 Sequence Number 6 69 10 19 Maxlm DL User Manual Sequence Tab 6 147 Sequence Wizard 6 153 Set Calibration 6 75 Settings 6 14 Settings Tab 6 142 Setup 4 1 Setup Mosaic 6 154 Setup Sequence 6 151 Setup Tab 6 174 6 185 Sharpening 3 39 SharpStar 3 6 6 182 Shutdown 2 23 Shutter Latency Measurement 6 145 Sigma Clip 6 4 6 87 Signal to Noi
28. A method called Weiner filtering solves the divide by zero problem but with this technique the noise amplification is so severe that it is not practical for most images The solution to all this is to use something called an iterative deconvolution algorithm With an iterative algorithm the computer first calculates an approximation of the deconvolved image The same process is repeated using the first approximation as input to calculate a better approximation This process is repeated again and again until the process converges to the correct result There are some relatively simple iterative algorithms but they do not work well on typical real life images in particular due to noise amplification Maximum Entropy and Lucy Richardson Deconvolution are highly complex iterative algorithms that are designed to overcome noise amplification problems Other Filters Rotational Gradient is a method for emphasizing subtle detail in an object that is nearly rotationally symmetrical such as extracting jets from a comet image Rank Filters take the area around a pixel sort the values within that area and then pick out a value according to its percentile ranking in the list These filters strongly emphasize small differences between adjacent pixels Local Adaptive Filters selectively emphasize image features that are lower contrast by boosting brightness differences in areas that have low standard deviations compared to 3 25 Maxlm DL User
29. AO 7 function on the Locate tab Normal X and Y values are in the 60 to 90 range These values may be larger if a filter wheel is installed between the AO 7 and the camera due to the extra distance between the mirror and the detector The X and Y values should be within a factor of two of each other oi Cen Licata Tack Dive Sete i Precio Speed Daberg M hrany E l Diha Epoa xa Ez a r o mami 3 E Teck Boe E gt 1625 amme q PT E a Soll sal loca If star drift during the AO 7 calibration is too great the AO 7 Tracking Speed values may be incorrectly set This could occur because of very poor polar alignment or periodic error If both the X and Y directions are incorrect by the same amount adjusting the Aggressiveness while autoguiding would compensate for the tracking speed However if the stars on the main exposure are oval shaped either the X or the Y but not both AO 7 Tracking Speed will have to be manually adjusted N B Increasing the Tracking Speed is akin to decreasing the Aggressiveness and vice versa Calibrating using a very bright star and a very short exposure will minimize this problem Remember that the AO 7 calibration only needs to be done once unless the hardware is modified The Reverse X Reverse Y and Swap Axes check boxes are automatically set using the Calibrate AO 7 mode on the Locate tab However they can be set manually if the Manual Settings check box is checked The Swap Axes check box is tu
30. At the top end is saturation where the well fills up and may even start to bloom bleed into adjacent pixels A high dynamic range is extremely important for imaging astronomical targets which have extreme differences in brightness levels Low well depth cameras limit the number of digital light levels that can be extracted from the pixels There is no point in recording too much below the noise floor nor too much above the saturation level Smaller pixels make for lower well depths point and shoot digital cameras often cannot produce even 256 different discernable levels 8 bit images High performance CCD cameras can often produce 65536 levels 16 bit although quite a few cameras are marketed as being 16 bit when they cannot produce nearly that many distinct brightness levels The images produced by CCD cameras are not perfect Each pixel in each camera tends to produce a particular voltage offset rate of dark current production and sensitivity to light These flaws can be very accurately corrected using calibration frames one each for offset the bias frame dark current the dark frame and sensitivity variations the flat field frame Calibration makes a huge difference to the accuracy and sensitivity of the camera therefore calibration is also one of the most important functions of MaxIm DL Guide to CCD Imaging Using CCD Cameras CCD cameras can be difficult to use at first particularly in astronomical applications
31. Auto Next check box Every time the mouse is clicked on the image the next image will automatically be displayed When all of the images have been registered the computer will beep If Auto Next is not being used you can move through the images using the Next Image and Previous Image buttons If the reference point is a star or similar point source of light turn on the Use Centroid check box At each clicked location a centroid will automatically be calculated and used to refine the adjustment to the sub pixel level One of the images can be set as the reference image using the Set As Reference button The selected image will not be moved and all other images will be adjusted to align with it If any image in the sequence is of poor quality click the Reject Image button Rejected images are shown with a large red X superimposed they are excluded from the alignment process and will be unaffected even if you click OK You can restore a rejected image by clicking on the button again If you have not clicked on an image then no reference point exists for that image it cannot be aligned and it will be automatically rejected when you click OK 6 83 Maxlm DL User Manual 6 84 To determine if the results are satisfactory click the Overlay All Images button to produce a preview Manual 2 stars This method is similar to the Manual 1 star method but performs both a shift and rotate using two registration points Each image is pres
32. CR A A AA E OM IRC E PRL eA Eas Sess 6 22 EDIT MENU ista iones steeuieeaubons 6 22 AA RR 6 22 REDO A BEG BEE AEA EPR REN EEE EE 6 22 COPs dd sadusdes desvedes eaivecet es 6 23 Maxlm DL User Manual PASE A EAA IE OE ORE ESE 6 23 CHOP ssscs desde AAA AAA AAA 6 23 MOSCAS AA AAA RIE AAA OEE EE ERE ELS 6 23 Duplicate e e a edad 6 26 AA TA 6 26 E A hoa ON A A A 6 29 MitrOt oientaman isa 6 29 Rotate left rrin a e a r a oe EEE Ea eE 6 29 Rotate RiBltiniuanonsian iia anio Narda ianei aiee Eas 6 29 Rotated O yassi A EA E E 6 29 Rotation ais EVES SAEN NE 6 29 Edit PINCUS ki ida eee 6 30 Clone Too da 6 30 BIO DADA Bs O EEE EAE O electa 6 32 BA dais 6 32 Deinterlace art dt rd dada dera dad 6 32 VIEW MENU e T OEO EE ER nani 6 33 Zoom COMMA aia EE 6 33 Full SCENES A A A AEE OI 6 34 CED Control Win dOW cesses 25g cei does ses t ind e i aa 6 34 Telescope Control WindOW oooooonincononccnonancnnnnononncnannn conan conan ncnnncccana conan 6 34 Screen Stretch Window ancicn ana a a 6 34 Information Window scccscccesecesseceeseeeeseeceseecescaeesseecsscecssaecesaeeeseeesneees 6 39 Zoom Wmd OW ereina a a a e a e i a e 6 44 FTES HQ er EE iia 6 44 Command Sequence nosnici eiia aiaa 6 46 Line Profile adidas 6 49 NTBMEVISIO A A e O 6 52 TOOLDGIS a E 6 52 STATUS BOT 5 oo P5585 Gs tias 6 62 ANIMA a aid 6 62 Equalize Screen StretCh ooooocinccnoncnonanonnonnnnonnnnonnnncnnnnc nn nono nc rnnn crac a ncnnnos 6 64 ANALYZE MENU use oe nee 6 65 P
33. Do not turn on the preview at first otherwise when you have just a few points the poorly constrained model may make it difficult to see what you are doing If parts of the image background still look to bright or too faint add measurement points in those regions If you click in the wrong spot grab the circle with the mouse and move it Once the image background looks smooth and level click OK to make the changes permanent Filtering Filtering is primarily used for two purposes sharpening fine detail and smoothing out noise Since noise and fine detail often appear in different parts of an image with careful application it is frequently possible to do both at the same time 3 38 Guide to CCD Imaging Noise Reduction Low pass smoothing filters make an image blurrier However they also have the effect of reducing noise If you take a set of measurements of the same quantity and average them together the resulting combined result will be more accurate and have less noise Similarly if you sum the results from several adjacent pixels any correlation between the pixels is amplified and any differences are reduced Noise is always uncorrelated because each pixel makes its own independent measurement There is always some correlation between pixels in a properly sampled image because by definition there are no spatial frequencies higher than half the sample rate Therefore simply averaging together adjacent pixels will reduce t
34. EOT me mpare E orde gada ADU vakar r Em Laa D Fuara opamaton air csan Starlight Xpress HX5 For this driver choose SX HX5 on the Setup tab The Starlight Xpress HX516 cameras connect to the PC via a standard parallel printer port The computer s parallel port address must be selected in Port Set Interface to Fast Parallel if the fast parallel interface option is being used otherwise select Direct SSS 115 E ca noa C Sa os ers Coc The Speed Adj is normally set to 100 but can be used to adjust the download speed of the camera Many users adjust this to the highest setting that does not corrupt the image to provide the highest download speed Note that when using the Fast Parallel Interface the adjustment inside the interface box has a greater effect on the download speed Interrupts can be set to Disable to prevent other programs from running during the program download if other programs are interfering with the download and causing 4 29 Maxlm DL User Manual spurious noise When using this mode it is recommended to include a 1 second delay between exposures when doing rapid focus frames otherwise it may be difficult to stop the exposures since the mouse freezes This option has no effect under Windows NT 2000 XP nor is it necessary These cameras use open loop cooling so the cooler controls are not enabled when this camera is in use Tip for best performance the USB interface upgrade is high
35. Entropy method try switching to Uniform Noise model instead 6 Try doubling the Uniform Noise Level incrementally beginning with the value recommended by Auto Extract Retry deconvolution each time until the image converges Do not increase the Uniform Noise Level beyond that required to obtain convergence try to find the minimum setting that works Why is the Subset Better If you are finding that a subset image looks better than the final processed result chances are that you have poor noise model settings In many cases smaller images can converge more easily than larger ones Try adjusting your noise model settings Photons Wizard The Photons Wizard helps you determine the gain of your CCD camera This information about the gain is needed for use with the Poisson noise model when initializing deconvolution The Wizard explains how to determine this information Three different techniques are available enter the value from the camera s manual calculate the value based upon full well capacity and bit depth or calculate the value using statistics gathered from a set of bias and flat field calibration frames The latter is often more accurate since some CCD camera manufacturers do not control the camera gain carefully ano eard i Cieri Phora Pa ADU rake ir i in ie mia the pha ade ceeded bp En pet reed lo heen the econ gan the cone abaka coed Photo pm AD The should be areas lora pour Career rra bul pora i nol pen
36. Filtering 3 22 HiSIS 4 17 Hi SIS 4 2 Histogram 2 8 3 19 3 20 6 37 8 4 8 6 Histogram Specification 2 8 3 20 3 37 6 100 Histograms 3 19 Homeyer 4 5 4 54 Horizontal Box 6 51 Horizontal Line 6 51 Hot Pixel 6 103 8 4 HX516 4 29 HX516 USB 4 30 HX916 4 30 Identify 6 67 IEEE 1394 4 37 IEEE Float 8 4 Image Buffers 6 1 8 4 Image Calibration 3 28 Image Parameters 6 66 Image Processing 3 17 10 16 Image Processing Plug In Modules 7 3 Image Processing Plug ins 5 6 Image Scale 3 12 Image Selection 6 69 Image Tabs 6 15 Incorrect UT Date Time 9 4 Increase Annulus 1 13 Increase Aperture 1 13 Increase Gap Width 1 13 Index 10 12 Information 2 10 Information Window 6 39 Infrared Sensitivity 3 15 Input Range 6 98 Inspect Tab 6 158 Installation 1 2 Installation Troubleshooting 1 4 Installing Plug Ins 7 3 INSTRUME 6 18 Integration 4 37 Intensity 6 39 Internet 1 3 Internet Explorer 1 1 Internet Installation 1 3 Interpolate Pixels to Square 6 2 ISI 4 2 4 8 Iterations 6 118 JPEG 6 1 JScript 6 21 7 1 Kernel Filter 2 5 3 40 6 107 6 109 8 4 Kernel Filters 6 103 Kernel Size 6 103 Keyboard 1 12 L a b 6 123 Larson Sekanina 6 112 LCMY 6 122 License 6 139 Limitations 6 3 Line 6 27 6 51 Line Profile 6 49 Linear Only 6 98 Local Adaptive filter 3 40 Local Adaptive Filter 6 111 Log Rescale 3 19 3 20 Logarithm 3 19
37. Focusing Focusing is not as critical for autoguiding as for imaging however poor focus can result in a loss of sensitivity For dual chip SBIG cameras and STAR2000 equipped Starlight Xpress cameras the tracking CCD is automatically in focus once the main camera is focused For all other cameras you can use the Focus and Inspect tabs to help with focusing the guider The Inspect tab provides a variety of tools for determining best focus Autoguider Calibration 3 8 In order to properly control the mount MaxIm CCD must calibrate the system The exact orientation of the autoguider the focal length of the guide telescope optics and the speed of the motor drive all affect the calibration For best results place a bright star in the field of view of the autoguider imager near the center of the field Take an exposure using the Guide tab s Expose mode the guide star will be picked automatically or you can click on one using the mouse Now start the calibration function by selecting the Calibrate mode and clicking Start MaxIm CCD will take a series of five full frame exposures moving the mount between each exposure This will allow it to determine how fast the mount moves in each direction The motion between successive exposures are in the X X Y and then Y direction The star must move at least five pixels between each exposure for an accurate measurement and preferably more If the star does not move at least five pixels a
38. For cameras that do not have internal relays the following options are available Starlight Xpress relay box direct parallel port control and control via the Telescope Control window To determine the correct selection for the camera autoguider and filter wheel mode please see Driver Installation and Setup Telescope Control Window Telescope Tab The Telescope tab allows you to position the telescope manually either by supplying Right Ascension and Declination coordinates or by nudging it in a prescribed direction by an adjustable amount Us Pelercopa Catalog Corie Fou iaiia Seta Tah Sls Bi Tegel ocios Haig aro ma face re rea BREE pee loom H El wj E ame s n DE y To go to a specific position on the sky enter the Right Ascension RA and Declination Dec These should be entered as hours degrees minutes seconds You can skip the seconds field or skip both the seconds and minutes fields The last number entered can x 6 177 Maxlm DL User Manual 6 178 be entered with a decimal point for example 12 8417 is the same as 12 50 5 or 12 50 30 The RA and Dec can be entered using the spin controls up down buttons Position the cursor on the hours degrees minutes or seconds and click the spin control Only the selected field will be adjusted Once a position is entered click the Go To button to start the telescope slewing to the desired position If you want to stop
39. Graph command erases all data from the graph If the guider is active the next measurement made will begin a new graph resetting the reference time shown in the window title to the current time Tracking Error Alarms The Tracking Error Alarms window allows you to define both the conditions that warrant a tracking alarm and the actions that MaxIm CCD is to take when they occur It is also used to acknowledge reset an alarm condition Pra Error Alarma Hal Pegas Adra E Isam aoraada 00 H pasii 1 Hays T i pais de nal deteciad Jadal la E oa Alem docs Pla br clado bom M Eia mar rr I Arpa r F PO P The two check boxes in the Trigger Alarm section define the conditions under which 6 173 Maxlm DL User Manual an alarm is issued The first If error exceeds specifies a limit on the guide errors X Err and Y Err as reported on the Guide tab together with the number of consecutive cycles autoguider images that the error must be out of limits before the alarm is triggered The second If guide star not detected specifies that an alarm is raised if the guide star is lost or fades below the level at which MaxIm CCD recognizes it again for a certain number of consecutive cycles You can select either both or neither type of alarm The Alarm Actions specify how MaxIm CCD signals the occurrence of an alarm condition First the Tracking Error Alarms window is always displayed regardless of which other actions are
40. Group Please contact SBIG for more information When running under Windows NT 2000 other applications which run the older version of the SBIG drivers may uninstall the driver used with MaxIm DL CCD If this occurs run the SBIG Driver Checker program to reinstall the driver This program is automatically installed with MaxIm DL and is typically located in the folder C Program Files SBIG Driver Checker Re installing the driver must be done from an Administrator level account Note under Windows NT 2000 due to the design of SBIG s camera driver the Port Address camera setup dialog may not correspond to the actual address on the system If you cannot connect to the camera try all three addresses For parallel port cameras make sure the parallel port is set to Standard not ECP or EPP in BIOS This sometimes causes communications errors Error 17 shutter error may indicate a problem with the camera shutter This problem can be intermittent MaxIm CCD will retry on shutter errors up to a point If you get this error often contact SBIG The drivers for serial port cameras were developed by Diffraction Limited Starlight Xpress Cameras 9 6 Starlight Xpress camera drivers were developed by Diffraction Limited based upon information provided by Starlight Xpress Please note the following e In Windows NT 2000 MaxIm DL must be installed using an Administrator level account in order for the parallel port drivers to be installed
41. HELAS B l bi Wi Hoe GALS EM HTIHGCZA BALSY H F fl 400 Om pemi Goto Cor 13 In Included catalogs turn on the Messier and NGC check boxes and turn off the others Set Brighter than mag to magnitude 10 and the Max slew distance to 10 degrees Turn off Include objects with unspecified magnitude Click List objects Click on an object e g NGC185 and its RA and Dec are displayed Click on Go To or double click on the object name and the telescope will slew to the object 14 When working with a real telescope you can also synchronize or align the telescope position Slew to an object say a bright star on the Named Stars list and center it using the Nudge controls on the Telescope tab or see below for Auto Center Then click the Syne button to update the telescope controller s coordinates to that of the object Alternatively use the PinPoint Astrometry function on the Analyze menu to calculate the exact center of the image and click Sync to align on the measured position Auto Center Auto Center permits extremely rapid object centering This tutorial will require a real telescope and camera operating under the night sky We will assume that the Telescope Control is already linked to a telescope and the MaxIm CCD camera control window 1s linked to a camera 1 Make sure the Telescope is synchronized on the sky so that the Right Ascension and Declination matches the telescope position Also make sure the CCD camera is focu
42. Hand buttons they increase or decrease the image magnification to the next step larger or smaller But unlike the toolbar buttons these scroll the image window so that the point that you had clicked the right mouse button on is centered as far as that is possible Think of them as zoom here and unzoom here Point telescope here is enabled only when the image is the most recent image captured from the CCD camera a telescope is connected and telescope centering calibration has been performed It slews the telescope by the necessary amount so that the next image is centered on the point where you clicked the right mouse button This function is more fully explained in the description of the Center Tab of the Telescope Control Window Any additional context menu entries specific to the command currently being performed 1 13 Maxlm DL User Manual normally appear at the top of the context menu Technical Support Before requesting technical support please review this manual for troubleshooting instructions When requesting technical support you must include the following information e Your name as it appears on the license e Telephone number e E mail address e Version of Windows e Any error message displayed e Describe step by step how the problem occurred We must be able to replicate the actions that caused the problem If we cannot duplicate your problem it will be very difficult to resolve it To submit your message
43. Hera Se 10 Pioi Llar m F uia un Mux fi Parad oldrg rue Die pij 4 Mee Beng s Hapine E idi nf Hao Y Ca _ 1 to Open Photometry File 6 74 This command brings up the Photometry plot without analyzing new data Instead data is read from a Comma Separated Values CSV file Once the file has been loaded the standard Photometry plot is displayed Please see the Photometry command for an explanation of the Photometry plot Cra Bor c 0 Fin of pe Caran Geparadad viales Tans Die peques mier by FT 3 i j The dialog box allows you to browse the computer disk and select a CSV file When you have selected the file click Open to load it into the plot The Discard All button is enabled only if data has already been loaded Clicking Discard All erases all previous loaded data from the plot and returns to the Photometry plot Otherwise the new data Command Reference will be loaded on top of the old data Data can be combined into a single plot from multiple files only if the same type of abscissa time information is used in all of them otherwise an error is reported When the abscissa is a sequence number you can set Offset sequence numbers by to an arbitrary integer this value is added to the newly imported data to distinguish it from data loaded earlier or analyzed in the current Photometry session Typically the offset should increase from one file to the next by the number of measuremen
44. Image Star provides the position and magnitude of the star within the aperture that closest to the center is used if there is more than one as determined by PinPoint Catalog Star provides information on stars that were identified in the catalog used during analysis This includes the identity of the star the position and magnitude as provided by the catalog The table of the catalog and image stars detected in the image which is used to display Image Star and Catalog Star information as you probe the image with the circular cursor is not recorded when an image is saved to disk This information is therefore not available when an image is loaded unless you re solve the image using PinPoint Astrometry Calibrate 6 42 Various displays can be calibrated by clicking the Calibrate button Magnitude Calibration sets up the Magnitude display on the Information window You need to enter the Intensity and known Magnitude of a star on the image as well as the Exposure time used for the image Once these values are known the magnitude calibration will be accurate for any image taken with the same camera note some cameras have multiple modes which may affect this Although the magnitude for the star must be obtained from other sources Intensity can be entered easily using the mouse Click Extract from image and point the mouse cursor at a star in the image for which the magnitude is known Adjust the aperture to include the entire star image Cl
45. Maximum Threshold can be turned on off using the Enable check box If Zero is on values above the threshold level are set to zero If Zero is off values above the threshold level are set to the threshold level The Minimum Threshold can be turned on off using the Enable check box If Zero is on values below the threshold level are set to zero If Zero is off values below the threshold level are set to the threshold level Pixel Math 6 102 The Pixel Math command allows you to perform a pixel by pixel mathematical operation on either a single image or two images The Image A and Image B fields allow you to specify the images only Image A is available if the Operation is None Scale Factors in percent can be applied to each image before the operation and a Constant can be added after the operation After the constant is added any negative values are forced to zero When performing Pixel Math on a single image the only operation available to be performed on it is Scale Factor A value of 100 results in no change while 50 and 200 would change pixel values to one half and double their original values respectively When working with two images the order of operations proceeds as follows e Pixel values in both Image A and Image B are multiplied by their respective Scale Factors e Depending on the operand selected in Operation the mathematical operation Command Reference is performed as either A plus B Add A minus B
46. Pani ral Dimis a F Pmp Mies fie Shee E A atten Dikir aI 4 ym zd amiming E TA The software needs to know the Image Scale in arc seconds per pixel for unbinned exposures and the Orientation of the camera in degrees where zero degrees means that north is at the top of the image You can enter these values explicitly by setting the Calibration Type to Manual but it is simpler to perform an automatic calibration To do this select Auto Enter an Auto Slew Distance in arc minutes For good results this should typically be set to about 4 of your CCD field of view Image a field containing a suitable calibration star and roughly center it in the camera using the Nudge buttons on the Telescope tab MaxIm CCD will use the brightest star in the field so for reliable calibration all other stars in the field should be measurably fainter On the other hand the star must not be so bright as to saturate or bloom the CCD Click the Calibrate button The camera will now take an exposure using the settings in the Exposure button s Post slew exposure settings dialog Then the telescope will slew eastward by the amount specified by Auto Slew Distance and the camera will take a second exposure The distance in pixels and angle of motion of the star across the CCD are measured the calibration values are calculated and the Image Scale and Orientation are displayed The telescope will automatically move back to the original position and take
47. Readout to show the state of the external readout trigger and when the camera has stabilized At Temperature To save screen real estate the dialog box can be shrunk to show just the Interface section Ape Abe al t te Griegi iia Kiini a Hara Gea _fomh Pruett The camera selection dialog box is brought up when the Discover button is clicked Select USB 2 0 and or Ethernet If Ethernet you must specify a Network Mask which limits the subnet that is searched When you click Search the software will generate a list of available cameras if any You can select the camera by clicking on it in the list and then clicking OK 4 13 Maxlm DL User Manual Audine Genesis For this driver choose Audine on the Setup tab EL Tixi Baki ere vean AL opat je 007 O Pl cin Lil Es Appa ma Cow Lars Piai AA Poca Fa Fie Gean Tape Sherer Lege Pai AAA E foe o O The Audine Genesis driver is selected using the Audine selection in the Setup tab The driver supports shutter operation and up to 8x8 binning Select the parallel port address using Port If your Audine is connected using a QuickAudine USB interface connect to it by selecting the USB option form the Port drop down In order to prevent image corruption caused by readout delays interrupts can be disabled during readout in Windows 98 ME by setting Interrupts to Disable Focus Fast Flush turns on off a fast flushing mode The slow flushing mode more th
48. Stretch window which only affects the how an image appears on the display the Stretch command actually changes the image data pixel values in the memory buffer There are three elements which must be set the Permanent Stretch Type the Input Range and the Output Range The Linear Only mode is useful for adjusting the range of pixels to match a particular file format The Log mode is useful for compressing the dynamic range of the image but can be rather harsh The Gamma mode allows you to selectively emphasize bright or dim parts of the image by entering a suitable Gamma Value A Gamma of 1 has no effect less than 1 will emphasize faint details while a value greater than 1 will emphasize bright details The Input Range can be set to Screen Stretch which produces an output in Linear Mode that matches the current screen appearance Note that the minimum and maximum values are always taken from the Screen Stretch window for the original image not that of the preview This is useful in producing final images for output to 8 bit image formats which have limited range The Max Pixel selection sets the input range from 0 to the brightest pixel in the image This prevents any image pixels from being saturated in the final result but may produce images with low contrast You can also manually set values in a similar fashion to the Screen Stretch window Command Reference beget Aiaj Maa Pinal Econ jich dad Lata E thii El hb 4065
49. This section describes some useful techniques for the efficient use of CCD cameras Polar Alignment Good telescope polar alignment is important for long exposure CCD imaging When acquiring targets using the small field of view typical of many CCD imaging systems accurate positioning requires good polar alignment Inaccurate alignment also leads to drift which limits the amount of time an exposure can be taken before the stars begin to blur Even if you are autoguiding larger drift makes for more corrections and potentially lower guiding accuracy Finally with large CCD frames and high declinations field rotation becomes a significant factor Polar Alignment Scope Many telescopes include a polar alignment scope These can work reasonably well if they are aligned properly with the mount Unfortunately they rarely come from the factory aligned with the polar axis and some of these devices change alignment if the focus is adjusted Even if they are well adjusted the accuracy of the polar alignment is limited to the resolution of the alignment telescope Telescope mount modeling software such as MaxPoint builds up a model of mechanical errors in the mounting by looking at the difference between the commanded position and the actual telescope position This naturally includes the polar alignment error which can simply be read off as a pair of numbers Achieving accurate results requires measuring the pointing error at a number of point
50. Use telescope s location is selected and geographical coordinates are available from the telescope the Latitude Longitude and Elevation m edit boxes are set to read only Otherwise you can use them to enter your observatory s Latitude Longitude and Elevation in meters manually The Latitude and Longitude fields work the same way as similar fields elsewhere in MaxIm DL you can enter decimal degrees Command Reference degrees and decimal minutes or degrees minutes and decimal seconds You can also adjust the individual degrees minutes and seconds fields by positioning the cursor on one and clicking the spin control up down buttons MaxIm DL always labels a newly acquired image with the date time from the computer clock The Computer field shows the current time allowing you to verify that your computer clock and time zone are set appropriately Similarly the Telescope field reports the time as reported from the telescope if it is available ax Gaal ATE Haria Seared Dias ancl Adana Site brenr Ursem Tre F Los takama r Corpais A En Laidas oN g ie Lowe DIE na Eberradion ird m Sy Bun Top de Tene Focal Length jen Soot Racal Length fore E Spies ra wi lt Spetare eva jo Dbairunian T 7 Sadao 2 eee Pd Fields in the Main Telescope frame are used to specify the Focal Length Aperture and percentage Obstruction of the telescope or other optical system through which your imaging camera is
51. Visual Basic or Microsoft Visual C Sample projects for both compilers are provided in subdirectories of the MaxIm DL program directory Visual Basic Copy the sample Visual Basic sample code to a new place on your hard drive You need to change the name of your plug in object so it will not conflict with others Open the project in Visual Basic Select the project Properties on the Project menu Change the Project Name and Project Description You should also copy the Project Description text into the Object Browser as follows 1 Open the Object Browser using the View menu Object Browser command 2 Where it says lt All Libraries gt select the name you entered for Project Name 3 Right click on PlugIn and enter the same text used in Project Description 7 3 Maxlm DL User Manual You are now ready to modify the plug in code to add your own algorithms Visual C 7 4 You can copy the sample code and modify it but it is probably just as simple and more instructive to start with a new project You can refer to the sample code as needed tip load both projects into a single workspace In Developer Studio click File menu New Select the Projects tab and click ATL COM AppWizard Type in a project name and specify a location for it If the sample plug in is already open you can select Add to current workspace Click OK On the page that appears select Dynamic Link Library DLL and turn on Support MFC MFC allows you to
52. Windows XP are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation Other product names mentioned in this publication may be trademarks of other companies Manual Version 040503 Maxlm DL User Manual Table of Contents CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ccccsssssssssccsssssssssssssssscssscsssssssssssssscsses 1 1 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS re e a vesessveecdeuevevsecstecsveves seca ceenevesedveecatedevessesveecvene 1 1 Alternative Operating Systems cooooocnonnonnnconanononnonannnnanannnncnnnnncnnncnnn noria noo 1 1 INSTALLATION nn a david 1 2 CD ROM Installation nn Lot coeds a odo Sen 050s sho E ce de 1 2 Internet Installation catalina cataiids 1 3 UP STAGES 22 A ad a 1 4 Installation Troubleshooting ocoonnnnonnnnnonccconannnnnonannonnnncnnnnc cnn nonncrnnancnnnos 1 4 ISFELD H SNIH OI AVEA SEE laos 1 6 Accessing IMageS x cecsicavesiecsnaiacedevssouscanaiedesseesubacctedececetevanacedadetscovsaenasszeds 1 7 High Bit Depth Imap ESen n a 1 7 Viewing Imagesin en eaea A A ii 1 7 WAVING ANG SOS ss anda a ie edades dias id de 1 8 RTOVICWIMOR Catalonia a seatanvinseaspebonasa steep Ta E TRA EN 1 9 Simple Mouse Tricks isein insisi E E TEE a 1 10 Keyboard Operations ccccccscccsescceeseeesseeseseeceseececsacecscecssaecesaeessaeessaeees 1 12 Context Right click Ment cccccccccssscceeeesseceeesecesenneeceeeaeeeeesneecenaeeeeees 1 12 TECHNICAL SUPPORT iii EE EEA ETETE E A EE EEEE E E E E 1 14 MANUAL CONVENTIONS Sete etenetan e e a aea a aeeai a
53. across the screen This command turns off the Fit to Image mode Arrange Icons Image windows can be minimized at which point they become small bars icons If these have become scattered about the main application window the Arrange Icons command will stack them neatly at the bottom of the window Help Menu Help Topics The Help Topics command initiates the Windows Help system and brings up the Help Topics page 6 138 Command Reference The toolbar button activates context sensitive help Click on this button then on any dialog or menu item for complete information on the command Help on dialog fields can also be obtained using the 2l button within the dialog The main help window includes several panes The left hand pane includes three tabs Contents Index and Search The Contents tab provides a layered table of contents much like the one in this manual The books can be opened by clicking the sign to access sub topics The Index tab provides an alphabetical list of all topics in the help The Search tab allows you to search for keywords in the help pages The right hand pane shows the topic text Above it is a control pane that allows you to tab forwards and backwards through the nearby topics A topic list is shown and you can pop ahead to another topic just by clicking on it You can also select major books from the drop list The toolbar at top allows you to hide the left hand pane go back a topic
54. allowed for by this driver simply leave the Filter Name in the extra slots blank they will not appear in the drop list filter selectors If the filters vary in thickness a Focus Offset can be entered for each filter This causes the focus position to be offset appropriately every time an exposure is taken with a new filter position If this feature is used absolute positioning focusers are strongly recommended to ensure repeatability Optec IFW For this driver select Optec IFW on the Setup tab The Optec Intelligent Filter Wheel connects via a serial port as selected by COM Port 4 48 Equipment Setup The user can assign names for each of the color filter slots under Filter Name If your filter wheel has fewer slots than allowed for by this driver simply leave the Filter Name in the extra slots blank they will not appear in the drop list filter selectors If the filters vary in thickness a Focus Offset can be entered for each filter This causes the focus position to be offset appropriately every time an exposure is taken with a new filter position If this feature is used absolute positioning focusers are strongly recommended to ensure repeatability hetee et e Hal UPTE inc haig Fite Wheel Drom raon 4 D Fie a Cosmo Copgaght 21201 Chisco Lente Carmabi rol Tuppi cren E noe on tapas IF True Technology Custom Wheel For this driver select TrueTech on the Setup tab This driver supports serial port operation of True Tec
55. also handles tricolor images from the electronically tunable CRI filter which are not true RGB images El Color Stack combine a group of mono images to make a color image Useful for generating false color images based on wavelengths of light invisible to the human eye EJ Split Tricolor separate a color image into three new images each containing the data from one of the color planes R G B EA Convert to Mono convert a color image to monochrome by averaging the three color planes EZ Pseudo Color invoke the Pseudo Color command which assigns colors to different brightness levels i Realign Planes manually register the three planes of a color image with each other 2 Color Balance adjust the three planes of a color image for scaling and offset White Balance adjust the color planes of an image to make the selected area white m Adjust Saturation adjust the saturation color purity of a color image Color Smoothing activates the Color Smoothing command which smoothes color information without affecting sharp luminance details Color Adjust activates the Color Adjust command which assists in color balance by showing how the image will look after various modifications Convert MX Image to Color convert raw Starlight Xpress MX series camera images to color FE Convert RGB Image to Color convert raw one shot camera images other than MX to color Customize 6 58 The
56. an exposure the pixel to pixel variation in dark current produces a significant variation in the black level for each pixel The result is a salt and pepper appearance Simply subtracting a dark frame greatly improves the image quality Perhaps counterintuitively it also increases the overall noise level in the image The average dark current subtracts but noise always increases as the square root of the sum of the squares of the individual contributions Therefore simply subtracting one dark frame increases the noise level 41 Averaging ten dark frames together reduces that to about 5 more frames will reduce the added noise to negligible levels Since hot pixels have extra noise you may still find your image has speckles after calibration they are just smaller and now some are dark and some are bright There are several techniques for removing these noisy pixels One way is to simply replace them with the average of the surrounding pixels in MaxIm DL both Kernel Filter and Remove Bad Pixel commands can do this A better way is to dither the pointing of the camera slightly between exposures thus distributing the noise contribution of each 3 29 Maxlm DL User Manual hot pixel to a different position on the image and then combine a number of images together using a median or sigma clip algorithm which will reject the hot pixel contributions altogether The longer the exposure you take the more dark current accumulate
57. an unfiltered image set with a very long exposure time To get the color information separate red green and blue sequences are taken with a shorter total exposure time The three planes are combined together to produce a color image and then the luminance of that composite is replaced with that from the long unfiltered exposure set This LRGB technique can be done using the Combine Color command MaxIm DL is also designed to capture LRGB filtered image sequences quickly and easily using the MaxIm CCD Sequence tab The Sequence Wizard provides a quick method for setting up these sequences The human eye is far more sensitive to luminance changes than it is to color changes This technique has been used for many years to reduce the bandwidth required for transmitting color television The black and white component of the television signal is transmitted with full bandwidth and the color components are transmitted at about 1 3 bandwidth When the image is reassembled on the TV screen the eye simply does not notice the lower resolution of the color components This technique can also be exploited for LRGB by taking binned exposure for the color planes and a full resolution exposure for the luminance plane In many cases binning will improve the signal to noise ratio allowing for shorter exposure times Be aware however that high sky background and low spatial resolution can combine to lower the signal to noise ratio for stars Stars don t get
58. and the results plotted for each row across the box vertically The box can be resized and dragged using the mouse The pixels can be combined using either Mean average Minimum Maximum or Std Dev Standard Deviation Area Plot When operating in Area Plot mode a 3 D representation of a portion of the image is displayed A region must first be selected nothing will be displayed until you select a rectangular region for display Exporting an Area Plot creates a file containing either three or five values per line for monochrome and color images respectively The first two values are always integer and are the X and Y coordinates of a pixel within the region of interest The remaining 6 51 Maxlm DL User Manual value s give the value for the single monochrome or three color channels red green and blue The data points are recorded left to right and top to bottom with the X axis changing fastest Night Vision Selecting Night Vision toggles the night vision mode on and off Night vision mode sets the screen display to red which has less effect on dark adapted eyes since the rod cells are not very sensitive to red light All menus dialog boxes etc are switched to red Monochrome images are displayed red but color images are displayed in their normal colors This allows the user to inspect a color image in night vision mode without switching the entire screen back to normal colors Since this function changes the sy
59. as the reference to which the others are adjusted Changes made in Align mode modify the selected image buffers even if Combine Color is subsequently canceled but can be rolled back via Undo if necessary Control will automatically return to the Combine Color command when the Align Images dialog box is closed Performing an alignment restricts the channel selection droplists to the set of images that were aligned Also you 6 123 Maxlm DL User Manual 6 124 cannot perform an alignment more than once in the same Combine Color activation The next step is to set the balancing adjustments Input Output matrix For standard RGB imaging there are only three slots in the matrix available Red Input Red Output Green Input Green Output and Blue Input Blue Output If the exposures in the three color bands are equal and the transmittance of the filters are comparable these can all be set to 1 click Default for this setting If the exposure level in the blue band for example is half that in the other two it should be set to 2 and the others to 1 The simplest way to determine the correct settings is to image a standard gray card using the same camera and optical system used for imaging Adjust the exposures or the scaling so that the resulting image looks gray The balancing is more complex in CMY mode because it is a subtractive method The default setting obtained by clicking Default corresponds to Red Magenta Yellow C
60. at certain brightness levels You can specify the curve by drawing it manually or select from the pre defined list of curves Predefined curves include Uniform Exponential Lognormal Gaussian Rayleigh and Straight Line Note that the histogram shown in this dialog has a linear vertical axis unlike the Screen Stretch window which has a logarithmic vertical axis The user can manually create any desired curve by clicking on the graph Click and drag an existing point to change the shape or add another point by clicking in a blank area of the graph To remove a point use the mouse to drag it past a neighbor To reset the graph to a simple state before manually drawing points set the mode to Uniform or Straight Line You can save and recall manual curves To save click the Save button enter a name and click OK To select an existing curve select it from the list warning this will replace any curve you may have manually entered but not saved To remove a curve select it on the list and click Del you will be asked to confirm before the entry will be deleted The dialog includes displays indicating how many points have been set and a warning when the maximum number of points 37 has been reached Threshold The Threshold command can be used to suppress pixel values above and or below certain values Data exceeding the threshold level can be either set to zero or to the 6 101 Maxlm DL User Manual threshold value The
61. at the top The Pixel value directly under the cursor is also shown The following measurements are made only within the aperture inner circle the Maximum Minimum Median Average and standard deviation Std Dev iarna E Daws hs 28 211 1 Mads 1 Aei 22 Peel 5165125 Mode nI hemem 6606151 heey SOD Hiram A An TIA don je EE Badia NMEN ei Dee 714i Eyib EA Daiki H ARL 211 707 FaH 1758 Filigree Dd Urie acertar I Pete rs falbr la fr The following measurements are made inside the aperture after first subtracting the average value in the annulus between the middle and outer circles stellar Magnitude as calibrated using the Calibrate button Intensity sum of all pixels within aperture less background and signal to noise ratio SNR SNR is calculated as the ratio of 6 39 Maxlm DL User Manual Region 6 40 intensity to the standard deviation of the background times the square root of the number of pixels When measuring a star a SNR of 3 is usually considered the minimum necessary for detection The following measurements are made using only the background annulus between the middle and outer circles background average Bgd Avg and background standard deviation Bgd Dev The Centroid is calculated within the inner aperture It is an indication of the center of gravity of the star image and is calculated to a fraction of a pixel The full width half maximum or FWHM is also calculated This
62. bright areas while bringing the dark areas up the background should look bright enough to the eye that the image is fairly washed out The image will look terrible but it will be just right for the camera Again some experimentation may be required for the best results When taking the picture either use a cable release or the camera s built in timer to reduce any vibration Chapter 4 Equipment Setup MaxIm DL CCD controls a wide variety of equipment including many different models of CCD cameras autoguiders filter wheels telescopes and focusers It can also synchronize with an observatory dome using the ASCOM Dome Control Panel Driver installation and setup is described in the next section For equipment troubleshooting please refer to the chapter on Troubleshooting Driver Installation and Setup The majority of hardware used with MaxIm DL is connected through drivers provided by the equipment manufacturers For CCD cameras filter wheels and autoguiders MaxIm DL has a plug in driver for each type of equipment but in many cases our driver is just a bridge to the manufacturer s own drivers For that reason it is extremely important that the third party drivers be installed and operational prior to attempting to connect from MaxIm DL Important In order for many drivers to work correctly under Windows NT 2000 XP MaxIm DL must be installed from an Administrator level account Telescopes Focusers and Domes These
63. by comparing star patterns If the match is successful the images are automatically aligned to sub pixel accuracy using both shifting and rotation To determine if the results are satisfactory click the Overlay All Images button to produce a preview Manual 1 star shift only This is the fastest manual adjustment method Each image is presented in turn the user simply clicks on a particular star or other recognizable feature in each image The images are aligned using shifting only no rotation is performed In order to speed up the alignment turn on the Auto Next check box Every time the mouse is clicked on the image the next image will automatically be displayed When all of the images have been registered the computer will beep If Auto Next is not being used you can move through the images using the Next Image and Previous Image buttons If the reference point is a star or similar object turn on the Use Centroid check box At each clicked location a centroid will automatically be calculated and used to refine the adjustment to the sub pixel level One of the images can be set as the reference image using the Set As Reference button The selected image will not be moved and all other images will be adjusted to align with it If any image in the sequence is of poor quality click the Reject Image button to remove it from the list You can restore it by clicking on the button again Also any image that is not registered by c
64. calibration times for X and Y and actually track on the simulated star images FWHM full width half maximum allows you to dial in the diameter of the star images in pixels Using this you can simulate good or poor seeing focus Guide Angle can be used to learn about the operation of the autoguider Setting this changes the angle at which the guide star moves during guider operations in effect it rotates the virtual camera Guide Direction can be used to flip the sense of the autoguider corrections When the guider is calibrated this will reverse the sign of one of the guider calibration settings Clicking the Advanced button brings up the Simulator Configuration dialog box This can also be accessed by clicking the CCD button on the Settings tab 4 28 Equipment Setup You can specify the Array Size in Width and Height that the simulator creates You can specify the Pixel Dimensions that the camera reports this is used in various calculations and is stored in the FITS header You can Normalize the ADU values to a particular exposure length for both the main camera and the guider When turned on the normal test image is scaled by the length of the exposure The default test pattern levels are produced when the exposure taken matches the normalization value Full frame operation only disables subframing in the simulator San lal or Lelke x dag Eos Peal Diner Welth pu wiii pii Hai 5x2 Hegia fio F Kossak ADU vakaita
65. causes any binning to be performed after the CCD chip has been read normally binning is done inside the CCD chip before readout Selecting this 6 189 Maxlm DL User Manual option results in slightly higher readout noise but greatly reduces blooming This control has no effect for anti blooming CCD chips and has no effect for 1 1 binning You can also set Binning Mode to Spectroscopy In this mode the main sensor can be binned Nx1 to Nx3 where N ranges from 1 to 255 Important Note some cameras use a TC 237 guide sensor instead of the original TC 211 guide sensor These sensors have much smaller pixels it is strongly recommended to operate these sensors at 2x2 binning Please see SBIG AO 7 Control for full details on operating the AO 7 Overview of AO 7 Operation 6 190 Before setting up the AO 7 unit the camera should focused using the MaxIm CCD Focus tab and the temperature should be near the Setpoint Once focused and at a stable temperature the AO 7 must be calibrated see Locate tab Once you have calibrated your AO 7 unit the settings are stored you should not need to recalibrate again unless the unit is serviced or equipment such as a filter wheel is inserted between the AO 7 and the camera The telescope drive must also be calibrated see Locate tab if corrections are enabled for one or more mount axes while autoguiding see Drive tab This calibration must be done so that MaxIm CCD can correlate the direction the mo
66. com and using the Camera menu Update Camera Software command to update the camera s built in firmware 4 19 Maxlm DL User Manual The communications port to which the camera is connected must be selected in the COM Port field The Baud Rate field is used to control the communications speed higher speeds provide faster image downloads but slower speeds may be more reliable if communications are marginal The Binning control turns on off on chip binning On chip binning reduces readout noise Turning the control off may reduce blooming at the cost of slightly higher readout noise Note that if the camera determines that the PC cannot keep up with the transfer rate it will automatically switch to a slow speed download mode This can only be reset by powering off the camera Important Note We recommend waiting 30 seconds after powering up the camera before starting a connection to allow the camera time to initialize Once the connection is established you should wait for the CCD temperature to appear before starting the first exposure Meade Pictor 416XT 1616XT SCSI Mode For this driver choose Meade SCSI on the Setup tab AA Tixi Mode Paiki MEAT AETAT OS ars e iar d Coppeghe jo MED 200 D A co Lacie zi Ca ppe OEA es E P 3 thie fice a 7 Some computers may attempt to start download before the camera is ready if that happens the camera aborts the exposure and a CCD Camera Error 4 mes
67. com for details Installation Troubleshooting 1 4 If you are unable to enter the software license please try logging in as Administrator or see the instructions under User Level Accounts If you are experiencing poor quality image display with color images you need to set your computer s video mode to at least 16 bit color Please see the instructions under Poor Image Display Introduction If you experience glitches in the video display you need to upgrade your video drivers Problems with defective video drivers are very common Please see Video and Printer Display Problems for more information User Level Accounts Normally software installed on Windows NT 2000 XP from Administrator level accounts will work on User level accounts In rare cases however users who do not have Administrator privileges will not be able to access the license information and the software will not run The default Windows Registry security settings will allow user level accounts to access the serial number that was entered by the installation software However it is possible to set up the default Registry permissions in such a way as to disable user level access This occasionally occurs in large institutions that have central administration of their computer systems To fix this do the following 1 Log in as Administrator Go to the Start menu and click Run Enter regedt32 and click OK Open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE Open SOFTWARE Open Diffrac
68. combo boxes in the Input Images group box Each combo box contains a list of all of the monochrome images currently open as well as the color associated with the image Clicking the associated Color button will display a dialog allowing you to choose from a palette of predefined colors or to define a custom color that will be used for that input image BEEBE EB EBB BEEBE ESE ES Ean a E l E Onion 6 125 Maxlm DL User Manual The pixel values in the output image are calculated as follows The color for each input image is converted to a set of ratios normalized to the highest valued component For instance if the input color was 128 64 0 the color assigned to that input image would be 1 0 5 0 The value for each output pixel is calculated as the sum of the input pixel from each of the input images multiplied by the color ratio for that image and then divided by the total number of images Split Tricolor The Split Tricolor command works only on color images It will create new image buffers that correspond to the red green and blue image planes from the color image A R G and B will be appended to the name of the image to identify the three color planes Convert to Mono The Convert to Mono command works only on color images It will remove all color information from the image resulting in a gray scale monochrome image This is done by averaging the values in the red green and blue planes Pseudo Color
69. down spin buttons to increment or decrement them while observing the effect on the box in the document You can also set the Background Level and Noise 6 95 Maxlm DL User Manual Resize 6 96 standard deviation used for this bloom for example increase the Noise value somewhat if the replaced pixels appear too smooth or smeared dj Bikon Canto dea 9 3 Bourg Ear Lea TER 3 Top 331 H Afi pmm fio 3 Local 5 latetica ros Bloor Fplecamrast Background Lineal pema Y Moe iendeddeveion iss ty CE to You can also manually tag blooms by clicking on the Manual button in the main Remove Bloom toolbox and then dragging out a bounding box with the mouse The center of energy is automatically compute but you can use the techniques just described to reposition it or to adjust the box When you click Preview MaxIm DL scans along the midline of the bloom from the center outwards computes the background level and noise characteristics in the vicinity and replaces bloomed pixel values with plausibly synthesized values Replacement stops only when the first pixel at or below the local background level is encountered Because of this a faint star that happens to touch a bloom can be removed along with the bloom If possible reduce the size of the bounding box to prevent this If this is not possible you may be able to use the Edit Pixels command beforehand to isolate the erstwhile vanishing star from the bloom with a few backgr
70. each image and may not produce optimal results if their histogram shapes differ significantly Analyze Menu PinPoint Astrometry The PinPoint Astrometric Engine from DC 3 Dreams http pinpoint dc3 com is a tool for precise position measurement or astrometry When manually or automatically controlling a telescope it can also be used as an incredibly accurate digital finderscope PinPoint works by matching stars from a catalog with those in the image MaxIm DL includes PinPoint LE light edition The full version of PinPoint available from DC 3 Dreams adds a number of capabilities including additional information on detected and catalog stars asteroid and supernova detection generating output in MPC format and more PinPoint requires an accurate star catalog such as the Guide Star Catalog For information on downloading catalogs please see http support dc3 com wsx webstar exe prob 129 SS iiaj Daisies Saber Inaga Pareis Egnen me Sunken afta ia Ein swier atti E ATS e haa inde Sad Pear Scala Misma Mabel Y AE ies Uned to Sales AO tdvrced Delia F ee 3 Catalog Sue co JESCA teme E dep E o Jn y A sachin jat Corea Sm fe Segre miaa mona Pem is _ Although PinPoint is fully automatic there are various setup parameters that are required for it to work Once these are set up they should suffice for any image taken with the same equipment The Detection Setup is used to recognize stars a
71. each pixel can be slid down the array simply by changing the voltage on these electrodes The electrons electrical charge that accumulate in each pixel are shifted coupled from one pixel to the next until they reach a readout register along one edge It shifts the charge one pixel at a time into a readout amplifier in one corner of the device This process gives the sensor its name the Charge Coupled Device Many modern devices use CCD detectors such as video cameras and point and shoot digital cameras Low light and scientific grade imaging cameras use special techniques to minimize noise and maximize sensitivity High Performance CCD Cameras The biggest limitation to the performance of low light cameras is dark current It turns out that light is not the only thing that can excite electrons in the detector Heat which is simply the vibration of individual atoms can occasionally bump an electron up into the conduction band The warmer the array is the more likely this is to happen dark current typically doubles with every 5 to 8 degrees Celsius increase in temperature 3 1 Maxlm DL User Manual 3 2 This causes two problems First of all if the dark current production rate is high enough it will swamp the detector Each pixel has only a limited capacity to store electrons the well capacity For most sensors dark current can fill the well in a matter of seconds at room temperature A second problem arises b
72. easily build a simple dialog box Click Finish When prompted click OK In the Class View right click on your project e g MyProjectName Classes and select New Class Leave all settings as is and type PlugIn for the Name Make sure your classes are expanded and right click on PlugIn and select Add Method Enter DoModal for Method Name and IDispatch Doc for Parameters Right click on your project again and select Add Property For Property Type select from the drop list or type BSTR For the Property Name enter Name Turn off the Put Function check box but leave the Get Function check box on Click OK Now access the Class Wizard View menu and click Add Class and select From a Type Library Browse to the MaxIm DL program directory type MaxIm_DL exe for File name and click OK This will create a wrapper class used to access MaxIm DL functions You now have a usable program shell for making your own plug in The functions you need to write can be accessed from the Class View as follows Open PlugIn open IPlugIn and double click on DoModal or get_Name Follow the example in the sample plug in to learn how to access the image buffer and MaxIm DL functions To test the plug in select Debug menu Run or click F5 When prompted browse to the MaxIm_DL exe file and it will launch MaxIm DL Then install the plug in and try to use it You can set breakpoints inside the plug in inspect variables etc
73. enable a beep or any other sound of your choice at the end of each exposure using the Audible Alarms tab of the application Settings command found in the MaxIm DL File menu Select Camera Exposure Completed in the drop list of events of this dialog click Add and select the WAV file to play on completion of the Command Reference exposure You can configure sounds for Guider Exposure Completed and many other events as well Shutter Latency Measurement Clicking the Shutter Latency Measurement command on the Settings Tab s button menu displays the Shutter Latency Measurement tool It is used to determine the intrinsic delay that occurs between the instant of issuing the command to start an exposure and the instant at which the shutter actually opens This allows the DATE OBS FITS keyword to be more accurately set for images obtained from the main camera Although this delay can be significant 0 25 to 1 sec depending on the particular camera system in many cases it is quite uniform and repeatable Shulber I aloma y E LETTE The measurement procedure is described in the Shutter Latency Measurement window which also serves as a dynamic test target You should mount your CCD camera on a tripod then fit it with a short focus lens so that you can image the full window as displayed on your computer s monitor Therefore this test can be performed from the comfort of home Click Aim Mode to display the checkerboard a static version of
74. entire CCD chip is selected When this tab is visible you can set subframe settings by dragging the mouse on the image same as Focus mode 3 Most cameras support binning which allows you to combine pixels for higher 2 17 Maxlm DL User Manual sensitivity at the cost of resolution For the highest resolution set the Binning controls to 1 Some cameras including the simulator do not support different binning in the X and Y directions in this case the Y field is disabled I en Jaj Sebi Lari Top whet Mieighd real ab a fw a a 4 Options allows you to flip or mirror the image on download as well as lock the MaxIm CCD window on top 5 Auto Calibration can be set to automatically calibrate each image as it is taken The Simple Auto dark mode will automatically take a new dark frame whenever the exposure settings are changed For better performance use the Full Calibration option This applies all the calibration capabilities of MaxIm DL s Set Calibration command This is highly recommended if you want maximum performance from your camera For now leave Auto Calibration off the simulator is perfect and doesn t need any calibration ux Espoo Saini Segoe Foca inpact Guede Satan Te Mmi Senk Dal Fisk 3 mA 6 too T z M Dek mes mw ral lde Dina Cerah che Dol LODO pea D Y L h co on ol re He coker canted r ipl Fame 2000 See AE 6 Next switch to the Expose tab Set Type to Li
75. example if the list is 5 10 15 20 105 the median is 15 The average of the same list would have been 31 A median filter rejects any values which are substantially different from the others and so rejects impulsive noise like hot pixels or cosmic ray hits When filtering Gaussian noise however taking the median value is about 25 worse at suppressing noise than taking an average Any measurement always contains a certain amount of random variation called noise There are many sources of noise in a CCD imaging system including photon statistics dark current and readout noise The ratio of signal to noise in a measurement is a fundamental indication of accuracy Since the signal to noise ratio is lower for fainter objects in an image the practical limit on sensitivity is determined by the noise Sampling a sound using a microphone or image using a CCD camera can introduce a distortion into the signal called aliasing Aliasing takes many forms for example the apparent backward motion of wagon wheels in western movies which occurs because the movie is actually a sequence of still frames Nyquist showed that if the sampling rate is twice the highest frequency component then aliasing does not occur For CCD cameras a sufficiently high pixel density 2X the highest spatial frequency in the image at least 2 pixels across the full width half maximum of a star image will guarantee a distortion free representation of the ima
76. focuser move as for a Schmidt Cassegrain telescope focus the telescope with an eyepiece move the focus out 1000 steps and then pull the eyepiece out of the focuser until the image is sharp Measure the distance the eyepiece is moved If the motion is small move more steps and divide by the total number You also need to set the Target Y Flux Dia The Half Flux Diameter is a measure of how large the star images are obviously we want them to be as small as possible The target needs to be set somewhat higher than the optimum typically by 2 pixels This is required because the measurements are made on either side of focus not right at focus Typical values are 5 to 7 but it depends on how small your star images are at best focus You should also set up the Exposure for the camera In the Find mode coarse focus the images are usually binned to speed up readout usually Bin 2X2 will do The Subframe Height and Subframe Width are used during fine focus smaller values speed up the process but if they are too small the star may shift out of the box and the focus procedure might fail The Delay sec should normally be set to zero for fastest operation If your camera locks the system during download you may wish to use a longer delay in order to ensure that you can abort the autofocus manually You can optionally subtract an Auto dark frame from the focus exposures as they are downloaded Normally a single dark frame is exposed at the start
77. guider in the Setup tab but the Guide tab is not used Single images can be taken using the Focus tab with the camera selector set to Guider assuming the STV was selected as the guider The Focal Length mm of the instrument used must be entered this is required by the STV s built in guiding algorithms You can enable or disable the two axes using Enable X and Enable Y The STV must be calibrated prior to guiding To calibrate it takes a series of images in slightly different telescope positions Normally the STV automatically determines the exposure and relay activation times during calibration If you wish to force manual settings turn on Use Manual Settings and enter the desired Exposure Time s used during calibration and the Activation Time s which determines how long the relays are activated during calibration moves The Track Settings allow you to select the Exposure Time s during guiding You can set Max Correction s to limit the maximum relay activation time for a single correction The Aggressiveness setting adjusts the loop gain Back off this setting if the guider over corrects increase it if the response time is too slow in most cases a setting of 8 or 9 is recommended Use Large Track Box allows you to select a larger track box size which is useful if the star image is especially large but may produce slightly slower guide rates To start a calibration cycle click Cal The progress of the calibration will be di
78. in seconds DARKTIME dark current integration time if recorded May be longer than exposure time CCD TEMP actual measured CCD temperature at the start of exposure in degrees C Absent if temperature is not available XPIXSZ physical X dimension of the CCD pixels in microns present only if the information is provided by the camera driver Includes binning Working With Other Software YPIXSZ physical Y dimension of the CCD pixels in microns present only if the information is provided by the camera driver Includes binning XBINNING binning factor used on X axis YBINNING binning factor used on Y axis XORGSUBF subframe origin on X axis YORGSUBF subframe origin on Y axis EGAIN electronic gain in photoelectrons per ADU FOCALLEN focal length of the telescope in millimeters APTDIA diameter of the telescope in millimeters APTAREA aperture area of the telescope in square millimeters This value includes the effect of the central obstruction CBLACK indicates the black point used when displaying the image screen stretch CWHITE indicates the white point used when displaying the image screen stretch PEDESTAL add this value to each pixel value to get a zero based ADU Calibration in MaxIm DL sets this to 100 DATAMAX pixel values above this level are considered saturated SWCREATE string indicating the software used to create the file will be MaxIm DL Version x xx where x xx
79. is dismissed or regenerated typically when you change a control in the processing dialog lt a sa Although the image data pixel values are unaffected by changes to Sereen Stretch settings you should be aware that the stretch mode and limits are saved to FITS files as part of the header in the keys CSTRETCH CBLACK and CWHITE When the file is loaded into MaxIm DL later the Screen Stretch window will be reset to the state which was in effect when the file was saved giving the same display appearance Once you have selected an image you can use one of the following methods to stretch it Manual Stretch The Minimum field sets the brightness level in the image that corresponds to black on the display The Maximum field sets the brightness level in the image that corresponds to white full brightness on the screen Modifying the values in the Minimum and Maximum fields directly will only change the stretch when you press the Enter key or click the Update button It will force the stretch mode combo box to Manual 6 35 Maxlm DL User Manual You may have encountered the terms background and range Background is equivalent to as Minimum and range is equal Maximum minus Minimum Automatic Stretch Automatic stretch is the default behavior for a new image You set the stretch mode using the drop down stretch mode combo box shown set to Medium above The available settings are Low low contrast setting wit
80. is rotated The best procedure is to align a feature that appears on both of the overlaid images then click on the feature Look at another point in the image some distance away and adjust the rotation to line up the second point To determine if the results are satisfactory click the Overlay All Images button to 6 85 Maxlm DL User Manual produce a preview Combine The Combine command is used to align and then either median average or sum combine a set of images Two dialog boxes appear Select Images followed by Combine Images Select Images When the command is activated a Select Images dialog box appears first It allows you to select the images to be included Select one or more of the images in the Available Images list on the left using the mouse then click the gt gt button to copy them to the Selected Images list on the right You can also remove images by selecting them on the right and clicking the lt lt button Note that ranges of images can be selected using SHIFT click and individual images can be picked using CTRL click The Add All button adds all of the Available Images into the Selected Images list and the Remove All button clears the Selected Images list At least two images must be selected before you can proceed Ha Arda Pea Me 000 7 45 00 451 On Ui 14 MECA MESA Combine Images 6 86 When the Combine Images dialog box appears a special Combine image buffer also appe
81. is the current version number SWMODIFY string indicating the software that modified the file May be multiple copies SBSTDVER string indicating the version of the SBIG FITS extensions supported FILTER name of selected filter if filter wheel used TRAKTIME exposure time of the autoguider used during imaging SET TEMP CCD temperature setpoint in degrees C Absent if setpoint was not entered IMAGETYP type of image Light Frame Bias Frame Dark Frame Flat Frame or Tricolor Image OBJCTDEC Declination of object being imaged string format DD MM SS if 5 3 Maxlm DL User Manual available Note this is an approximate field center value only e OBJCTRA Right Ascension of object being imaged string format HH MM SS if available Note this is an approximate field center value only e SITELAT latitude of the imaging site in degrees if available Uses the same format as OBJECTDEC e SITELONG longitude of the imaging site in degrees if available Uses the same format as OBJECTDEC e NOTES user entered information free form notes Some of the above parameters can be viewed in the File Open dialog All are visible in the FITS Header Window Planetarium Software MaxIm DL is commonly operated alongside a planetarium program for telescope control and observation planning If the planetarium program has an ASCOM interface it is possible to connect MaxIm DL to the planetarium This has several ad
82. median filter can result in artifacts structures that do not exist in the actual image Guide to CCD Imaging Deconvolution The filtering techniques described so far use a technique known as convolution In fact any linear filtering technique can be described mathematically as a convolution including the effects of blurring due to poor focus motion blur and atmospheric seeing The math suggests that it might be possible to undo a convolution For example a filter is applied by taking the FFT of both an image and the convolution kernel multiplying the two together and taking the inverse FFT of the result One might wonder if it would be possible to divide instead of multiply producing a deconvolution filter If this worked you could take an image that was filtered using convolution and restore the original image using deconvolution With a simple inverse filtering operation you could remove the effects of motion blur or atmospheric seeing resulting in a sharper cleaner image In practice though things are not quite so simple Deconvolution requires a division operation If any part of the filter shape is zero you end up dividing by zero and you get a nonsense answer Even if there are no zeros there will always be areas with small values and taking the inverse of a small number results in a very big one That means that any small amount of noise will be greatly amplified and in real images noise is always present
83. methods to clean up the PSF You can use the extracted star as is with the Clean Up button selected When selected this option cleans up the tails of the PSF distribution by replacing the faintest parts of the PSF with a fitted Gaussian curve This option should only be used when the background is very noisy as it can lead to extended donuts around the stars The best option in most situations is to select a Gaussian or Exponential curve mathematical model The only input parameter used is the radius of the curve the Guide to CCD Imaging standard deviation of the distribution MaxIm DL allows you to automatically find the best fit curve to a star or other point source in the image Noise in the image may affect the measurement of the radius but because a number of pixels contribute to the calculation the noise is greatly reduced Some CCD cameras do not have square pixels If you are using such a device it is best to use the Make Pixels Square function prior to deconvolution If your image does not include a usable point source to help initialize the PSF model you may have to guess There is a simple trial and error procedure for doing this Examine the image details and try to generate a first guess at what the radius of the blur is Select a region of the image to speed up processing and deconvolve it If the image is not enhanced decrease the PSF Radius If the image becomes curdled decrease the PSF Radius Repea
84. modes allow manual adjustment of each image using a variety of techniques Each alignment method is described below None 6 82 Command Reference In this mode no change is made to the alignment of the images This mode is usually used only for the Combine command Auto correlation A cross correlation is performed between each image to determine the relative offset If point sources stars are available in the image they are used to refine the alignment to sub pixel accuracy The images are only shifted horizontally and vertically no rotation is performed This function only works properly if the relative offset between images is relatively small To determine if it will work satisfactorily click the Overlay All Images button Auto star matching In this mode the images are matched up by looking for patterns of similar triangles among automatically identified stars in each image If the match is successful the images are automatically aligned to sub pixel accuracy using shifting rotation and scaling To determine if the results are satisfactory click the Overlay All Images button to produce a preview Manual star shift only This is the fastest manual adjustment method Each image is presented in turn the user simply clicks on a particular star or other recognizable feature in each image The images are aligned using shifting only no rotation is performed In order to speed up the alignment turn on the
85. movements by the third party focusing 6 143 Maxlm DL User Manual 6 144 tool FocusAide during CCD image download This applies to both the main camera and autoguider Some CCD camera drivers disable interrupts during download which can cause erroneous focuser motion if FocusAide is actively moving the motor If FocusAide is not present or inactive selecting this option will have no effect Of the three options No Rotation Rotate Image 90 CW and Rotate Image 90 CCW only one can be selected at a time These control automatic rotation of each image acquired from the camera immediately after it is downloaded The image can be left unrotated rotated 90 degrees clockwise CW or 90 degrees counter clockwise CCW The rotation options affect images taken with the autoguider as well as the main camera Note that guider calibration must be repeated after a change in rotation Guide star position and any guider subframe that is in effect may also need to be reset Flip Images Horizontally causes MaxIm CCD to flip images left to right as they are downloaded from the camera Similarly the Flip Images Vertically option flips the images top to bottom These options are useful with some optical configurations and when using certain CCD chips which have the readout amplifier in an unusual position The flip options affect images taken with the autoguider as well as the main camera As with the rotation options guider calibration guide star posit
86. need to tag the object s that are to be measured as well as at least one reference star in each image In addition you may tag one or more check stars This is accomplished by picking the type of object you want to tag from the Mouse click tags as dropdown then clicking the mouse cursor on the object itself in the Photometry image window Set Act on all images if you want MaxIm DL to automatically find and tag the star on each image Auto tagging is performed by finding the closest star in each adjacent image If Use star matching is enabled the auto tagging is done by pattern matching the star patterns in each image this allows you to use images taken with the camera shifted or rotated by a large amount between images this may take some time on the first object since the star patterns on each image must be matched You can turn on Snap to centroid to ensure that the measurement annulus is accurately centered on the star in each image You can reposition the label on the tagged object by dragging it with the mouse or move the tag itself by dragging the circular measurement target You can also adjust the measurement radii by right clicking on a tag to bring up the right click menu When you tag a reference star you need to set its known magnitude in the Ref Mag field By definition a reference star has the same magnitude in every image If you tag more than one reference star you must set the magnitude for each the results will be Com
87. not found elsewhere There are two ways to determine the command associated with a toolbar button First simply point at the button with the mouse after a brief delay a tooltip will be displayed giving the name of the command Alternatively you can configure the toolbar to display the name of the command either underneath or instead of a toolbar button s Command Reference icon For more details on this refer to the customization dialog To display or hide a toolbar use the commands in the Toolbars submenu of the View menu this submenu can also be called up by simply right clicking on any background or border area of the main MaxIm DL CCD application window To make an anchored toolbar a floating toolbar or vice versa double click on either the toolbar title bar if visible the thumb at the left end of a horizontal toolbar or at the top end of a vertical toolbar or on any separator between groups of buttons You can also drag the toolbar from one part of screen to another using any of these reference points During a drag operation the position and orientation of the toolbar s ghost outline warns you if the toolbar will float or be docked on releasing the mouse button Docking normally occurs when the dragging destination is near the edge of the application window but you can prevent this by holding down the Ctrl key Note When dragging a toolbar to reposition it to the left or right of another toolbar on the same row release t
88. of settings required and sometimes experimentation is required to determine the best results a mechanism is provided to allow quick evaluation by operating on a subset of the image ax Hea tigated FSF Model Damarri Dain bl etica lineage Pe Chi Scars puoyeFichesdoos foes Opiate Die Ep a y Edi lege Arab of E imaia maw 3 r Erre 13 bene pandas se When the dialog is invoked the Deconvolution Method radio buttons are enabled allowing you to select between the Maximum Entropy and Lucy Richardson methods This setting can only be changed when the iteration count shown in the Status area is at zero The Image Chi Square readout appears only in Lucy Richardson mode and can be used to monitor convergence Because processing speed is much faster for small images Operate On allows you to choose between processing the Full Image or a subset of specified Width and Height The latter is intended for quick turnaround while experimenting with the Number of Iterations or determining the best noise or PSF models The dimensions of the subset rectangle are constrained to powers of two because the use of FFTs in the deconvolution algorithm makes them the most efficient sizes to process they can only be changed using the drop downs You can select which part of the image you want to deconvolve by dragging the white framing rectangle that appears on the image when you specify a subset of Width and Height Once deconvolution has begun y
89. of the color filter slots under Filter Name If your filter wheel has fewer slots than allowed for by this driver simply leave the Filter Name in the extra slots blank they will not appear in the drop list filter selectors If the filters vary in thickness a Focus Offset can be entered for each filter This causes the focus position to be offset appropriately every time an exposure is taken with a new filter Equipment Setup position If this feature is used absolute positioning focusers are strongly recommended to ensure repeatability Meade 216XT With 616 For this driver select Meade 216XT on the Setup tab The Meade Pictor 216XT can directly control a Pictor 616 filter wheel No special settings are required Hal ser Fite a Connolly Meme ST feed rrm rran 00 r Copgeght 1212000 2004 Discon Lied Carra H rdd a ae Hanie TIRET Pas Pier Haren Paca ir i Raj j en 1 Ei 4 Fler 4 i Pisa cl Piers The user can assign names for each of the color filter slots under Filter Name If your filter wheel has fewer slots than allowed for by this driver simply leave the Filter Name in the extra slots blank they will not appear in the drop list filter selectors If the filters vary in thickness a Focus Offset can be entered for each filter This causes the focus position to be offset appropriately every time an exposure is taken with a new filter position If this feature is used absolute positioning focusers are strongly r
90. of the sequence and then the appropriate subframe is extracted from that image as needed Some cameras may not work well in this mode if problems are encountered then check Force full frame Once you have set up the parameters click OK to close the Autofocus Settings dialog box Now click Start and watch Troubleshooting 6 184 The software moves the focuser in steps based upon the focal ratio and focuser step size you have entered in the Autofocus Settings dialog box You want the fine focus mode measurements to be about 1 to 1 5 half flux diameter units apart except near focus where the value changes more slowly Watch the log during autofocus operation and verify that this is the case If the focal ratio is incorrectly entered as longer than it really is or the step size is made too big the focuser will move too quickly It will either not find focus at all in coarse Command Reference focus mode or will scan through focus too quickly in fine focus mode If it scans too quickly it may miss best focus if you see the half flux diameter exceed 20 in fine focus mode chances are that the steps are much too large If the focal ratio incorrectly entered as shorter than it really is or the step size is made too small the focuser may move too slowly In this case it will take an excessively long time to find focus If far too many steps are taken the autofocus algorithm will abort Setup Tab The Setup tab allows you to configure
91. off Automatically adjust clock for daylight savings time setting The intention is to have the system time display showing UT Universal Time This works correctly in Windows NT 2000 but not in Windows 98 ME In Windows 98 ME the system still assumes that daylight savings is in effect and that the user has manually adjusted for it Therefore when MaxIm DL asks for the GMT time UT for entry in the FITS header if daylight savings is supposed to be in effect the system adjusts for it This produces an incorrect time stamp in the FITS header Windows NT 2000 clock systems work differently and does not have this problem 98 ME uses local time for the system clock NT 2000 uses GMT for system time Windows 98 ME users should set the system time zone to GMT Casablanca Monrovia This zone does not use daylight savings time and thus avoids the problem Apogee Cameras 9 4 MaxIm CCD uses a driver provided by Apogee most technical support inquiries should be directed to Apogee Instruments e In Windows NT 2000 MaxIm DL must be installed using an Administrator level account in order for the drivers to be installed properly If you have already installed from a user level account install again over top of the existing installation using the Administrator account e Parallel port cameras may require editing the INI file to set the parallel port address e Parallel port cameras may require editing the INI file to set ecp on e Parall
92. operations Tip The Screen Stretch window is normally left turned on and can be accessed at almost any time even while a dialog box is active When a dialog box is active you can adjust the stretch of the Preview Image using the Screen Stretch window In most cases if the Preview button is depressed the Preview Image has separate stretch settings You can stretch it by clicking on the dialog box then adjusting the Screen Stretch window settings If the Preview button is not depressed the Preview Image and main image window share the same stretch settings Filtering Filtering allows you to smooth or sharpen an image There are several types of filters including FFT Kernel Unsharp Mask and Digital Development The latter two commands are particularly useful for enhancing astronomical images We will demonstrate the Kernel Filters command Sif you have not already done so open the DG_HaleBopp fits file in the Samples directory For help on opening files see the Open a File Tutorial 2 Click on the Kernel Filters button on the Toolbar This will activate the Kernel Filters dialog 2 5 Maxlm DL User Manual Using the left mouse button and holding down the CTRL key click and drag the Preview Image until the brightest part of the comet is visible holding the button down while dragging Then turn on the Auto Preview control and select High Pass More A high pass filter sharpens the image in this case the image is fairly
93. option Simply specify the blur radius in pixels a larger radius produces a stronger blur Sharpening High pass or sharpening filters are widely used because they emphasize faint fine details However care has to be taken in using these filters because they emphasize noise and can produce image artifacts You can perform a high pass filter directly but you can get much better control by using an Unsharp Mask A mask is created by low pass filtering a copy of the image That 3 39 Maxlm DL User Manual copy is scaled down by some factor and then subtracted from the original image This produces a sharper image This works because you are partially removing parts of the image that are smoother while leaving untouched the parts of the image with fine detail Usually the math is adjusted so that the average pixel values in the final image are the same as the original Unsharp Mask is preferred because of the fine level of control available The amount of sharpening is controlled by the scale factor If the mask is very blurry you remove only the grossest large scale variations in the image If the mask is only slightly blurry then only the very finest details are boosted Unsharp Mask is particularly good for planetary images but is also used for general deep sky imaging The Geometric Mean Mask mode can be used with objects that have extremely rapidly changing brightness like comets and galaxy nuclei Since high pass operations bo
94. pixel One of the tiny light sensitive areas of a CCD chip Thousands of pixels are required to build an image Pixels are represented as a digital value MaxIm DL stores pixels internally as floating point numbers When saved to a file the format is usually an 8 bit integer 16 bit integer 32 bit integer or IEEE floating point The PC Lynxx format uses a 12 bit integer format An important type of statistical distribution A Poisson distribution results when the arrival time of an infrequent event is measured When measuring the amount of light from a source a Poisson distribution describes the arrival rate of the photons of light A function which describes the blur that was applied to an image The ideal point spread function for an astronomical image is a noise free image of a star taken under the same conditions Quantization occurs in digital systems because a signal e g intensity in an image can only be measured in discrete levels For example if a pixel s true value is 7 3 it will be truncated to 7 This adds noise into an image For this reason high quality CCD cameras have A D converters with a large number of bits An 8 bit camera produces poor quality images while only a very good camera can fully utilize a 16 bit converter A statistical distribution RMS is calculated on a set of data points pixels by taking the square of each pixel calculating the sum of those squares and taking the square root The result
95. pixel removal is useful for removing CCD image defects caused by cosmic rays or pixels that have very high dark current This filter replaces any pixels that exceed the level of the brightest neighboring pixel by more than a percentage of its brightness The desired percentage is entered in the Threshold field If a pixel is to be replaced the median of the surrounding pixels is used The Erosion filter replaces pixels with the darkest of the surrounding pixels while the Dilation filter replaces pixels with the birhgtest of the surrounding pixels The Gaussian Blur filter removes fine detail and noise by convolving the image with a circularly symmetric gaussian curve whose standard deviation you specify in the Radius field which replaces Threshold when this filter type is picked In effect each pixel s energy is redistributed into a three dimensional bell curve and the resulting values added at every pixel in the destination image The effect is to blur the image as if through an out of focus lens In common with other kernel filters points within half the kernel size of the edge of the image are not processed Bear in mind that due to the bell shaped Gaussian Blur kernel pixels will be affected out to size times the specified radius Pixel Range Restriction 6 104 The Kernel Filters dialog supports an advanced feature called pixel range restriction which allows you to apply the filter to a subset of the image One example of its us
96. prevents a sequence from hanging up due to a failure to solve one image Select the Resynchronization Interval command to set the number N between solved images This command displays a small dialog similar to that for entering Maximum Deviation above but labelled Resynchronization Interval The next two commands are mutually exclusive and control whether the sequence uses the Full frame of the CCD camera or the Subframe from Settings Tab The latter setting causes the sequenced exposures to use the subframe definition though not the binning which is selectable for each different exposure of the sequence on the Settings tab A sequence cannot specify an arbitrary subframe nor use different subframes in different exposures The selection of full frame or subframe is displayed on the Sequence Tab itself as 1x1 Image Size Note that the subframe dimensions shown in this control are always normalized to the unbinned CCD array even if all the images of the sequence are at a higher binning When Overwrite Files is checked MaxIm CCD will always save files regardless of whether there was a file with the same name already on the disk When it is switched off an attempt to overwrite a file will cause the exposure sequence to abort Run Scripts Minimized is used to control how scripts launched automatically by a sequence are executed If this option is checked the command line based script host cscript exe is executed in a minimized window otherw
97. processing operations that you can do using MaxIm DL s menus and dialog boxes and to access or change the image s pixel values Scripting A Documents object is a collection of Document objects Calling Application Documents will return a collection of all open image documents Note that if you subsequently open or close another document you will have to fetch a new Documents object it is not updated automatically Image Processing Plug In Modules Plug in modules allow third party image processing functions to be added into MaxIm DL The modules use ASCOM compatible COM ActiveX interfaces exclusively This allows for some exciting new possibilities because the image processing functions that are built into MaxIm DL are available for use by the plug in modules The plug in author can blend together existing functions with new code to quickly build a powerful processing function A partial listing of available plug ins can be found at www cyanogen com Installing Plug Ins Installing plug ins is very simple The plug in is supplied as a DLL file Save the file on your hard drive a handy place would be the MaxIm DL program directory Then bring up the Plug In menu Add Remove Plug Ins command Click the Browse button to the DLL file and double click it The plug in will automatically be registered with Windows and added to the menu Writing Plug Ins Writing plug ins is surprisingly easy You will require a compiler such as Microsoft
98. properly e For USB cameras you must install the latest version of the drivers and firwmare for the camera This is included with the Starlight Xpress software installation e Color conversion may require adjustment of the Offset X and or Offset Y settings in the Convert MX dialog box This is required because the color Troubleshooting information is recorded by quads of cyan yellow magenta and green pixels If the quads are not aligned properly the color information will be distorted The Starlight Xpress anti alias function is replaced by the Color Smoothing command in MaxIm DL Autoguider Troubleshooting The following is a very thorough step by step procedure for diagnosing autoguider trouble Autoguiding is a complex activity we strongly recommend going through the whole procedure to check each possibility 1 Go to the Guide tab and click Guider Settings Click Defaults If you have a dual chip camera with a TC 237 sensor set Binning to 2 Set Control Via to Camera Relays if you connect to the mount through the autoguider camera or STAR2000 dongle otherwise set to Telescope for connecting through the Telescope Control window or SX COMn for connecting to a Starlight Xpress autoguider interface Switch to the Advanced tab and click Defaults Under Offset Tracking click Clear Click Apply Tip Losmandy mount controllers do not work with simultaneous corrections in X and Y If you have such a mount disable simul
99. reconstruct an exact replica of the original image The theorem really requires the image to be filtered smoothed to remove any higher frequency components but in practice the limitations of the optics and seeing take care of this for you Guide to CCD Imaging For that reason for optimum performance you need to have at least two pixels across the core of a star image By core we mean the Full Width Half Maximum FWHM i e the diameter at which the star intensity falls to one half its peak value For practical purposes the sampling really needs to be 2 5 to 3 pixels across the FWHM For high performance applications such as profile fitting photometry even higher sampling is required to represent the exact shape of the star image There is a second part to the Nyquist Sampling Theorem the image you capture isn t a perfect representation of the original image it just contains all the information necessary to reconstruct it To properly view the image you need to pass it through a reconstruction filter In a digital system this can be done only by resampling the image to a higher resolution and then low pass filtering it MaxIm DL can do this with the Double Size command Matching Small Optics For small optics microscopes telescopes under 10 cm or 4 inches the focal ratio is the important factor The pixel size needs to match the spot size which for a perfect optical system is the diameter of the Airy disk the image c
100. reduce unnecessary CPU overhead In Visual Basic you can access the MaxIm object in this fashion or by clicking References under the Project menu Scroll down to MaxIm and turn on the appropriate check box and click OK You can create a MaxIm camera object and take a picture as follows Dim Camera as new MaxIm CCDCamera MaxIm camera object Camera LinkEnabled True Start link to camera Camera Expose 60 1 0 Start a 60 sec exposure shutter open filter 0 Tip Use the CCD Camera Simulator and Telescope Simulator to test your scripts Maxim DL CCD Objects 7 2 The following objects are available please see the Help for a complete description of the properties methods and events An Application object corresponds to a MaxIm DL session whether started from a script or by the user The methods and properties of the Application object allow your scripts to access the documents that are open to MaxIm DL and to perform calibration setup and several other operations that either affect the program as a whole or at least do not involve a single specific document A CCDCamera object allows you to control a CCD Camera Autoguider and Filter Wheel You must have the MaxIm CCD option installed to use this object A Document object corresponds to an image open in MaxIm DL whether it was loaded from a file or acquired by your CCD camera The methods and properties of the Document object allow your scripts to perform almost all the image
101. rejected To determine if the results are satisfactory click the Overlay All Images button to produce a preview Astrometric This method uses the World Coordinate System WCS entries in the FITS header to determine how much to shift rotate and scale each image into alignment with the reference image The WCS information characterizes the precise image center pixel scale roll angle and other information describing the mapping between RA and declination and pixel X Y coordinates It is added to the FITS Header when an image is solved using the PinPoint Astrometry command or another astrometric software package Only images that have been successfully solved can be aligned in this way all unsolved images are automatically rejected Command Reference Since aligning an image can change its center coordinates orientation angle and scale the existing WCS is invalidated on all images except the reference By default the reference image is the first image in the list but you can select another one by moving to it with Next Image or Previous Image then clicking Set As Reference To determine if the results are satisfactory click the Overlay All Images button to produce a preview Planetary This method is intended for aligning images of planets It will work only when each image to be aligned contains a single substantial disk that is an approximately circular region of bright pixels completely surrounded by background The im
102. s give the value for the single monochrome or three color channels red green and blue There are a number of modes of operation as follows Command Reference Line This is the normal mode of operation When the mouse cursor is dragged across the image a line is drawn from the start to end point The graph represents the pixel values along that line The line can be moved and resized using the mouse Horizontal Line In this mode clicking anywhere on the image will select a horizontal line extending the full width of the image Dragging the mouse will simply move the line up and down As for Line mode the graph represents the pixel values along that line Vertical Line In this mode clicking anywhere on the image will select a vertical line extending the full height of the image Dragging the mouse will simply move the line left and right As for Line mode the graph represents the pixel values along that line Horizontal Box When the mouse is dragged a box will be drawn on the image The values inside the box will be combined vertically column by column and the results plotted for each column across the box horizontally The box can be resized and dragged using the mouse The pixels can be combined using either Mean average Minimum Maximum or Std Dev Standard Deviation Vertical Box When the mouse is dragged a box will be drawn on the image The values inside the box will be combined horizontally row by row
103. s Right Ascension axis because the sidereal tracking constantly runs out the backlash The Declination axis often benefits from some backlash compensation If the Backlash is set too high the autoguider will overcorrect whenever it changes direction If the Backlash is set low it will take longer for the correction to occur when the direction reverses The setting may also affect the accuracy of the calibration if set inappropriately When in doubt leave this value at zero The Guider Enables check boxes turn on or off corrections in the X and Y directions This may be useful if for example the mount can only be controlled in Right Ascension Under special circumstances you may want to disable guide motion in only one direction of a particular axis This can be useful if your mount exhibits a stiction phenomenon that causes the telescope to move in the wrong direction initially when declination corrections reverse direction To avoid declination reversals you can slightly 6 165 Maxlm DL User Manual 6 166 misalign the mount so that stars tend to drift consistently in one direction say northward Then disable corrections that push the telescope in that direction relying instead on the gradual creep In this way the declination corrections never reverse and trigger a large swing To do this clear one of the four check boxes X Output X Output Y Output or Y Output to disable the particular guider relay output responsible for that mot
104. selecting it delets the point Select Same As and a further popup menu appears Selecting the items R G B on the popup will change the curve for the current plane to match the clicked one Choosing Reset curve resets the curve to a straight line The Input range for the transfer function is the minimum and maximum pixel value in the image and is displayed just beneath the graph The Output range is user specified The available choices are 8 bit the output range is 0 255 12 bit range is 0 4095 16 bit range is 0 65535 or Same as input in which case the transfer function produces an output image with the same minimum and maximum intensity as the input Histogram Specification Histogram Specification is a generalized version of histogram equalization a standard image processing operation An equalized image has an equal number of pixels at all 6 100 Command Reference brightness levels resulting in a straight horizontal line on the histogram graph When you specify a histogram you actually define the desired shape of the histogram and a nonlinear stretch operation is applied to force the image s histogram to have that shape i i aj pf a a Fien mEn Histogram specification is useful for compressing the dynamic range of an image in order to remove pixel values that contain very little information This makes an image easier to view on a video monitor It also allows you to emphasize information that appears
105. sharing one telescope as follows Equipment Setup In this example MaxIm DL is configured to connect to a telescope driver that isn t actually a telescope It s the POTH Plain Old Telescope Hub application that is included with the ASCOM Platform Similarly the planetarium program and other software is set up the same way The hub itself is configured to talk to a specific telescope driver e g Meade LX 200 and Autostar In this way all of the applications can monitor the telescope at the same time Any one of them can send a command to the telescope such as a GOTO command and all of the programs will monitor the telescope as it moves across the sky Hubs represent a very simple yet powerful technique for linking applications together We can take this a step further by adding extra features into the hub program itself The ASCOM Dome Control Panel can connect to an ASCOM compliant dome controller and a telescope at the same time Commands being sent to the telescope are intercepted and used to calculate what position the dome slit should be rotated to POTH now includes the same capability Applications such as MaxPoint http www cyanogen com and FocusMax http focusmax org also act as hubs and provide extra capabilities MaxPoint for example models errors in the telescope mount and adjusts the commands sent to the telescope in order to achieve better pointing accuracy The very simplicity of hubs can sometimes make things a
106. slots 7 16 and make sure they are also disabled Set the exposure Type for slots 1 2 and 3 to Light Set their Filter selections to Red Green and Blue respectively and enter R G and B in the corresponding Suffix fields When the images are taken the suffix will be added to the end of the file name to designate the particular slot exposure type filter identification etc Set the Exposure time for each slot For the purposes of this tutorial you can set them to 1 second so the images will appear more quickly Set the Binning factor to 1 so the images will download in full resolution The range of this field is automatically limited depending on what model of camera you 2 19 Maxlm DL User Manual 2 20 are using 10 Select Same Repeat Count for All from the Options menu at the bottom of this dialog then set the Repeat count of the first slot to the number of exposures to be taken Use 3 for the purposes of this demonstration 11 If the Script entry for any enabled slot is non blank make sure Same Script Name for All is checked in the Options menu Then click one of the buttons and click on None 12 Set Delay First and Delay Between to zero These can be set to provide delays before the first image in the sequence and or between individual images in the sequence Delays are measured in seconds 13 Set the desired exposure ordering If Group by Slot in the Options menu is checked all red images will be taken c
107. space to present tabs for all open image windows at once a pair of horizontal scroll arrows at the right end of the tab bar are enabled these scroll the tabs horizontally to allow access to those that are not currently visible Compress MaxIm CCD Images will cause all FITS format images taken with the MaxIm CCD camera control window to be saved using the proprietary compression mode This is very helpful when using large format cameras but the resulting FITS images cannot be loaded by other applications unless they are first uncompressed using MaxIm DL Batch Save and Convert is useful for this purpose The compression format is lossless and a 3 1 compression ratio is common for typical astronomical images Save Data in Unsigned Format will cause 16 bit integers to be written to FITS files as 6 15 Maxlm DL User Manual unsigned numbers Normally BZERO and BSCALE are written to the file to offset the data values When opening 16 bit images with negative numbers can be selected to Treat data as unsigned or Add offset to make positive It is common for astronomical software packages to save 16 bit numbers as unsigned even though this violates the FITS standard the first option automatically detects this situation and adjusts the image when it is loaded The second option is used when images really do have negative pixel values MaxIm DL cannot process such images directly this option adds a pedestal to force the image to be positive The
108. standard deviation of the noise Uniform noise can also be selected in which case Amplitude controls the peak to peak variation in the noise Remove Bloom The Remove Bloom command is used to improve the appearance of an image by removing blooms the trails that emanate away from bright stars up and down the columns of a CCD array Blooming occurs when the wells that collect the charge during the exposure overflow and spill their charge into adjoining pixels Bloom removal is a cosmetic process because it is not possible to restore the information that was lost when the excess charge slopped over into the bloomed pixels What this command does is try to restore those pixels to the same level as the local background Bien deik Satan T Laval Trad arial a e Bloom removal is a two step process First MaxIm DL identifies bloomed regions in the 6 94 Command Reference image next it replaces the pixels within those regions In many cases the process can be performed almost without operator intervention by clicking Automatic to perform the first stage then Preview to do the second and view the result Automatic searches the image for pixels that exceed the specified Saturation Level and which are organized into non circular areas This process is not very sensitive to Saturation Level and a value of around 75 of the maximum pixel value possible from your camera usually gives good results If the Saturation Level is set too high som
109. t set this way the telescope will move in little jerks as the gears bounce back and forth and it will be impossible to guide Check that you can send autoguider commands to the mount Under Guide tab Options click Move Using the Manual Control set the time to 10 seconds and then click each of the X X Y Y buttons in turn Make sure the telescope actually moves each time either by watching or listening to the motors operate If it does not move in one direction you have an electrical problem Check the autoguider cable and connectors first the cable is a very common failure point If it does not move at all then also check the Control Via setting and any settings specific to the output method and mount Note that some telescopes do not support the ASCOM PulseGuide method and thus cannot be commanded using the Telescope method The most common interfaces that do not support PulseGuide are some Celestron models and TheSky controlled telescope Make sure your telescope drive is behaving itself Unplug the autoguider cable from the mount Go to the Guide tab and take an image Make sure you have a good bright guide star with an exposure time of second or less Turn on Watch Star and start the guider Watch the star and the X Error Y Error data coming from the Guide tab and try to guide manually using the telescope s hand paddle If you cannot do this there is probably a mechanical or electrical problem of some kind If al
110. takes the time from the DATE 0BS FITS key supplemented by TIME OBS or UT if no hr min sec information is present in DATE OBS This is further modified by adding half the exposure duration as supplied by one of the keys EXPOSURE EXPTIME or FEXPTIME if any of them is present This setting works with images captured by MaxIm CCD and many other camera control packages Images appear in the Image list in chronological order those lacking sufficient information to derive a time are omitted from the list e File Timestamp Images not containing FITS information but which have been not been modified since their acquisition or whose timestamps have been artificially restored can be processed using this setting MaxIm DL takes the time from the directory entry s modification date e Sequence Number In the absence of any other useful information images can simply be assigned a sequence number i e is a number starting at 1 and counting up for each subsequent image in the Image list listed in alphabetical order Excluded images described below are also allotted a sequence number When using this option it is recommended that you close all images except for the ones being analyzed You will also want to record the correspondence between image names and sequence numbers e Arbitrary FITS key When this option is picked the Time identification field 6 69 Maxlm DL User Manual 6 70 displays Ent
111. telescope is on target You can enter a position in the RA and Dec fields You can enter a Right Ascension as hours hours and minutes or hours minutes and seconds similarly a Declination can be expressed as one two or three numbers The last number entered can have decimal places e g 12 34 5 is the same as 12 34 30 Click Go To to start the telescope moving Abort will stop the telescope motion You can define the observing location by clicking the Site button This is required when determining the locations of the planets or if you want the telescope s azimuth and elevation displayed in the status area It is also recorded in the FITS header of any images taken Now switch to the Catalog tab tia Deiricope Catalog Cerin Frum isobaras Setup han ii Dirai bape ar nae m Depry HR E arame Cie 71 97 lj BABS Goto Sef sis tonto 0 bt Set Object type to Deep sky and click the drop down list arrow Pick Messier and type the number of a Messier object e g 32 You can use the mouse and the displayed keypad convenient when working in the dark or the computer keyboard Click Go To to slew to the object 2 25 Maxlm DL User Manual 12 Click the Nearby button This brings up the Nearby Objects dialog box E Ae cea Incluriad catalog PO iio TEN la kerine F jakej dsi naaie po lak bioh aih ze iva rate CUBE E E diska ien HGC Busy B5 110
112. the Image list and currently appearing in the photometry image window Objects which are not tagged in the currently selected image do not appear in the Tagged Objects list but do appear in Mouse click tags as When all the objects have been tagged click View Plot to see the results At a minimum you must identify at least a reference star on every included image though images that lack objects to be measured are somewhat pointless 6 71 Maxlm DL User Manual Clicking Close will finish the photometry session If you have unsaved work MaxIm DL asks you if you really want to discard it Saving is done from the Photometry Plot dialog described next Photometry Plots 6 72 The Photometry window will now appear A graph will be displayed showing the light curves of the tagged objects Each object will have a separate curve with different markers or colors The window is resizable by dragging edges or corners The Next Image and Prev Image buttons will move the associated Photometry image buffer back and forwards along the list of images You can also click on any measurement in the graph to display the image from which it was derived and highlight the corresponding annulus You can view the tagged objects and make sure that everything is tagged properly If not click the Back lt lt button to return to the Photometry image selection and object tagging dialog E To ds Deis Lee or e g Bee Bami f mima me paa E
113. the board picking a suitable curve can emphasize detail where you need it Start out by adjusting the Screen Stretch for your image so that the background is not completely black and even the brightest objects are not fully white Now launch the Histogram Specification command and turn on Auto Full Screen preview Try each of the pre defined curves to see what effect they have Certain curves work best with certain types of objects Hist ca per ope bas J Pusia Prii Fantr ost Ol ima Oo aj as aj far hi ray Adjusting a Comet Image with Histogram Specification Once you have found the curve that gives the best effect you may tweak the curve by clicking and then dragging the individual points on the curve to improve the final result Some experimentation will show you how to get the best effect for example if the brightest areas of the image are being washed out lower the height of the curve on the right side of the graph the bright intensity region 3 37 Maxlm DL User Manual Background and Gradient Removal Often we are taking images under less than ideal circumstances Light pollution full moon and other effects can cause a large variation in the background across the image plane A bright background which otherwise could be simply subtracted may become highly visible if there is vignetting in the optical system which causes a fall off of brightness towards the edges of the frame Simple gradien
114. the camera is oriented so that North or South is at the top and on when East or West is at the top This check box is also automatically set by the Calibrate Drive function The Calibration Time determines the length of time for which the Calibrate Drive operation activates the motors If the Calibrate Drive operation reports that the guide star has not moved sufficiently or has moved off the frame during the calibration adjust these values accordingly The Activation Level sets the range about the home position 50 which when exceeded will result in application of a bump from the appropriate drive motor For 6 195 Maxlm DL User Manual example if a value of 10 is entered the motor drive will be bumped so as to move the guide star towards the center of the track box when the AO 7 mirror tilt is greater than 60 or less than 40 If the Activation Level is set to 50 i e 100 mirror deflection the motor drive will never be bumped The Bump Time specifies the number of centiseconds hundredths of a second for which the motor drive is actuated when a bump occurs In the example above the Bump Time is entered as 30 100 or 0 3 seconds AO 7 Setup Tab 6 196 The Setup tab is used to set various AO 7 options and to test the AO 7 unit The AO 7 Tracking Speed is the distance a star is moved in pixels by a 50 mirror deflection i e from 50 tilt to 100 tilt multiplied by 5 These values should be filled in using the Calibrate
115. the image will pivot about as it is rotated The best procedure is to align a feature that appears on both of the overlaid images then click on the feature Look at another point in the image some distance away and adjust the rotation to line up the second point 6 91 Maxlm DL User Manual To determine if the results are satisfactory click the Overlay All Images button to produce a preview Remove Bad Pixels Many CCD cameras have physical flaws which prevent individual pixels columns or rows of pixels from responding properly to incoming light The result is that portions of the image are at either the saturation level or the bias level regardless of the amount of light that they ve received This command ameliorates the effects of these bad pixels whether individual or arranged in groups columns or rows The user can select one of five Bad Pixel Maps It is possible to customize the name of each Bad Pixel Map by typing a new name in the Bad Pixel Map field The table lists the bad pixels rows and columns The Mode shows whether it is a column row or point defect The X and Y coordinates give the location of the defect Begin and End indicate the starting and ending positions for a partial row or column Bad pixel maps can be generated automatically manually using the mouse or manually using the keyboard see below The image is trimmed if a bad column or row is at the edge of the image Bad pixels within the image are rep
116. the input images as well as the standard deviation of those pixel values If Ignore Black Pixels is checked then any pixel with a value of 0 is excluded from the mean standard deviation calculation When using the Sigma Clip algorithm the pixel value that deviates the most from the mean will be discarded provided that the deviation is greater than the number of standard deviations given by the Sigma Factor and a new mean will be calculated without the discarded value This value is assigned to the corresponding pixel in the output image al Humbrol parar gt nrar 05 a Hamadeaion fires Horan pen EC E Ft pent me E 6 87 Maxlm DL User Manual When the images are rotated or resized MaxIm DL will interpolate the values of the pixels in the input images to produce a more accurate result in the output Two interpolation modes are available Bicubic Resample uses a higher order resample algorithm that produces a crisper result but requires more processing time When turned off a simple bilinear interpolation is used The next step is to select the Align Mode The methods available are e None e Auto correlation e Auto star matching e Manual 1 star shift only e Manual 2 stars e Astrometric e Planetary e Overlay The auto modes require no further operator input just click the OK button Even in the automatic modes you can remove bad images by stepping through using the Next Image and Previous Image button
117. the previous CCD image buffer will be used if available The drop down combo box under the Minute field allows you to select a filter for the exposure This control is only available when a filter wheel is selected in the Setup tab Changing the settings during an exposure or exposure sequence is allowed but has no effect on the current imaging activity The new settings only take effect when the Expose button is clicked Two status fields are provided The left hand status field shows the status of the main camera The right hand status field shows the status of the autoguider if present Status information includes the camera state exposure time and cooler status There is also a progress bar that shows graphically the progress of the exposure Note Subframe settings can only be changed when the Settings tab is displayed Dragging the mouse on the image when the Expose tab is visible will have no effect Settings Tab 6 142 The Settings tab allows you to set up various camera features The Subframe setting allows you to select a portion of the CCD chip to be read out The settings can be made manually using the dialog but it is more convenient to use the mouse see below The Reset button can be used to restore the Subframe to include the entire CCD chip A tiaj Emma Seiny Sequence Fran migra Gaie Estar isi lop eth bighi pe E ap a fa 2 3 Berg dui Collao y E aj E yrs Da IT C Tinpan irda Fa 7 hal C
118. the settings necessary to equalize the image background in all three color planes Scaling adjustment percent allows you to compensate for transmittance differences between the filters used to acquire the three color planes Values of 100 result in no change The scaling percentages can be typed in or adjusted using the spin controls The Preview Image is particularly helpful in monitoring the results when using the spin controls The Reset Scaling button resets to 100 on all three planes The Click On White Area to Set Scaling check box enables the operation of the mouse to set the scaling Set the Background level first then click on a white object e g a neutral colored star in the image not the preview with the mouse The Scaling settings will automatically be adjusted to make the selected point appear white If an area of the image is known to be white or gray this is an easier way to determine the scaling factors and can be used to instantly color balance the image This command only operates on color images White Balance This command only works on color images The White Balance command is used to adjust the color balance of an image by rescaling the individual color planes of the image a ep da Fis Carcel w 6 129 Maxlm DL User Manual White Balance is useful when the color balance of an image is incorrect but it contains an object which you know should be white Either click on the area that you know
119. the telescope and focuser links Hal Telercopa Caka Comin Fotume Au olacun Setup Tisou Forre Handa 1200 ard fire ZEER hac ee p ore re Tonna Drom Copia Cipori Select the Telescope type in the drop list Note that most telescopes require configuration before they can be used for the first time This is done using the Setup command described below Select the focuser type under Focuser Again most focusers require some initial configuration as described below Once your telescope and or focuser are set up click the associated Connect buttons to establish the links You can also click Disconnect to stop a link You can Connect and Disconnect telescope and focuser independently The links will be automatically terminated when you close MaxIm DL Just below the Telescope selector and connection status field is the Options button E which displays the following menu Select Setup to display a dialog allowing you to specify interface information such as port baud rate etc and any other options affecting basic telescope operation Generally speaking this only needs to be done once Setup dialogs are specific to the particular 6 185 Maxlm DL User Manual 6 186 model of telescope and are described elsewhere The Slew Limits command displays a dialog allowing you to constrain telescope position above a specified Minimum Altitude and or below a specified Maximum Declinati
120. the test target that you use to focus the camera and frame the image 6 145 Maxlm DL User Manual 6 146 Hea ber ac Arca P iim a o A El ne 2 3 ho EIEI 35 CIE an Ia car ti cal BGEGGEDES BCECCOEDES CCECEDEDEE BSEGDEEDES ECECCEEDEE ECECCGEDES You will need to be able to see the entire window in your captured images and distinguish the individual digits or at least be able to reliably determine them from their relative positions You should use as wide an aperture and as brief an exposure duration as possible during focusing This is because during the actual measurement each of the white blocks in the lower part of the target will be displayed for only 1 100th of a second and it is important to be able to capture them It is recommended that you reduce or extinguish room lighting if possible When you have focused the camera and framed the test target click the mouse on the checkerboard to dismiss the static test target Leaving the Shutter Latency Measurement window open switch back to the Expose Tab of the CCD Control Window Set the exposure to 0 5 sec or less and click Expose The latency window will immediately show a dynamic display with a single white block moving every 1 100th of a second to the next location in succession One white digit in each of the top two rows is also illuminated at any given instant this shows the time in seconds and tenths of se
121. there is atmospheric turbulence or flutter caused by wind loads A low value will result in slow correction A value of 8 or 9 often provides optimum tracking Aggressiveness is a hot control meaning that changes made to it while the guider is running take effect immediately unlike the other controls on this tab which are sampled just once when Start is clicked To terminate guiding click Stop The current exposure is aborted and MaxIm CCD ceases making guiding adjustments to the telescope The following commands are included in the menu actuated by clicking the E Options button Dije bathing Mie se Faso gt Lee Scars Dar sl A hide Eno de Treig Ence deo Teaching Log F Guider Settings displays the Guider Settings dialog described below The Move command brings up the Move dialog which allows you to move the telescope slightly to adjust the position of the guide star This is particularly useful when autoguiding a spectroscope it can be used to place a star directly on the slit It also allows you to manually move the telescope which is handy for rough positioning testing motor interfaces etc It is not intended for slewing significant distances to position the scope at specific coordinates expressed numerically or from a catalog or on an object visible in a camera image Auto Center function refer to the Telescope Control window Autodark turns on or off dark field subtraction for autoguider images When it is enable
122. to 65535 To overcome this problem MaxIm DL subtracts 32768 from each pixel prior to saving The FITS standard requires that the BZERO and BSCALE keywords be used when the value in the array is not the physical value MaxIm DL sets BZERO to 32768 and BSCALE to 1 Other applications that interpret these keywords correctly should automatically add 32768 to the image pixels resulting in a correct image display This default behavior can be overridden using the File menu Settings command The FITS compression method used by MaxIm DL is proprietary and is not compatible with other software packages If you need to transfer images to another package you must save the images as uncompressed If you need to convert a large number of images use the File menu Batch Save and Convert command MaxIm DL is compliant with the SBIG proposal for FITS keyword extensions This means that various optional and non standard keywords are written in a fashion that is compatible with a number of other astronomical imaging packages Mandatory FITS keywords are as follows e SIMPLE always T indicating a FITS header e BITPIX indicates array format Options include unsigned 8 bit 8 signed 16 bit 16 signed 32 bit 32 32 bit IEEE float 32 and 64 bit IEEE float 64 The standard format is 16 64 can be read by MaxIm DL but is not written 5 1 Maxlm DL User Manual 5 2 NAXIS number of axes in the data array MaxIm DL uses 2 for monochro
123. to be white or drag to select a rectangular area containing more than one pixel For a single click selection the Selected Area field shows the X and Y coordinate of the pixel and its R G and B color values For a rectangular area selection the area s upper left and lower right X and Y coordinates and average R G and B color values for all pixels are shown White Balance transforms an image by generating a set of scale factors that will equalize the color values in the Selected Area so that the selected color is changed to white The scale factors are then adjusted according to the selected Output type If No Rescale is chosen then the scale factors are set so that the Selected Area has the same intensity after the White Balance operation If Output is set to 8 Bit the scale factors are set so that the output intensity of the Selected Area is 255 If Output is set to 16 Bit then the scale factors are set so that the Selected Area s output intensity is 65536 This command performs essentially the same task as the Color Balance but is easier to use provided image contains an area that is known to be white Adjust Saturation The Adjust Saturation control allows you to adjust the saturation purity of the colors in the image without affecting the actual hues Setting the Saturation field above 100 will increase the saturation of the colors setting it below 100 will decrease the saturation lie saturation H Ets inion E 157
124. toggles the optional MaxIm CCD telescope control window on and off See Telescope Control Window below for complete information This command can be also activated through the toolbar icon Screen Stretch Window The Screen Stretch window controls the brightness and contrast of the displayed image without affecting the contents of the stored image There are several automatic stretch settings There are two graphical methods to manually control screen stretch Quick 6 34 Command Reference Stretch and Histogram You can also set the stretch settings using the keyboard With a few exceptions the Screen Stretch window is available even while a processing dialog box is active Display of the Screen Stretch window is controlled by the button on the toolbar or by the Screen Stretch Window command in the View menu The window can remain open as a floating toolbox without interfering with other commands You can stretch image buffers or the Preview Image that appears in most processing dialog boxes Click anywhere on an image to select it or click anywhere on the dialog box to select the Preview Image Note when the Preview button is down the preview image has a separate stretch setting when it is up the preview image and main image buffer share the same settings A Full Screen Preview is stretched exactly the same way as the original image in whose window it appears Full Screen Preview stretch settings are lost as soon as the preview
125. transfer all of the product including any components updates media and manuals that you provide Diffraction Limited with the name company and address of the person to whom you are transferring the rights granted herein and the recipient agrees in writing to all terms of this Agreement Please note that technical support and upgrades are available only to the original customer You may not 1 Sublicense share rent or lease all or any portion of the Product 2 Reverse engineer decompile disassemble modify translate or create derivative works from the Product 3 Use a previous version of the Product if you have received a replacement disk set or upgrade version as a replacement for the previous version TERMINATION If you fail to comply with the terms of this Agreement Diffraction Limited may terminate the Agreement at its discretion Upon termination you must return or destroy all copies of the Product including all of its component parts This does not restrict the rights of Diffraction Limited to other remedies JURISDICTION This Agreement is governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario Canada Each of the parties hereto irrevocably agrees to the jurisdiction of the courts of the Province of Ontario LIMITED WARRANTY Diffraction Limited warranties that the media upon which the Product is distributed will be free of defects for a period of thirty 30 days from the date the Product is delivered to you In the event
126. want from the list and select its Color and Size in pixels You can also set the Line thickness and Color The Plot Limits determines how the axes appear Both the Time axis and Magnitude axis can be set to Auto The plot will be automatically adjusted so that all data will be visible Alternatively you can turn off Auto and enter the values manually The Time and Magnitude axes both require a Min and Max entry You can specify a Period folding modulus to overlay measurements from different cycles of periodic phenomena The period can be expressed in hours or days or folding can be turned off none If the horizontal axis variable is a Sequence Number or Arbitrary FITS key the choices for Period folding are simply units or none Line mode is ignored when period folding is in effect Offset JD allows you to set the reference time that is subtracted from every measurement time and is shown at the bottom of the plot window When period folding is used Offset JD adjusts the phase of the display curve It is expressed as a Julian date when the horizontal axis is time and in the units of the abscissa variable otherwise You can see the effect on the plot immediately by clicking Apply Once you are satisfied with the appearance of the plot click the OK button to make the changes permanent 6 73 Maxim DL User Manual Padocies Flo elisa 4 Ha 5 i Mara E Equina E Cala E Trade i iera E Fis I Pori Lire E Mere f Tha r Him
127. was blurred Deconvolution uses this information to remove the blur from the image Given the importance of obtaining a good PSF a number of tools are supplied for this purpose Hal Hit Model PSF Model Discorravtre Pureer lype 7 jaum Per iadi s frora PE iene p aE 5 From maga Simie ean Bee Jari Deacon Derien i sim H vie mer Cineni Peet i ania E ca Dni iga Fie Three types of PSF are available Gaussian is commonly used for removing blur caused by atmospheric seeing Exponential is often used to model blur from optical systems From Image allows you to extract a point like object such as a star from the image to use directly as the PSF this is especially useful when the blur is not symmetrical All three types of PSF are represented internally as a small image of 64x64 pixels and the From File option provides for loading such a PSF from a file The Function Type must be set up first From Image can be used when a clean star or other point source is available in the image and is recommended if there is trailing 6 115 Maxlm DL User Manual 6 116 resulting from poor guiding in the image Otherwise the Gaussian or Exponential models should be used If From Image is selected a star must be extracted from the image see below This extracted star image is used directly as the point spread function If the background behind the star is very noisy the Clean Up function can be used to remove this
128. which results in v shaped star images A simple text file format csv extension where numerical or other values are separated by commas Many software applications especially spreadsheets can read this format directly 8 1 Maxlm DL User Manual Convolution Correlation Coma Dark Current Dark Frame Dead Pixel Deconvolution Distribution Dynamic Link Library DLL Dynamic Range 8 2 A mathematical operation related to multiplication which can be performed on two mathematical functions or images For imaging any filter that emphasizes particular spatial frequencies is a type of convolution Examples include high pass sharpening filters and low pass smoothing filters Convolution is most easily performed by transforming both an image and the desired filter shape using a Fast Fourier Transform FFT multiplying them together and performing an inverse FFT on the result In other words multiplication in the frequency domain is equivalent to convolution in the spatial domain Convolution is the opposite of deconvolution The process of comparing two images to determine how strongly they match at different position offsets Mathematically the cross correlation is simply the sum of the products of the pixels in the two images calculated as a function of offset An optical aberration that is commonly seen off axis on an optical system especially in fast Newtonian reflectors It makes the stars look lik
129. y a a i a aa Vist s Ei i gape The dhawa rl corina od atten Par dada ba pau wl et bra abia to uppii For areas ard demo karan tha miasa pall os sobar onhe da Once a permanent license has been entered MaxIm DL will continue to work indefinitely However after the expiration date shown one year after purchase it will no longer be possible to upgrade the software At that time you may wish to purchase an additional year of upgrades See http www cyanogen com for details Upgrades To check for new software upgrades click the Help menu Check For Updates command This will launch Internet Explorer and take you to a web page which will automatically check for any necessary software updates Privacy Notice The only information transmitted to our web site is the current version number you are running This is required so that the web server can determine if an upgrade is available This information is only used to find the correct download file if any and is not stored on our server You can also download from http www cyanogen com download maxim_v4 htm Be sure to check the release notes before you download Note Owners are entitled to one year of free upgrades after date of purchase After that time the installer will inform you that your free upgrades have expired Do not continue to install the software or the program will not function At that time you may wish to purchase an additional year of upgrades See http www cyanogen
130. your television Your television has these controls because it cannot display the world as it really is Unlike your eyes which can work on a sunny day or a moonless night a television can handle only a very limited range of brightness The huge dynamic range of the eye has never been duplicated by video display technology 3 17 Maxlm DL User Manual While video displays and printers still suffer from this severe limitation the cameras do not Modern high performance CCD cameras can record up to 65 536 different brightness levels yet most computer monitors can only display about 64 brightness levels even if more levels are available they usually cannot be distinguished on the monitor This huge gap can be bridged using stretching techniques Basic Stretching 3 18 In its simplest form stretching works as follows A typical CCD image represents each pixel as a number from 0 to 65 535 This has to be mapped into the video monitor s range of 0 to 255 A simple formula is applied to each pixel New Value Old Value X Scale Offset If the resulting new value is greater than 255 it is set to 255 If it is less than zero it is set to zero The Scale and Offset numbers control how the image appears on the screen Where do these two magic numbers come from The user provides them by trial and error Although MaxIm DL can try to determine the settings for you automatically the best results are obtained by tweaking the numbers unt
131. 152 6 154 6 157 6 167 6 178 6 188 6 189 6 192 6 193 8 1 Binning and Resizing 3 46 Bit Depth 3 17 3 26 Blend 6 24 Blend Area 6 26 Blink 6 62 6 64 Bloom Properties 6 95 Bloom Removal 3 45 6 94 BMP 6 1 Border Width 6 68 Box 6 27 Brightness 6 65 Brightness and Contrast 2 2 Bump Time 6 196 Butterworth 3 24 6 106 8 1 Cal Time 6 165 Calibrate 6 75 Calibration 4 28 6 154 Calibration Wizard 6 80 Camera Control Tutorials 2 12 Camera Control Window 6 140 Index Camera Simulator 4 28 Camera Specific Error Codes 9 1 Caret 6 37 Cascade 6 138 Catalog 6 179 Catalog Setup 6 66 Catalog Tab 6 179 CB245 4 2 4 14 CCD 2 9 3 3 3 12 3 15 3 16 3 18 3 28 3 29 3 42 3 48 3 49 8 1 8 2 8 5 8 6 CCD Camera Simulator 4 28 CCD cameras 3 15 3 18 8 5 8 6 CCD Cameras 3 1 3 3 3 49 4 1 CCD Control Window 6 34 CCD Sensors 3 1 CCDCamera Object 7 2 CD ROM 1 2 CD ROM Installation 1 2 Celestron 4 2 9 6 Center Tab 6 180 Centroid 8 1 Charge Coupled Device 8 1 Check For Updates 6 139 Chi Square 6 117 Circle 6 27 Clone Tool 6 30 Close 6 9 CMY 6 122 CMY Imaging 3 15 Collimation 8 1 Color 6 1 6 126 Color Adjust 6 131 Color Balance 3 42 6 128 Color Combination 3 41 Color Images 3 41 Color Imaging 3 14 Color Menu 6 122 Color Processing 3 41 Color Saturation 3 43 Color Smoothing 6 130 Color Stack 6 125 Co
132. 190 HOT Locate Tab Scag Biss T a T aS NT ATE oe 6 19 AO 7 Track Tabs dida a 6 193 AO 7 Drive TD lic 6 195 A OFT Setup TAD id dida 6 196 CHAPTER 7 SCRIPTING wisisccciactsscessntnsacsecdesessanasecsescscesedesnsancdeacessvensacoaccsacsesses 7 1 SCRIPTING LANGUAGES ivctciopiconedonicnnadoricinidonicnncda nda dead eden i e Eri E e ep SeeSee e eridar ere 7 1 SAMPLE SCRIPT S oeeo reee nea enee nepe dino dll illes 7 1 MAXIM DL CCD OBJECTS rn E EEE EE EE E E E EA 7 2 IMAGE PROCESSING PLUG IN MODULES ococcccccccnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnonnononnononnonononononnnnns 7 3 Table of Contents Installing Plug Iis ccccccccccccccsesccccessnseceeseeececeeaceeeeseeeceseaeeeeseneeeeeeneeeeneas 7 3 Writing PIU SAINS oia 7 3 CHAPTER 8 GLOSSARY io ccsccisccd teisedeccescactactssaceceadecs ogecsecsasenteccesedenssacescsceesees 8 1 CHAPTER 9 TROUBLESHOOTING occcmmcccccccccocnonnnccccccononananoccncccnnoncanncccccccnnnns 9 1 CAMERA SPECIFIC ERROR CODES sssccccceccesssseccccceecesseseccceuueeeccceseseuaneeecceceeseaannees 9 1 MISSING TELESCOPE AND FOCUSER DRIVERS ccccccccssseseecccceeecaseeeccecesseseecccsessuaaness 9 2 CAMERA FAILS AFTER OPERATING SYSTEM UPGRADE ccccccecccsssececcecceeeaaeeeeccceeuenees 9 3 POOR IMAGE DISPLAY ot E o a 9 3 INCORRECT UT DATE TIME IN FITS HEADER cooooocccccnnnnnnnonocccnnnnnnnnnonoccnnnnnnonccinnnnonnnons 9 4 APOGEE CAMERAS S S E S EN E E dueedieuetesedetives Node iaa 9 4 MEADE CAMERAS pusa TA edi o
133. 44 10 21
134. 5 the guide point will be moved to coordinates X 255 5 Y 255 0 You must be careful to move the guide point slowly or the lock could be lost To disable Offset Tracking click the Clear button Changes to most controls on this dialog do not take effect until you either close the dialog or click the Apply button When a control has been altered the Apply button enables automatically to remind you that it has not yet taken effect The Defaults button resets all controls except the Offset Tracking group to their factory defaults Move Dialog 6 170 The Move command is accessed using the Guide tab s Move button It allows you to reposition the telescope using the autoguider output relays Since this is done at guiding speed only small movements are possible For slewing large distances and for Auto Center operations use the Telescope Control window Pe Hal Frera irt ia Lal a eA Arp 3 ae rm W icon xh salvo 3 rox m CEA Ciria z r impi A M Sine pac F iweka Eas y it a se E bans Ees There are two methods for moving the telescope The first is to designate a From and To position and click the Move button Note that the accuracy of this movement depends on the accuracy of the autoguider calibration and the mechanical characteristics of the telescope mount The positions may be entered manually or by clicking on an image from the autoguider using the mouse The Click to Set selector determines which field the
135. 8 Place 6 24 Plain Old Telescope Hub 4 7 Planetarium Software 5 4 Planetary 6 8 6 85 6 91 Planetary Imaging 3 14 Play 6 48 Play All 6 49 Plug In 6 135 Plug In Camera 4 9 Plug In Camera Drivers 4 6 Plug In Camera Setup 4 9 Plug In Filter Wheel 4 38 Plug In Filter Wheel Drivers 4 6 Plug in Menu 6 135 Plug In Modules 6 135 7 3 PNG 6 1 Point 6 27 Point Telescope Here 1 13 Point Spread Function 2 10 3 48 8 6 Point Spread Functions 3 47 Poisson 8 5 8 6 8 7 Poisson Noise 6 114 Polar Alignment 3 3 Polar Alignment Scope 3 3 Polar Imaging 3 4 PolarAlignMax 3 5 Poor Image Display 1 5 9 3 POTH 4 7 Powering an SBIG CFW8 4 56 Preview Image 1 9 Princeton 4 3 4 21 Print 6 14 Printer Driver Problems 1 6 Process Menu 6 75 Process Toolbar 6 56 Processing Sequence 3 27 Processor 1 1 Projection Type 6 67 Properties Methods and Events 7 2 Pseudo Color 6 126 PSF Model 6 115 Public Presentation 3 53 Quantization 8 6 Quick Stretch 1 9 1 11 6 37 6 64 Rank Filter 6 110 RAW 6 1 6 10 Raw Data Quality 3 26 Rayleigh 6 101 8 6 Realign Planes 6 127 Recommended Processing Sequence 3 27 Record 6 48 Redo 1 12 6 22 Ref Mag 6 71 Region 6 40 Register Online 6 140 Reject Image 6 6 6 88 Remove Bad Pixels 3 41 6 92 Remove Bloom 6 94 Remove Gradient 6 121 Residual 6 67 Resize 3 54 6 96 Resynchronization 6 150 Revert 6 13 RGB
136. Angle to 45 degrees Click OK E Ts irmita Fe paar CETER t casein cree Gael Cira cd Sanus Li Ame fee ee hn ude Erge ihade Carrer ja a ha a pean 2 ig 3 ira 2 5 Control returns to the Setup tab Now set up the Autoguider Click the associated Setup button and set the Camera Model to Same as main camera The simulator works like two separate cameras one as the main camera the other as the guider Ciro eras 407 E J 1 i Pier a 1 4 J i 2 13 Maxlm DL User Manual 6 Next set up the filter wheel Click the Setup button and select Filter or Controlling Camera Model to Simulator Type in Red for Filter 1 Green for Filter 2 and Blue for Filter 3 Click OK Aaa lim COD A H3 Enos Saip Seance Focus repeat Gude Eto Han OD Cena 1 Pia weal Eat Daromadi 7 Now we are ready to connect to the equipment Click Connect 8 The Simulator s main camera has a programmable temperature Click Cooler On to activate it and then click the associated Cooler button to set the temperature Set the temperature setpoint to 20 degrees C and click OK Note At the end of an imaging session you should click the Warm Up button and wait for the temperature to return to ambient before turning off the cooler or disconnecting from the camera Melimcco Mal Empires Sergi Serra Pas brima de Est Han OD Cara Tha wte Sm fr 9 Once all of these settings are made they wil
137. CD is determined by the type of CCD chip installed in the camera Equipment Setup Setting Binning Mode to Off chip is useful when a non anti blooming CCD chip is installed When enabled it causes any binning to be performed after the CCD chip has been read normally binning is done inside the CCD chip before readout Selecting this option results in slightly higher readout noise but greatly reduces blooming This control has no effect for anti blooming CCD chips and has no effect for 1 1 binning You can also set Binning Mode to Spectroscopy In this mode the main sensor can be binned Nx1 to Nx3 where N ranges from 1 to 255 The Download Priority can be adjusted Very High will ensure that no lines appear in the image due to readout delays but may make it difficult to operate the mouse The Enable Fan setting can be used to activate or deactivate the camera fan This can be useful if camera vibrations are affecting image quality SBIG Camera with AO 7 For this driver choose SBIG w AO 7 on the Setup tab ST SS TH aD Dira viem A E Coppnghe h ME Dh Led E Jippe EA A O ster 2 HE iW 1 ME Cort To Gate AG mag Pry a fim zj Pin He When using the AO 7 tip tilt autoguiding accessory set to SBIG w AO 7 If a CFW 8 filter wheel is connected via the camera set the Filter selection to SBIG Universal Usually the Autoguider is set to None since the Guide tab is not normally used with the AO 7 You can howeve
138. Caage 20003090 O r Led Es os e Cancel Cores late a ae 3 imac Mice Starlight Xpress MX7C USB cameras connect to the PC via a USB interface The appropriate Starlight Xpress USB drivers that come with the camera must be installed for the camera to work For MX716 use STAR2K MX7 9 Set Readout Mode to Interleave for full resolution images or Fast for interpolated images Interleave will automatically switch between the progressive and interlaced mode when set to Interleave depending on the exposure duration The Starlight Xpress cameras use open loop cooling so the cooler controls are not enabled when this camera is in use Starlight Xpress MX7C USB STAR2000 For this driver choose STAR2K MX7C on the Setup tab This driver supports STAR2000 operation for the Starlight Xpress MX7 C USB camera The appropriate Starlight Xpress USB drivers that come with the camera must be installed for the camera to work If you have connected a STAR2000 dongle and wish to use it for outputting autoguider commands select the appropriate COM Port otherwise set it to None Select the appropriate output mode either ST4 for autoguider pulses or LX200 for serial port If 4 35 Maxlm DL User Manual you wish to use a Starlight Xpress Autoguider Interface box non STAR2000 set COM Port to None and go to the Guide tab Settings and change Control Via to SX COM tia at E uh fet E EII De Veis 880 E o es Caca Tata lost EA
139. Customize dialog is a dialog box containing four tabs which are used to customize MaxIm DL CCD s menus and toolbars It is invoked from the Toolbars submenu of the View menu or from the context menu displayed when you right click the right mouse button on unused non image window space in the MaxIm DL CCD application window While the Customize dialog is active MaxIm DL CCD works in a special customize mode that generally restricts the user input to customization commands only although operations involving MaxIm CCD telescope control and the currently active command dialog if any are not affected Command Reference Commands Tab The Commands tab allows you to add move or remove commands from MaxIm DL CCD s menus submenus and toolbars This tab presents all customizable commands divided into Categories by menu header the customizable entries in each menu appear in the Commands list For the special category New Menu the list contains a single entry New Menu used to create a new menu item in the MaxIm DL CCD application menu bar a submenu within a menu dropdown or a menu button on a toolbar All Commands is a convenience that repeats all customizable commands in a single long list and is useful for those occasions when you can t remember exactly where a particular command is found A zj Domma ribam tiers Espora D t The customization procedure is the same whether the target is a menu or a toolbar and
140. EN o EA seen are The AO 7 Control window cannot be hidden as long as the AO 7 is connected however it will minimize when the MaxIm DL application is minimized The four AO 7 Control tabs are e Locate Take exposures to locate and select the guide star including choosing exposure and binning settings Also used to calibrate the motor drive if used and the AO 7 mirror e Track Track a star and monitor its position both visually and numerically Control the exposure duration track time and certain guiding parameters and monitor the guide star position e Drive Setup auxiliary correction using the telescope mount motors This is optionally used to keep the guide star within range of the tip tilt mirror when mounts having large drift or periodic error are used e Setup Select the track box size view or edit AO 7 tip tilt mirror 6 188 Command Reference calibration settings exercise the tip tilt mirror system to check operation and dither exposures to compare guided and unguided star images When the AO 7 is in operation all of the regular MaxIm CCD exposure controls operate normally This means that exposure sequencing and automatic tricolor operation is supported while tracking with the AO 7 It is strongly recommended that a five second exposure delay be set to allow the AO 7 to reacquire the guide star before the next exposure starts Note that the AO 7 Control requires significant CPU resources whi
141. FireWire 4 37 Fit Order 6 68 Index Fit to Image 6 138 Fit To Image 6 138 FITS 6 1 6 10 8 3 FITS Editor 6 45 FITS File Header Definitions 5 1 FITS Header 6 16 6 17 6 44 FITS Key 6 69 FITS Viewer 6 45 Flat Field 3 16 3 32 3 34 6 76 6 119 6 141 8 3 Flat Field Frame 3 2 3 30 Flatness 6 40 Flatten Background 6 119 6 121 Flip 6 29 Flip Images 6 144 Focal Length 6 19 6 43 6 68 Focus Offset 6 176 Focus Statistics 6 159 Focus Tab 6 157 FocusAide 6 143 Focuser 6 185 Focuser Step Size 6 183 Focuser Tab 6 182 Focuser Troubleshooting 9 11 Focusers 4 1 Focusing 2 14 3 5 3 8 FocusMax 5 6 Frame Grabber 4 37 Full Screen 3 54 6 34 Full Screen Preview 1 10 Full Width Half Maximum 8 3 FWHM 2 16 3 13 3 16 4 28 6 40 6 143 6 159 8 3 G2V Spectral Class 3 42 Gain 8 3 Gamma 3 20 3 35 6 98 Gap Width 1 13 Gaussian 3 48 6 101 6 115 8 3 8 7 Gaussian Blur 6 103 Genesis 4 2 4 14 10 15 Maxlm DL User Manual Geometric Mean 8 3 Glossary 8 1 Gradient Removal 3 38 Group By Slot 6 152 Guide Star 6 161 Guide Star Catalog 6 66 Guide Tab 6 160 Guide Telescope 6 19 Guide to CCD Imaging 3 1 Guider Enables 6 165 Guider Settings 6 164 Half Flux Diameter 6 159 6 182 Half Size 6 97 Half Flux 8 4 Help 1 1 1 12 6 138 Help Menu 6 138 High Bit Depth Images 1 7 High pass 3 22 3 23 High Pass 6 103 8 4 High Pass
142. For motor drive calibration image resolution as great a concern see Drive tab AO 7 Track Tab The Track tab is used to start and stop the AO 7 autoguider and to monitor its performance Before the AO 7 can start autoguiding a guide star must be selected using the Locate tab Lacasa Tik Dive Sa E Teck Tiree 0 H am ES bies Bosa pesada E Fuki imaj 2 TS arde Fischer rah ADT betel ATIA Fiske Tas Cord Use the Binning check box to change the image binning This allows you to effectively increase the star brightness and decrease the exposure time The maximum binning allowed or cameras with a TC211 guide chip is 2x2 for TC237 guide chips 3x3 Due to the small pixel size of the chip it is recommended that you use at least 2x2 binning when tracking with a TC237 The Track Time is the duration of the tracking exposure and this will determine the update rate at which the AO 7 can correct for stellar wander This can only be changed when the AO 7 is idle The Aggressiveness is a scaling factor used to refine the amount of correction applied when the guide star is off center The required correction in pixels is multiplied by the Aggressiveness divided by 10 Therefore if the Aggressiveness is set to 5 and a correction of 6 pixels is required to center the guide star the AO 7 mirror will tilt such 6 193 Maxlm DL User Manual 6 194 that the star is moved 6 x 5 10 3 pixels towards the center If the Aggressiven
143. Inspect Tab 6 158 The Inspect tab is used in conjunction with the Focus tab The Start Focus and Stop buttons replicate the functions of the buttons on the Focus tab These buttons are not available until the Focus tab has first been activated This ensures that the settings are checked before a focus exposure is started You can select between the controls and displays for the main CCD camera or the Guider using the radio buttons Command Reference A a al Epa Seling Sequence Fes ree cidos Setup The diagram on the left side of the dialog shows a 3 D isometric plot of the area surrounding the brightest pixel in the image Assuming the brightest pixel is part of a point source object such as a star the narrowness of the peak shows graphically how good the focus is Camera and focus information is displayed in the status field This includes the current camera activity the location of the brightest pixel in Max X and Max Y the value of the brightest pixel in Max Pixel the full width half maximum in FWHM and the Half Flux Diameter in Half Flux Dia Both the FWHM and Half Flux Diameter are measurements of the quality of focus FWHM is the diameter of the star at half the peak brightness It is calculated by fitting a Gaussian profile to the star image When you are very close to focus the FWHM number will tend to bounce around so you should look at several readings and take the best result Half Flux Diameter is a n
144. M Engineering FW Uses serial port no installation required DFM FW 82 82 Finger Lakes FLI camera driver installation is required Finger Lakes or FLI 1st Gen Instrumentation Meade 216XT with 616 Uses serial port connection through camera Meade 216XT Meade 416 1616 with Uses serial port connection through camera Meade 416 1616 616 Meade SCSI with 616 Works through Meade SCSI camera driver Meade SCSI no additional driver installation required Optec IFW Uses serial port no installation required Optec IFW True Technology Uses serial port no installation required True Tech Custom Wheel SBIG and SBIG Many different options are available Please SBIG Universal SBIG ST 5 Compatible including see SBIG Compatible Filter Wheels for more SBIG ST 6 SBIG STV or Homeyer Optec information Homeyer MaxFilter and IFW in SBIG mode True Please see SBIG Compatible Technology in SBIG Filter Wheels for instructions on mode selecting the correct driver Manual Filter Wheel None user is prompted to manually change the filter This driver is primarily used to simplify entry of FITS header filter selection information 4 5 Maxlm DL User Manual Plug In Camera and Filter Wheel Drivers MaxIm DL has a public interface available for adding custom CCD camera and filter wheel drivers This interface does not change from version to version so third party drivers will work with any release from Version 1 through Version 4 Go t
145. M INI must be a text file containing one line per filter slot Each line has two numbers separated by a comma The first number indicates which filter to use in the first wheel and the second number indicates which filter to use in the second wheel Here is an example Equipment Setup 7 8 8 8 In this example the third filter slot will move filter wheel 1 to slot 3 and filter wheel 2 to slot 1 Finger Lakes Instrumentation For this driver select Finger Lakes on the Setup tab The Finger Lakes Instrumentation CFW 1 and CFW 2 connect via a serial or USB port as determined by the Select option Hal Ale Cernig finge Listen ratruracia on Grew i araon 4 r Coppaght je EEEH PU ard Diacion rated Carma hl eel FU CCD Lias io afinador 1 DO Finger Laer 2 Par Pier Haren Paita Helen I Aaj nn an l Eha 4 Fir i Pia 4 Per q Fi i Filter The user can assign names for each of the color filter slots under Filter Name If your filter wheel has fewer slots than allowed for by this driver simply leave the Filter Name in the extra slots blank they will not appear in the drop list filter selectors If the filters vary in thickness a Focus Offset can be entered for each filter This causes the focus position to be offset appropriately every time an exposure is taken with a new filter position If this feature is used absolute positioning focusers are strongly recommended to ensure repeatability Finger Lakes F
146. Manual the average brightness level The Local Adaptive Filter is very effective for extracting faint details from planetary images but it can cause excessive noise amplification if over applied Raw Data Quality The best way to produce good images is to have excellent raw data Capturing good data requires patience and practice The following steps are mandatory 1 Ensure that the images have good focus sampling and guiding See Using CCD Cameras for recommendations on imaging techniques Calibrate your images As a minimum subtract a dark frame Even better use dark subtraction and flat fielding and combine multiple calibration frames to ensure the best signal to noise ratio Expose for a long period of time For deep sky images it is usually best to stack many exposures of between 60 and 300 seconds Using shorter exposures reduces the chance of guider errors wind gusts and other transient phenomenon It allows you to remove or correct images that have defects Use longer individual exposures if you are imaging with narrowband filters or your camera has a high noise floor When using the LRGB color technique use more exposure in the luminance band than for the color bands Increase the exposure in any color band that has poor sensitivity relative to the others e g some cameras have poor blue sensitivity Consider using binning the color exposures to increase sensitivity bearing in mind that this may make things worse in
147. Maxim DL CCD Imaging Software Version 4 Copyright 1997 2004 Diffraction Limited All rights reserved This manual may not be copied reproduced translated or converted to any machine readable form without the prior written approval of Diffraction Limited Maxlm DL User Manual MaxIm DL LICENSE AGREEMENT IMPORTANT This agreement the Agreement is a legal agreement between you and Diffraction Limited for this software product including the software and associated media and printed documentation the Product By installing copying or otherwise using the Product you agree to be bound by the terms of this Agreement If you do not agree to be bound by the terms of this Agreement immediately return the unused Product to the vendor for a refund PRODUCT LICENSE This Product is licensed not sold The Product is the property of Diffraction Limited or its licensers and is protected by copyright law This Agreement grants you the following rights 1 You may install and use one copy of the Product on a single computer 2 You may make one copy of the Product for archival purposes 3 You may use the Product on a network provided that you have a licensed copy of the Product for each computer that can access the Product over that network 4 You may permanently transfer the Product and all of your rights under this license on a permanent basis to another person or entity provided that you retain no copies of the Product that you
148. Mean Mask mode is useful for extracting faint structure from images that contain large variations in brightness such as are found near the nuclei of comets When this mode is selected the mask is performed in a logarithmic domain Pixel Range Restriction The FFT Filters dialog supports an advanced feature called pixel range restriction which allows you to apply the filter to a subset of the image For example you could unsharp mask only the lighter areas of an image thereby avoiding accentuating noise in darker regions Some care is required in its use and a little experimentation and experience will teach you how and when to apply it Click the Pixel Range Restriction unfold button lto expand the FFT Filters dialog revealing the Apply filter only to pixels restriction Pixel Range Restriction se al puto Apply filter only to pixels With values between 500 00 and 50000 Reduce b a Feather Pb 3 0 distance 2 radius by 6 108 Command Reference Enter the minimum and maximum values of pixels to be affected into the two With values between fields Pixels within Reduce radius by pixels of a pixel whose value is outside this range are completely protected against the operation of the filter The filtered values of qualifying pixels that lie within Feather distance of a protected pixel are blended with the original value using a weight that varies with the distance for example with Feather distanc
149. Poisson A subframe is simply the result of reading out only a portion of the CCD chip When using a CCD camera it is often convenient to use a subframe to reduce the amount of time required to read the camera This is particularly true when focusing which requires fast updates An unsharp mask is a type of spatial filter A mask is created by low pass filtering smoothing an image The mask is scaled and then subtracted from the original image producing a sharpening effect Unsharp mask is a commonly used technique because the user has a substantial amount of control over the effect A strongly blurred mask can remove large scale brightness variations while a slightly blurred mask will strongly emphasize fine detail The strength of the filter can be controlled by adjusting the scaling factor The obstruction of an optical system in the off axis parts of the image When imaging using a vignetted optical system the corners of the detector will see less light This can be compensated for using flat fielding but it is usually preferable to avoid vignetting if possible Literally the length of a wave Light is comprised of waves different wavelengths correspond to different colors Also equal to the inverse of frequency The first useful type of deconvolution filter developed The Weiner filter avoids the problem of division by zero that confounds simple deconvolution In imaging applications a Weiner filter almost always causes severe noi
150. ROM also contains a copy of the Guide Star Catalog which is useful for performing astrometric analysis and telescope pointing updates using the included PinPoint LE astrometric engine Once you have installed the software run it by double clicking the MaxIm DL icon At 1 2 Introduction this point you will be prompted to enter your license The license is included with the CD ROM in the back of the manual Enter the license exactly as printed and please pay attention to upper and lower case ax Please er s pou karst rinra ai a pead l oe Hare Fr Carcel rai PE m Eq Ves En Hon f D JI Ser BOY AA A Wie Fo pe n hero Espe repaid Ot ee cep ath Vist ae ed ome be a Ee ma ben bir o uppii For tareas ard demo karan the cote ri drp sobar onhe date If you purchased through a dealer you will have a temporary license that works for 30 days after installation To get your permanent license click Help menu Register Online or go to http www cyanogen com support register_main htm You can also call Diffraction Limited at 613 225 2732 during regular business hours Note that you cannot return the product after the permanent license is issued Internet Installation For Version 4 minor upgrades via download please see Upgrades Go to the demo download page http www cyanogen com downloads maxim_main htm Fill in the form including full name and e mail address You will then be allowed to download the installer Save t
151. SCOM HUBS cinta r bee bedene 4 6 CCD CAMERA AUTOGUIDER SETUP ccccccccsssseseeccccececaseseecccceeuesecccesessuanscecccceeseaaanees 4 8 Same AS Main Camera ad cis 4 9 Plug In Camerata A ia 4 9 Apogee AP KX SPH AM Series o ooonncocccnnnocnccnonannnonanoconananoc nana cnc cnananon 4 10 ADORECA MA A a e A E E thee E E 4 11 BUM E Gene a eee aa Ra ES 4 14 COOKDOOKAEBZ AI E A AAEE E actin ah act E A EO TR gti 4 14 Finger Lakes Instruments ooooonnnoccnnnnncconnnnnnnconnnnnn conan nn conan nr cnn n nn rra rca 4 15 Finger Lakes First Generation ooooooonnonnoncnnnnanonnanonnnncnnnnc nana nonnnncnna conan noo 4 16 a ENI S22 Doce es E seas ash tes A Aaa 4 17 HiS NAA iii diia 4 17 vii Maxlm DL User Manual viii Meade Pictor 208XT irinin asa a E aia 4 18 Meade Pictor 210 XT d 4 18 Meade Pictor 416XT 1616 XT Serial Mode ooooooonnninnnnnnnnncinnnnnccnnnaccncono 4 19 Meade Pictor 416XT 1616XT SCSI Mode 4 20 Roper Princeton Photometrics oonoocnnnnnncinnnnccnnnnccncnnnnnnonnnnrnncnnrcnnnnn nro 4 21 SBIG Universal AD ad 4 22 SBIG Camera with AO 7 oooocnnccninnanoncncnnnnonnnnonnnnnnnnnncnnnnonn conan conan ncnnccinns 4 23 EN A A NAT 4 24 SBIG STS Serial ion wsagehotiansadudovegensieeesedsvenegeavoenesedeeesedeee 4 25 SBIG STO ai Ad ERE ees 4 25 IBIS TV A A A 4 26 SIMULIO Le ados 4 28 Starlight Xpress HX5 ccccescccsseccessecessecesseeeeseecssceceseecesaeeesaeecsaeessneeseseeenes 4 29 Starlight Xpress HX5 USB oononnncc
152. SS Tms sec Germann Fii Alte item E coud spy The small Options button at top left will bring up the Options dialog box Blink Interval sets the interval between image changes for the Animate command POSS Format indicates the image format to use when downloading POSS images GIF to be displayed in Internet Explorer or TIFF to be saved and loaded into MaxIm DL POSS Type first or second generation blue or red indicates the POSS image set from which to download an image POSS Size sets the angular size of the retrieved image 6 137 Maxlm DL User Manual Window Menu New Window The New Window command will create a second view of the currently selected image The new view can be independently pan and zoomed but will have the same stretch as the original window Fit To Image This command toggles the Fit to Image mode on and off The Fit to Image mode causes the window for the image to be adjusted to the same size as the image If the view is zoomed out the window will shrink with it If the view is zoomed in the window will grow until it fills the main window Cascade This command will stack all non minimized image windows starting at the top left corner of the screen Tile Horizontally This command will tile all non minimized image windows running horizontally across the screen This command turns off the Fit to Image mode Tile Vertically This command will tile all non minimized image windows running vertically
153. Subtract A times B Multiply or A divided by B Divide e The value in Add Constant which can be made negative is added to the result obtained by the preceding Operation If the Operation is division zero values in Image B result in zero values on output before the addition of the Constant Filter Menu Kernel Filters Kernel filters provide low and high pass filtering smoothing and sharpening respectively using a kernel Several default filters are available and the user can supply up to twelve different User filters defined using a subsidiary dialog called up by clicking the Set button and described below In addition to standard High Pass and Low Pass filters of two strengths several special purpose kernels are available These include Gaussian Blur Dead Pixel and Hot Pixel removal Median filter Dilation and Erosion For these filters you can adjust the size of the kernel using the Kernel Size control The Average filter is simply a boxcar low pass filter which takes the average of the surrounding pixels Dead pixel removal is useful for removing the effects of unresponsive pixels in the CCD camera The filter removes any pixels that are darker than a certain fraction of the 6 103 Maxlm DL User Manual darkest neighboring pixel The fraction is determined by entering a Threshold level in percent If a pixel is to be replaced the median of the surrounding pixels is used r o A At Fisa Hot
154. System Upgrade Windows 98 ME use different drivers from Windows NT 2000 XP The MaxIm DL CCD installation program automatically installs the correct drivers for your operating system If you upgrade a 98 based operating system to an NT based operating system the camera drivers will be non functional The solution is to reinstall MaxIm DL CCD The installation program automatically detects which operating system is in use and installs the correct drivers Poor Image Display If color images do not display properly but monochrome images do you are in the 256 color video mode which is not fully supported by MaxIm DL It is strongly recommended that High Color 16 bit or a higher video mode be used To change video modes 1 Click on the Start button select Settings and choose Control Panel 2 Double click on the Display icon 3 Under Color Palette change the setting to High Color 16 bit 4 Click OK Depending on your video card you may have to restart your computer We recommend that you shut down MaxIm DL and restart it after changing modes If High Color mode is not available you need to select the correct video driver Advanced Properties Please contact your computer or video card vendor for more information 9 3 Maxlm DL User Manual Incorrect UT Date Time in FITS Header Some users set their system time zone to GMT Greenwich Mean Time Dublin Edinburgh Lisbon London instead of their local time zone and turn
155. TV to automatically take its own dark frames as needed The dark frames are not actually downloaded to the PC Note that this requires double the normal exposure time when a new dark frame is needed although subsequent images with the same settings will automatically re use the dark frame Attempts to use the normal auto dark functions in MaxIm will be ignored and any dark frames taken manually will be all zero The STV can be used as a guider via the Guide tab but the internal relays are not available in this mode You must select another method using the Control Via setting in Equipment Setup the Guide tab Settings A special guiding mode is available for the STV Set the Mode to either Hi Res Guider or Lo Res Guider note Hi Res and Lo Res affect only the imaging mode of the camera as described above not the guiding When this mode is selected a special STV Guider Control panel appears The panel initially appears over the MaxIm CCD control window but can be moved to a convenient position on the screen A farm Erbe Enea Prack Seti FP loa Marca Salta Especias Tina Ji ins Cpe stay Sot way Man Corertonjij 2 borme Tma ki 3 cal PALA 3 nn i Action jra r M ihel Tisk Ego E a i a The STV Guider Control allows you to command the STV to autoguide using its built in algorithms When the STV is not actively guiding you can also take images normally Typically the STV will be configured as the
156. This causes the focus position to be offset appropriately every time an exposure is taken with a new filter position If this feature is used absolute positioning focusers are strongly recommended to ensure repeatability DFM Engineering FW 82 For this driver select DFM FW 82 on the Setup tab 4 43 Maxlm DL User Manual 4 44 The FW 82 connects via serial port If you are using a single wheel select the correct port under COM Port 1 The FW 82 connects via serial port If you are using a single wheel select the correct port under COM Port axl ite or Common Hoda C mera o FP COMA Pa emn sl The user can assign names for each of the color filter slots under Filter Name If your filter wheel has fewer slots than allowed for by this driver simply leave the Filter Name in the extra slots blank they will not appear in the drop list filter selectors If the filters vary in thickness a Focus Offset can be entered for each filter This causes the focus position to be offset appropriately every time an exposure is taken with a new filter position If this feature is used absolute positioning focusers are strongly recommended to ensure repeatability This driver also supports operating two filter wheels simultaneously To enable this capability put a DFM INI file in the MaxIm DL program directory When this is done you can select both COM Port 1 and COM Port 2 See below for a definition of the DFM INI file DF
157. Unicare Haige Larmi 6 Hom E aci n fot Coodratsa and sampi creari diini Ed S a Next we will choose a Point Spread Function PSF model This model tells MaxIm DL how the image was blurred so that it can try to remove the blur from the image Click the PSF Model tab Select From Image for Function Type turn off Clean Up and click Select From Image ee E Hee hide PSF Model Discorervdes funcion type E e P hadu jale Porn a p Frau fra l biar a Fan El aacht omi Cookies Tua F ra Adjust the circular cursor to a radius of 8 pixels as shown in the Information window by right clicking and selecting the appropriate radius Click on the bright star in the lower center of the image if necessary you can move the dialog out of the way by dragging the title bar 2 10 Tutorials Click the Deconvolve tab Set Image to Actual and Number of Iterations to 15 Choose either Maximum Entropy or Lucy Richardson deconvolution Click Go A Howe Model FEF Mode Decorate Decree sto ge C Hemm Enry Chi Spaces a LuojrA iobardson E pete On Bllirege Hurem ol Path Hah Fausto E fiz Fo y E 4 uma ie bestias opla i a ree Watch the iterations proceed on the image When the processing is complete alternately hit Undo and Redo to see what the effect is on the image Saving the Image f you have not already done so open the DG_HaleBopp fits file in the Samples
158. Video sources such as webcams VIVO video cards Vid DirectShow frame grabbers and Firewire inputs are supported using this interface It works through the Microsoft DirectX platform it is therefore recommended that you install the latest version of DirectX available from http www microsoft com downloads Also any drivers provided with your device must be installed again we recommend updating to the latest version available from the manufacturer s web site Filter Wheels The table below lists the drivers that are included with the current release of MaxIm DL Other drivers may be made available by third parties Third party Plug in drivers are normally installed by placing their files in the MaxIm DL program installation directory you must restart MaxIm DL after installation Please refer to the documentation included with the driver for additional installation and setup information Also please note Diffraction Limited cannot provide technical support for third party plug ins For information on writing Plug in Drivers please visit the MaxIm DL Extras section at http www cyanogen com 4 4 Equipment Setup Filter Wheel Model Installation Select in MaxIm DL ACE SmartFilter Uses serial port no installation required Camera driver installation required Apogee or Apogee Alta CRI Micro Color Uses serial port no installation required CRI Tunable Tunable LCD Filter CVI AB 301 Uses serial port no installation required DF
159. a aaia 1 14 CHAPTER 2 TUTORIALS eessssoccccecssesoccccecesssooceccececcesssoccccecssssooccesesessssoeese 2 1 IMAGE PROCESSING TUTORIALS ooocccccccccnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnononononnnononononnononnnnnnnnnonononononnns 2 1 Open a Ele seek ha eh S eke Sioned otha ack tesa AE tee eh cote theds oo veceb eases teas 2 1 Adjust Brightness and Contrast cccscccesscceeseceseetesnecesseeeseseecuseeeesaeeesaes 2 2 Filtern a di 2 5 A AN 2 6 Histogram Specificati0K oococnnnnnccnnonannnonanannnnnananonnnnnnn conan nac nnnn cnc cnanancc ns 2 8 DeconvolutiON ooooooonccnnnnncnnnnnnnnnnnonononnnonnnnnnnnnonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnininininos 2 9 Saving the Imagina it tell Pee ed 2 11 CAMERA CONTROL TUTORIALS onsen EEEE EEEE oE EN EEEE EEE E EEE E N i 2 12 Baste Setup gt AA EEE EEKE E 2 12 POCUSIN BAR A a N E 2 14 Aiming the Telescope cccccccssscccesesseceensceeeenseeeeseeeeesenaeeseaneecesenneeeesenneeess 2 16 Taking Exposures Basic ccccccccsscceesseeesseseseeesssecesseeceeseeceseecesaeeesaeeeaes 2 17 Taking Exposures AdVaNCOdoooooonnoconooncnonncnnnanonnncnnnnonnnnonnn nc nana nnnncnnnccnnns 2 18 AULTOGUIdIN Bd 2 21 Shutdown Procedure silia e e i a a a riia es 2 23 TELESCOPE CONTROL TUTORIALS on E EET EE E ESE o EEEE EEE EEE EEE 2 24 Maxlm DL User Manual vi BASE DO 11A A0 EEE idas 2 24 AUTO Contar a a a iieii ia 2 26 AUTOFOCUS TUTORIAL ana EA T E EE 2 27 CHAPTER 3 GUIDE TO CCD IMAGING essssscccscccssse
160. a tile number other than one 1 causes the Continue Mosaic command on the Sequence Tab Options list to be enabled Note that it is automatically reset to one 1 if you Start a sequence mosaic with Capture Mosaic checked on the Sequence tab Options list Note also that if a mosaic sequence is aborted part way through a particular tile the Starting tile number will be incremented as the sequence terminates Therefore unless you interrupted the sequence exactly between tiles i e while the telescope is slewing to the next tile you should decrement the Starting tile number before resuming if you want to be sure of gathering the full complement of sequence exposures at that location Before continuing a sequence you may also wish to reset the Start at index number on the Sequence Tab since it is always increased to one greater than the largest sequence index used whenever a sequence terminates However in practice it usually doesn t matter if images from different tiles are not numbered consistently Set the File naming drop list to select the desired naming scheme to be applied to images from mosaic tiles Because the sequence is repeated once for every tile images from each tile have to be stored with unique names Three choices are available e Sequence number only the sequence numbers assigned by the Sequence tab are allowed to increase across tile boundaries This provides the shortest file names but makes it difficult to determine the positio
161. ab J J J J J 4 aT 4 39 Maxlm DL User Manual The filter wheel simulator just simulates the behavior of a filter wheel driver without doing anything Aside from enabling filter wheel controls the settings have no actual effect on the operation of the software except that the filter names will appear in the Expose and Sequence tabs This is useful for tutorials and for testing scripts A Delay option is available to simulate the time required for the filter wheel to rotate The filter slots can be named according to which filter is installed in each slot Blank slots are allowed only at the end of the list Blank slots will not appear in any drop down lists in the software If you wish to simulate a filter wheel with fewer slots simply leave the extra slots blank Blank slots are allowed only at the end of the list The blank slots will not appear in the drop down filter selector lists ACE SmartFilter 4 40 For this driver select ACE on the Setup tab Hal Alea Coman ACE Sra ta lran Mero 1030 4 Copgaght AH icien Lente Carra Hl eed Ruppart cp an paren oxen Lo Pas Miter Fares Paca Da a i Aaj 1 en 4 Fier 4 i Fis Piers J 7 Fi 7 i Filter j The ACE SmartFilter connects via a serial port as selected by COM Port The user can assign names for each of the color filter slots under Filter Name If your filter wheel has fewer slots than allowed for by this driver simply leave the Filt
162. ab and selecting the Camera Settings command The first step is to specify the location of the camera For cameras with a network interface select Ethernet enter the IP address of the camera and set Device Number 4 11 Maxlm DL User Manual to its TCP port number If the camera is selected as USB only the Device Number control is available set it to the camera identifying number as enumerated by the operating system fetes popes Ae Tiz Tia ka ll ire Weer L 7 eee Do Dala Esa Tehn repro mert ordena toc Lory Fiai While the camera is connected the Interface controls are not available they are replaced by a Status area If you do not know the location of the camera you can search for it using the Discover button See below for an explanation of the camera discovery feature Muer Ala Lofipuratron El lied Gi rca R Ehermi E 1 lor OFF aerating F usa Cerca Muente il LED a LED A r P Decre F Adm r T Ang nares Ca Tagger 7 z A M hipios Demean M Da haan TEs Fedo 7 Esperas and Shuler Opa Pal Tempra E E Hora PF Fedo om Ging ry i ran er D Esana Sham Siga m D Ei Gaia aad Aoin Em mek Alta cameras connected via USB can operate in two Digitization modes The 12 bit mode provides the highest speed while the 16 bit mode provides the highest dynamic range Cameras connected via Ethernet support only 16 bit mode You can also indicate whether to Digitize Overscan Normally this is turned off b
163. aban To set the subframe area using the mouse simply bring up this tab and drag the mouse while holding down the left button on an image taken with the CCD camera The subframe will automatically be set to include the area selected using the mouse Note using the mouse to select a subframe can only be done while the Settings tab is displayed Auto Calibration is used to set up automatic calibration of the images as the exposures Command Reference occur There are three settings None disables automatic calibration Simple Auto dark causes the software to automatically take a dark frame whenever the settings have changed and the Expose Tab s Expose button is pressed The dark frame is then automatically subtracted from all later exposures Full Calibration uses MaxIm DL s main calibration function which is set up using the Set Calibration command This allows advanced calibration features such as averaging or median combining multiple frames scaling dark frame exposures etc Note that the calibration frames must first be set up with the Process menu Set Calibration command The Binning settings allow you to combine a number of pixels together to create one super pixel This increases sensitivity but reduces camera resolution Binning is recommended when using a CCD camera with an optical system that produces a spot size much larger than 3 pixels FWHM The maximum binning setting depends on the particular CCD camera Some cameras a
164. age these settings will dramatically compress the dynamic range of the image so that the brightest and faintest parts of the comet are both visible at once Eang O Pe Dm e liniaj G Fis Perhaps this setting is a bit harsh We can better control the amount of dynamic range compression by changing the Permanent Stretch Type to Gamma Set Gamma Value to 0 2 and click OK Now set the screen stretch to Low using the Screen Stretch window You can toggle back and forth between the processed and original version of the image using the Undo and Redo buttons on the Toolbar Notice how the faint outer details in the comet are enhanced but the brighter details are still visible Various effects can be achieved with the Stretch command the following are some suggestions you can try e To prepare a file for export to a JPEG BMP PNG or 8 bit TIFF format set Permanent Stretch Type to Linear Only Input Range to Screen Stretch and Output Range to 8 bit In this mode you can adjust the Screen Stretch of the image window to change the Input Range settings the Min and Max fields will update as you adjust the stretch e To greatly compress the dynamic range of an image set Permanent Stretch Type to Log Input Range to Max Pixel and Output Range to Unlimited e To emphasize faint features set Permanent Stretch Type to Gamma Input 2 7 Maxlm DL User Manual Range to Max Pixel and Output Range to Unlimited Reduce the Gamma Value
165. ages are shifted so as to bring the centroids of their disks into coincidence No rotation or scaling is performed The Reject and Set As Reference buttons are available in planetary mode and work as previously described To determine if the results are satisfactory click the Overlay All Images button to produce a preview Overlay This mode is useful when no clear registration points are visible such as lunar images with indistinct features You must first set one of the images as the reference image Look through the images using the Next Image and Previous Image buttons Pick an image and click the Set As Reference button in many cases the first image can be used Next move to another image using the Next Image or Previous Image button This image will be overlaid on the reference image with the reference in magenta and the new image in green The Overlay Controls can now be used to adjust the position of the image to match the reference There are four shift buttons with up down left and right arrows There are also two rotation buttons with rotate clockwise right and rotate counterclockwise left arrows Each time you click a button the image moves The distance moved is controlled by the Nudge Size pixels control With these controls you can position an overlaid image to a fraction of a pixel In order to use the rotation buttons you must first pick a rotation point This is the point that the image will pivot about as it
166. al there may be reasons to change the order of the steps A common technique for the final stretching is to gradually boost the mid range by repeatedly using the Curves command Another useful technique is to smooth the darker parts of the image while sharpening the brighter parts The various filter commands have this capability built in The most important rule to remember is experiment Image Calibration Image calibration sounds like a boring topic but proper calibration is of the utmost importance in producing good quality images Despite many years of refinement no electronic imaging device is perfect Each CCD chip has a different bias level zero point dark current sensitivity to temperature and sensitivity to light These effects don t just vary from camera to camera they vary from pixel to pixel in the same camera Each of these effects corrupts the intensity represented in every pixel of the image in a specific way Fortunately the majority of the problems caused by these variations can be removed by calibration Performing basic calibrations on CCD images can result in as much as a 400 improvement in the signal to noise ratio resulting in much greater sensitivity Calibration is particularly important for long exposures using cooled CCD cameras as is the norm in astronomical imaging and many other scientific applications Some CCD camera users do not bother with calibrations because they are difficult This
167. al fear EIET Zoom Window Zoom Window is an inspection tool that allows you to examine up close any part of the image you choose without changing the zoom of the overall image Simply point the mouse at the part of the image you wish to see nx FITS Header 6 44 The FITS Header viewer editor can be used to inspect and modify standard and custom FITS header keywords FITS is the standard storage format for astronomical images It includes a header containing various types of information The header includes both mandatory and optional keywords each of which has associated data These keywords are used to store information about the image such as exposure time equipment used object identification etc Command Reference When reading SBIG format files header information from the file is also transferred to equivalent FITS keywords This is for data retention purposes only not for compatibility with other software We strongly recommend the use of FITS as it is the internationally recognized standard format for astronomical images 1 F un 154 Dre a I lin 000 Atari bii 31 fone Change mss 7 Peeve ed DD caer E ET Hei bi ora a LIT pocas es do LC OCIO ret seas E DP s RRS ae etc D age Pg CR on BC datan e sigh hh Sod l o The window is opened using the View menu FITS Header command The window can remain open as a floating toolbox without interfering with other commands You can select differ
168. allation of corrective optics on the Hubble s instruments deconvolution techniques have remained important and widely used tools for processing and improving images both from HST and from ground based observatories Command Reference Outside of astronomical applications the same image techniques can be applied to just about any image from microscope pictures to security camera video frames The only essential requirement is that the image be blurry Undersampled images such as those taken with very short focal lengths will already be as sharp as is possible If the pixels are too big to resolve the blur then deconvolution cannot improve the resolution Only limited image processing should be performed before deconvolution CCD images should be calibrated first to minimize consistent effects introduced by the camera gain thermal noise and optical system flat fielding If you are combining images or files to reduce noise this operation should also be performed before deconvolution If the camera does not produce square pixels it is recommended that you interpolate them to a square aspect ratio before proceeding Hot and dead pixels should be fixed If you do not wish to deconvolve each channel separately color combining of RGB or CMY images may be done beforehand for LRGB and LCMY images you will achieve better results by deconvolving the luminance image before color combining It is strongly recommended that all other processing function
169. ally computes and moves to the optimum focus position As long as there is a reasonably bright star visible which is not ridiculously out of focus Half Flux Diameter less than about 70 autofocus will bring it into accurate focus Chapter 3 Guide to CCD Imaging This section introduces the essential concepts required for capturing analyzing and processing images using MaxIm DL For a basic introduction to using MaxIm DL we strongly recommend reading the tutorials in the previous section CCD Sensors Imaging is the process of detecting light from a scene and creating a digital representation of it There are several types of imaging detectors in use today but the most common for high performance applications is the Charge Coupled Device or CCD When a photon an individual particle of light strikes an atom of silicon in the CCD sensor it excites an electron into a higher energy state Because silicon is a semiconductor electrons are only free to move when they are in this higher energy condition called the conduction band Once enough excited electrons photoelectrons have accumulated they can be read out and digitized In order to make a detector capable of forming images you need more than one detector A CCD contains thousands or millions of light sensitive pixels in an array In a CCD array the pixels are defined by insulating strips in one direction and by a set of electrodes in the other direction The charge in
170. alog In this case there will only be three exposures and the guide pattern should be a pair of straight lines of equal length superimposed on each other Once the calibration exposures are complete MaxIm CCD calculates the required calibration setting which you can view or change in the Guider Settings dialog If the star leaves the field during the exposure or does not move sufficiently far at least five pixels in one or both directions an error message will be displayed If the star moves too little or too much open the Guider Settings dialog and change the calibration time for the appropriate axis Note that a second star entering the field could confuse the calibration routine if it happens to have a brightness similar to that of the calibration star A specially designed software routine reduces this possibility by trying to match the star closest to the initial position that has a similar brightness Once the guider is calibrated use the Expose mode to take another image and confirm that a suitable guide star is still present The brightest star will automatically be selected in the Guide Star X and Y fields but you can pick a different star by clicking on it Switch to Track mode and click Start The autoguider will immediately start running A running error display will be shown the errors should settle down to small numbers after a few cycles You can then switch to the Expose tab or Sequence tab and start taking images with the main
171. and Optics tab of the Settings dialog This required value can often be found in the manual for your telescope or it can be calculated by multiplying the aperture by the f ratio Click Calculate scale to compute and display the pixel scale Command Reference Then click OK to close the window and return the values to the Information Window Photometry The Photometry tool provides highly accurate photometric measurements and allows for the plotting of light curves The accuracy of the photometric tool is higher than that of the Information window display It uses a median mean algorithm for background subtraction It also takes into account partial pixels inside the measurement annulus The size of the measurement annulus is determined using the right click context menu for the circular cursor Right click on an image to bring it up Please see the description under Information Window for more details Image Selection and Object Tagging The first step is to decide what information best characterizes the abscissa X axis information for the plot This will depend on the source of your data and on whatever preliminary processing may have been done Use the Time identification field dropdown to specify how MaxIm DL should derive this information This control should be set at the beginning of analysis since changing it resets the photometry tool The available choices are e Date time from FITS This is the most common setting MaxIm DL
172. and without using the mouse Click Large Icons if you want toolabr icons to be displayed at double size Although this takes more screen real estate it can be useful when operating the program in low light conditions i e with the monitor brightness turned down or when gloves or mittens reduce manual dexterity SS zj lilas tiers Deore he T ha cal e cr Baca i Das Po on A ies Status Bar The Status Bar command toggles the display of the status bar on and off The status bar displays transient information on the current operation the size of the currently selected image the zoom factor the coordinates of the mouse on the image the intensity of the pixel under the cursor and for color images the red green and blue intensities of the pixel under the cursor For Help press F1 512x511 100 425 207 i 22 667 r 22 000 q 16 000 b 30 000 Animate 6 62 This command allows you to blink back and forth between two images or create an animation from a group of images This function is often used for detecting moving solar system objects such as asteroids or objects that change in brightness variable stars novae supernovae Prior to animation blinking you may wish to apply the Equalize Screen Stretch command to adjust all images to the same brightness and contrast The Equalize Screen Stretch command can also be used while Animate is active as long as it appears on a displayed toolbar the View menu item itself is d
173. another exposure so that you can verify this Finally check Mirror if your optical system has an odd number of reflecting surfaces for example if you are imaging through an AO 7 or star diagonal You are now ready to use the auto center feature If for any reason you need to stop the operation Abort will stop the telescope motion The Pier Flip setting is used with German Equatorial mounts Pier Flip should NEVER be used with a fork mount When a German Equatorial mount flips from one side of the 6 181 Maxlm DL User Manual pier to another the camera physically rotates 180 degrees Enabling the Pier Flip setting compensates by rotating the calibration data by the same amount Focuser Tab The Focuser tab will let you control the telescope s focuser We recommend the use of a digitally controlled absolute positioning focuser Generally speaking these focusers use stepper motors for precise repeatable positioning and can be commanded to specific locations by the computer This repeatable positioning facilitates accurate autofocus nx Trirtcope Catalog Corin Foctos Aueoocin Seu Ficus Sad takis i Toki pe Mora To Move in Shaka fone m Mera tra Teapecsdee Traci For absolute positioning focusers you can set a position in the Absolute field and then click Move To The focuser will automatically move to that position You can abort the move by clicking Stop note some focuser models do not support the s
174. applied a hyperbolic stretch gamma with an S curve and compensated for the flattened appearance by adding an edge enhancement effect created by developer depletion in bright areas He devised a simple and highly effective method to emulate this effect digitally using a hyperbolic stretch and unsharp mask 3 23 Maxlm DL User Manual FFT Filtering Filtering with large convolution kernels can be extremely time consuming Fortunately there is a better way to do filtering The method uses something called a Fast Fourier Transform or FFT After an FFT is performed the result doesn t look anything like the original image If there are large but slow brightness variations in the original image the FFT image looks brighter in the corners and around the edges If there are very large rapid brightness variations the center of the image will look brighter Usually the image looks like something out of a kaleidoscope This may not sound very useful but FFTs can be reversed to get the original image back And you can make changes to the FFT ed image before you reverse it If the right changes are made the result will be a filtered image Because the FFT rearranges the image so that rapidly changing features are in one place and slowly changing features are in another just about any filter can be easily applied Usually the filter shape is generated first either by taking an FFT of a convolution kernel or by directly generating a shap
175. are always shown in J2000 0 regardless of this setting Just below the Focuser selector and connection status field is the Options button E which displays the following menu Select Setup to display a dialog allowing you to specify interface information such as port baud rate etc and any other options affecting basic focuser operation Generally speaking this only needs to be done once Setup dialogs are specific to the particular model of focuser and are described elsewhere Some focusers exhibit backlash which arises primarily from looseness in the mechanical parts which move the focuser Despite the use of stepper motors and digital control circuits the focuser does not move to exactly the same physical position extension even when the controlling mechanism has moved by an identical amount in both directions Selecting Backlash Compensation instructs MaxIm DL to always approach a target focuser position in the same direction thus eliminating this problem If the target position is in the wrong direction i e opposite to the preferred sense MaxIm DL runs the focuser past the desired position by a certain distance and then reverses direction to approach from the correct direction Click Steps to display a dialog allowing you to specify the amount of overshoot expressed in focuser steps You should use the smallest value which eliminates backlash issues Click OK to accept the entered value or Cancel to leave the existing valu
176. ars It is used to display the currently selected image or a preview of the results if Overlay All Images is clicked The first step is to select the Output mode This determines how the images are combined The available options are Sum Average Median Sigma Clip and SD Mask Sum adds up the pixels in all the images Average sums all the pixels and divides by the number of images Median takes the median or middle value from all of the images The Sum mode provides the best performance in most conditions e g when Command Reference Gaussian noise is present The Median mode is useful when some pixels are extremely bright or dark hot dark pixels cosmic ray hits If Median mode is used a Normalize option is available Normalize will remove differences in the image scaling which could interfere with the median processing The Sigma Clip and SD Mask combination modes attempt to combine the best features of the Median and Average modes but require more intensive calculations These algorithms require additional settings which are discussed below 3 Humba ol pacar Pages Finch O5 Hamalcalon fires Hrana pen EC ED s r krema pmi ree When the Sigma Clip or SD Mask Standard Deviation Mask a custom algorithm contributed by Ray Gralak combine algorithms are selected additional parameters are required to control how the images are combined Both algorithms work by calculating the mean value of each pixel across all of
177. ate set of exposure controls condensed into a compact format While the Expose tab is used for taking images that will be saved the Focus tab is primarily used for taking images for focusing and for centering objects in the field The separate controls make it is easy to switch back and forth between two different exposure settings The Focus tab can be used for the main CCD or the Guider by clicking the appropriate radio button A Us Emp Setiren Segre Prosi kripa Guido Setup FE gen Esconde Fog eka u afia fo a e Sab r fmi l Len 0 3 man M4 Ton 6 3 Hei si Ba ES The Start Focus button starts an exposure or exposure sequence When an exposure is in progress the Start Focus button is disabled and the Stop button is enabled The focus tab does not change the filter wheel position If you need to change the filter selection do so using the Expose tab The exposure duration is set using Seconds The minimum exposure setting is 0 001 seconds Note that some cameras cannot achieve this shutter speed and will use their lowest possible setting instead The Binning control allows you to combine multiple pixels together to produce super pixels covering more area The Delay s control specifies a delay time in seconds 6 157 Maxlm DL User Manual before each exposure is taken For cameras that lock the computer during readout it is a good idea to set the Delay to 1 to make sure there is enough tim
178. ation The autoguider is overcorrecting for the error causing the telescope to go the other way Reduce the Aggressiveness and see if it stabilizes A poor calibration is the most likely cause of instability Tip you can independently adjust the aggressiveness of each axis To reduce aggressiveness for the X or Y axis alone increase the Manual Calibration X Speed or Y Speed setting as appropriate Manual Calibration is automatically set for you by the Guide tab calibration so at the very least you have a good starting point for adjustment If you are having trouble in RA check the mount balance again Also make sure that the worm gear is clean and working smoothly If you are having trouble in Declination you might have a stiction problem This is a tendency for the mount to continue moving forwards when the guide motor reverses direction Put in a high power eyepiece and try rocking a star back and forth in Declination with the hand paddle If you see the star move briefly in the wrong direction when you try to reverse you ve got stiction The solution for stiction is to note which way the star is drifting in declination Then go to the Guider Settings and disable the guider output that pushes the star in the direction of the drift That way it will only ever push in one direction against the drift That prevents the stiction from occurring If the eyepiece test shows a lot of backlash the star just sits there for a few seconds befo
179. ation Their easy to use PolarAlignMax utility will work with the included PinPoint LE astrometric engine This utility can be obtained from http focusmax org Focusing Focusing can be difficult because you cannot look through a CCD camera Instead you must view the image on a computer screen Although some CCD cameras are capable of updating the screen multiple times a second this is the exception rather than the rule At low light levels the exposure time required is often too long Even where a bright target is available the digitization circuits are often deliberately slow to give the best low noise performance in other cases simply transferring a large volume of data to the computer takes some time When the screen updates only a few times a minute it becomes extremely difficult to tell which way to adjust the focus Two techniques can be used to speed up the update rate The first binning combines together four or more pixels into one super pixel producing a smaller brighter image that can be downloaded faster This is great for coarse focus but the loss of resolution makes fine focus difficult The second method subframing requires you to pick a small area of the array and only read out that region This also speeds up the download rate but reduces the area available Despite their disadvantages these techniques are essential for efficient focusing MaxIm DL CCD provides some tools for focusing The F
180. ause real images are spread over many pixels So the low pass filter affects the noise more than it does the image By suppressing the noise gradual changes can be seen that were invisible before Therefore a low pass filter can sometimes be used to bring out faint details that were smothered by noise MaxIm DL allows you to selectively apply a low pass filter to a certain brightness range in the image This allows you to selectively smooth the image background while leaving the bright areas untouched This is an excellent compromise because the fainter objects in the background are the noisiest and it does not degrade the sharpness of bright foreground objects 3 21 Maxlm DL User Manual Filtering can be visualized by drawing a convolution kernel A kernel is a small grid showing how a pixel s filtered value depends on its neighbors To perform a low pass filter by simply averaging adjacent pixels the follow kernel is used When this kernel is applied each pixel and its eight neighbors are multiplied by 1 9 and added together The pixel in the middle is replaced by the sum This is repeated for each pixel in the image If we didn t want to filter so harshly we could change the kernel to reduce the averaging for example aa E AE ESO The center pixel contributes half of its value to the result and each of the four pixels above below left and right of the center contribute 1 8 each This will have a more subtle eff
181. automatically rejected To determine if the results are satisfactory click the Overlay All Images button to produce a preview Astrometric This method uses the World Coordinate System WCS entries in the FITS header to determine how much to shift rotate and scale each image into alignment with the reference image The WCS information characterizes the precise image center coordinates pixel scale roll angle and other information describing the mapping between RA and declination and pixel X Y coordindates It is added to the FITS Header when an image is solved using the PinPoint Astrometry command or another astrometric software package Only images that have been successfully solved can be Command Reference aligned in this way all unsolved images are automatically rejected Since aligning an image can change its center coordinates orientation angle and scale the existing WCS is invalidated on all images except the reference By default the reference image is the first image in the list but you can select another one by moving to it with Next Image or Previous Image then clicking Set As Reference To determine if the results are satisfactory click the Overlay All Images button to produce a preview Planetary This method is intended for aligning images of planets It will work only when each image to be aligned contains a single substantial disk that is an approximately circular region of bright pixels completely surr
182. ave As dialog is based on the standard Windows version with several additional features SS 8 ua Load ir al Srp fcr Ef ii Assas HAS PH Fi HoA pg j upie H Tia raras OO Ha i be deen Pia Pier aF Come Ae Farad Sint Peat ms el oe gt imapas Peredo tn Equesa w h i Heh D Coreana fie Picado File Deili i r t Hbf a n 3 rirart HEI y wage radi TE image gh TT Z The File Filter will set the format and extension for the file only files of the type selected will be displayed under Save In If All Files is selected then all files will be displayed and the File Format combo box must be used to select the file format For TIFF FITS and RAW format files the Size Format must be set TIFF files can be stored as 8 bit or 16 bit integers FITS and RAW format accept these plus 32 bit integer and 32 bit IEEE float Other formats are fixed at 8 bit depth PNG JPEG BMP ST 4 12 bit PC Lynxx and 16 bit SBIG Certain file formats support selectable file compression For these formats the Compression Type combo box can be used to determine the compression settings Note that the FITS file format includes an option for compression which is non standard This option can save disk space but should not be used if you intend to open the FITS file in another software package The File Details box will indicate the maximum pixel value in the image and the maximum allowed by the file format If the brigh
183. axIm DL is available either on CD ROM or via Internet download Please follow the appropriate instructions CD ROM Installation If you purchased MaxIm DL with a CD ROM insert it into your drive The Launcher should automatically start if not then open Windows Explorer browse to the CD ROM drive and double click the file Launcher exe The Launcher has various buttons for installing programs and drivers 1 Click the Install MaxIm DL button InstallShield will start and take you through the process of installing MaxIm DL The default settings will install the full software package and all options You may be asked to reboot the PC if certain files in use by Windows need to be updated 2 If you purchased the full MaxIm DL CCD version and are planning to use Telescope or Focuser control click the Install ASCOM button This will take you through the procedure of installing the ASCOM Platform which contains various drivers and utility programs You can also optionally install source code for most of the included software 3 Some CCD cameras require the manufacturer s drivers to be installed in order for MaxIm DL CCD to communicate with them Please see Driver Installation and Setup for more information 4 If you use an SBIG CCD camera click Install SBIG Driver to load the drivers for operating these cameras 5 A 30 day trial version of MaxPoint is available Click the Install MaxPoint button and follow the instructions The CD
184. b 6 177 Telescope Troubleshooting 9 10 Telescopes 4 1 Temporary Files 6 16 Text 6 27 TheSky 4 59 Threshold 6 101 TIFF 6 1 6 10 Tile 6 138 Tile Horizontally 6 138 Tile Vertically 6 138 Timestamp 6 69 Toolbar 2 9 6 1 6 33 Toolbars 6 52 Toolbars Tab 6 60 Tracking Error Alarms 6 173 Tracking Error Graph 6 171 Tracking Log 6 163 Treat Data As Unsigned 6 16 Tricolor 6 154 Troubleshooting 3 11 9 1 True Technology 4 5 4 49 4 55 Tutorial 2 12 Tutorials 2 1 Twilight Flats 3 33 Unblend 6 25 Undo 1 12 6 22 Uniform 6 101 Uniform Noise 6 114 Unsharp Mask 3 23 6 107 6 109 8 7 Unsigned Format 6 15 Upgrade 6 139 Upgrades 1 4 User Filter Definition 6 105 User Level Accounts 1 5 Using CCD Cameras 3 3 VBScript 6 21 7 1 Vertical Box 6 51 Vertical Line 6 51 Index Video 4 4 4 37 Video Capture Filter 4 38 Video Capture Pin 4 38 Video Crossbar 4 38 Video Display 1 1 Video Driver Problems 1 6 Video DS 4 37 Video Projectors 3 53 Video Source 4 38 View Images 6 64 View Menu 6 33 View Plot 6 71 View Toolbar 6 55 Viewing Images 1 7 Vignetting 3 16 8 7 Visual Basic 7 2 7 3 Visual C 7 4 VIVO 4 37 Warm Up 6 177 Watch Star 6 163 WAV Files 6 20 Wavelength 8 7 Webcams 4 37 Weiner Filter 8 7 White Balance 6 129 Window Menu 6 138 Windows 1 1 Writing Plug Ins 7 3 Zoom 1 11 1 12 6 16 6 33 6 62 Zoom Window 6
185. brighter with additional binning once they are undersampled and yet more background light enters the bigger pixels This adds more photon shot noise into each pixel but no more signal thus reducing the signal to noise ratio For more information see the snr xls spreadsheet available in the MaxIm DL Extras section of our web site http cyanogen com products maxim_extras htm Color Balance 3 42 The sensitivity of most CCD cameras as a function of wavelength color is different than the response of the human eye The filters used for creating color composites also have their own characteristics as do the telescope optics Although perfect color rendition is an elusive if not impossible goal all individuals see colors slightly differently it is straightforward to get good color balance with simple weightings The Color Balance command adjusts the three color planes so that proper white balance can be achieved The first step is to remove any background cast by clicking the Auto Background button manual adjustment is also possible The next step is to set the scaling factors for the red green and blue filters The simplest way to do this is identify an object in the image that is white and then click on it Usually you will find a number of stars in an image that are white enough to use as an accurate reference for color balance For better accuracy it is best to calibrate using a source known to be pure white Star
186. c NTA TEE A E E A ETET 9 5 SBIG AND CELESTRON CAMERAS ccccsssssseccccecccasseecccceeecaunscceeesausnsececceeseauaeseeeceeeeeaas 9 6 STARLIGHT XPRESS CAMERAS ccccccccccsssseccccceeccusseecccceeeeeeeccceeesauaseeccceessauaneeeceeeeeaas 9 6 AUTOGUIDER TROUBLESHOOTING cccccccccccssssseecccceeceueeeseccecuunececcccesseuaeeeeccceseseaaneess 9 7 FILTER WHEEL TROUBLESHOOTING cccccccccssseseccccececausesecccceeeececccceessuanseeeeceeseeaanness 9 10 TELESCOPE TROUBLESHOOTING ssscccccecccssseeecccececaussecceeuuneeecccceeseuueeeecceeseeaanness 9 10 FOCUSER TROUBLESHOOTING cccssseseccccccceesseeecccceeeeeanccceeseasnseccccsessaanseeeeceeeseaanness 9 11 AUTOFOCUS TROUBLESHOOTING ssscccccccccesseeecccceceeeusesececcaueseecccceescaueseeeeceeseeaanness 9 11 CHAPTER 10 TINDEXick scesiciescctactsacetecassccaaceuscssenacsedanadecscaseccsacenadegsstvessanccoacse 10 12 xiii Maxlm DL User Manual xiv Chapter 1 Introduction MaxIm DL is a program specifically designed for imaging with scientific grade CCD cameras In addition to a host of functions suitable for any high sensitivity high bit depth application it includes functions specifically designed for astronomical applications MaxIm DL is available in two versions The basic version includes only the image processing and analysis functions The full MaxIm DL CCD version includes image processing plus full instrumentation control including support for a lar
187. cal length FOCALLEN Most cameras supported by MaxIm CCD provide the pixel dimensions automatically and the instrument focal length can be configured on the Site and Optics tab prior to imaging If an image has no pixel scale information available in its FITS header you can specify it manually using the Pixel Scale Editor described below Finally we have the Catalog Setup You can select the catalog to use from the list The choice of catalog depends on which catalogs are available and the scale of the image One common choice is GSC 1 1 corrected which uses the Guide Star Catalog with adjustments to improve its accuracy You need to select the location of the catalog using the Path button Please see http support dc3 com wsx webstar exe prob 129 for more information on catalogs To make sure the analysis is performed quickly you can instruct PinPoint to ignore catalog stars outside of a particular Magnitude Range Enter appropriate minimum and maximum magnitudes into the two fields labelled Use stars from magnitude Stars outside this range will be ignored This is useful if the catalog goes much deeper than the image you are analyzing The Search Area is usually set to include more area than the image itself This allows for additional stars to be brought in from the catalog which is important if the image is offset from the expected position If you think the image might be substantially off target turn on the Search outward
188. calibrate light images using the sky flats In some cases such as survey imaging you can use actual light frame exposures to generate your sky flats This was done for example for the Desktop Universe all sky CCD mosaic several thousand mosaic frames were combined to produce an extremely clean master flat Stretching The primary goal of stretching is to compress the dynamic range of the image to suit the limitations of your video monitor Since processed images can have a depth of 16 bits or more it is impossible to properly represent these images on a computer monitor or printer Most output devices are limited to 256 grey levels 8 bits and rarely can you actually distinguish more than 64 grey levels 6 bits This is a very serious limitation as a result you must perform a stretch operation in order to properly view a CCD image Simple screen stretch operations do not change the image rather they adjust the way it is displayed Screen stretch operations can be made permanent so that the image can be exported to other software More complex stretch functions attempt to adjust to reduce the dynamic range of images so features at very different brightness levels can be seen at the same time Monitor Setup 3 34 Before you start adjusting your images make sure your monitor is adjusted properly Brand new monitors are often very badly adjusted manufacturers know that most computer stores have bright overhead fluorescent light
189. camera Before calibrating the autoguider it is useful to set the Declination field to the approximate declination of the telescope This makes it unnecessary to recalibrate the autoguider after a slew to a different declination instead simply reset the Declination field to the new declination of the telescope and the calibration will be automatically adjusted to match The exception is that when using a German Equatorial mount the calibration sense has to be reversed for one axis flipping the mount over as occurs when 6 161 Maxlm DL User Manual 6 162 moving the telescope from eastern to western sky and vice versa Toggle the Pier Flip check box to switch the direction of the calibration settings when this is necessary You can have the Declination field automatically updated for you provided your telescope is connected via the Telescope Control window See Use Scope Dec below If you do not wish to use the Declination feature leave it set at zero during calibration and tracking Aggressiveness is used to adjust the guiding stability A value of 10 means that the guider will attempt to guide out all of the detected motion whereas a value of 1 means that the guider will attempt to guide out 10 of the detected motion You can set it to 0 thus suppressing all corrections but still measuring the guiding errors in this case the background of the control is set to yellow as a warning A high value can result in overshoot particularly if
190. cannot turn logging on and off while tracking is active A track log looks like this Track Log Started at UT 1999 06 18 22 43 40 UT Time Star X Star Y OffsetX OffsetY Corr X Corr Y Bright 22 43 44 513 71 384 88 0 29 0 88 0 11 0 74 2036 22 43 48 513 58 384 24 0 42 0 24 0 16 0 20 2020 22 43 51 513 60 383 97 0240 0 037 0 15 0 02 2029 22 43 54 514 40 384 18 0 40 0 18 0 15 0 14 2023 22243 57 513 78 383 81 0 22 0 19 0 08 0 16 2037 22 44 01 513 42 384 09 0 58 0 09 0 22 0 07 2024 22 44 04 Guide Star Fade 22 44 07 514 07 384 41 0 07 0 41 0 02 0 34 2026 22 44 10 513 71 384 50 0 29 0 50 0 11 0 42 2010 22 44 23 514 08 384 15 0 08 0 15 0 03 0 12 2044 The time is shown in Universal Time UT Time The system time zone and daylight savings time settings must be correct in order for this to show the correct time Star X and Star Y show the coordinates of the star relative to the CCD chip in pixels Of fsetX and Of f set Y show the position relative to the center of the guide box in pixels Corr X and Corr Y show the duration in seconds of the correction made for the two axes Bright shows the peak brightness of the star If the star disappears momentarily Guide Star Fade will be shown This comma delimited format is compatible with loading into a spreadsheet application for plotting The filename currently set for the tracking log is displayed at the b
191. ces this problem Turning the anti blooming gate on allows more saturation before a streak will appear but decreases the sensitivity of the camera somewhat Important Note Please allow 30 seconds for the camera to initialize after power on before attempting to connect Once a link is established set up the cooler temperature and wait for the CCD temperature to appear before taking the first exposure Note on autoguiding The 208XT telescope control relays are not available under software control Autoguiding control is still possible via other means such as the Telescope Control Window Due to the readout speed we strongly recommend setting 2x2 binning when using this camera for autoguiding Meade Pictor 216XT For this driver choose Meade 216XT on the Setup tab Meade Pictor 216XT cameras are connected via serial port The communications port to which the camera is connected must be selected in the COM Port field The Baud Rate field is used to control the communications speed higher speeds provide faster image downloads but slower speeds may be more reliable if communications are marginal Serial Mode can be set to trade off bit depth against download speed The 16 bit mode 4 18 Equipment Setup provides the highest resolution but slowest speed Normally this is set to either 16 bit Compr compressed mode or 12 bit Compr mode etao mimada a a xls aoe E cn aed Ex Es oe o Liers ce gt PAE OW Pod Dae Ml
192. cessccessseseceesscecesceceseesesacesaeeesaeecsaeees 6 111 Rotational Gradiente ai abit 6 111 DOCONVOIVE iii A iii 6 112 Photons Wizard 0er tai asirio a o i 6 119 Flatten Background u cccescccssecesseceeseeesseeceseeceseseeeseecsacecseecesaeeesaeeesaee 6 119 Auto Flatten Background cccscccesscceesseeescetencecesnecessacecsseecesaeeeseessaaees 6 121 Auto Remove Gradient oooococccnnnnnnnnnnononononononnnnnnnonononnnononononnnonononnnnnnnnnnos 6 121 COLOR MENU ida 6 122 Combine Colo 6 122 Color SA A ia tao 6 125 SplltTriCOlO iii E ES ENE aiis 6 126 Convert to MONO 0 a tia da os toda Seek eee des ses aback oes ete 6 126 Pseudo Color iii 6 126 Realign Planes ii atada nica ia 6 127 Color Balance oi a BG ORR EE EE 6 128 White Balances a as dialoga 6 129 Adjust SQturatiON ooooonooncnnoncnnnnnnnnnnonnnnonnnnnnnnncnnna conan cnn nc rana n voio nn ncnn nacos 6 130 COLON Smoothing enso aa a E EEE A A A 6 130 Color Adj st ineine eena aeai E ETE E Ra eE i ERREN 6 131 Convert MX sires nta E e ri 6 132 Convert RGB vivsiicscieseescsteicesccnssvevssesgeessousdees saguaatase vases sagauavessesevesdadesonssss 6 134 PLUG IN MENU tas 6 135 Maxlm DL User Manual xii Add Remove PLUQ inh cccscccsscccsssccessecesseecsseecssceceeseecsseeseseecesaeeesaeecsaeees 6 135 Supernova Search TO sinisiin sai 6 136 WINDOW MENU iii ia ii is 6 138 New Window loca is a ica dao oth a Sates o bbe seek 6 138 NARA ENT 6 138 Cascade is POSES PERCE SOS ES 6 138 Tile
193. ck stretch can also be performed directly on image windows and Preview windows Point the mouse cursor at the image you wish to adjust Hold down the Shift key then press and hold the left mouse button Drag the mouse to control the stretch This allows you to adjust the stretch without using the Screen Stretch dialog Histogram The histogram is a graph which shows how many pixels are in the image in different brightness ranges It is the large box shown on the upper left of the window The zero point black is at the left side and the brightest pixel represented is at the right side The highest point on the graph corresponds to the most common brightness level in the image Note that the vertical scale is logarithmic The histogram allows you to conveniently adjust the stretch for any displayed image The red caret controls the black level Minimum Moving the red caret leftwards makes the background of the image darker The green caret controls the white level Maximum Moving the green caret leftward increases the image contrast but tends 6 37 Maxlm DL User Manual to saturate bright parts of the image Contrast is highest when the two carets are close together If the carets are switched the image will appear reversed like a photographic negative The carets are affected by the other controls in the window but they can also be moved with the mouse Both carets can be moved together by holding the Shift key down while using th
194. click the Settings button and set up parameters for your telescope If this is not done the autofocus will almost certainly fail Once the settings have been set up properly for your equipment they do not need to be adjusted again Ao AA d Ha Tamma a Fonai Aia pe m Crean Eons Ford Meche Buba Tires nach Cain Ssh fi to Final Pico a i Delay mer i Hagi i 100 im 3 p Fosce ful fo i Fara Foca Focus Sep ce Tagai Mi Flos Con 11 00 o 3 F ia Riisi be af kari Dari Es al tre bea Fa Da Prebared D eect Mover faa The Telescope Focal Ratio is essential It determines the depth of focus and therefore the step size that is used when hunting for best focus The focal ratio is often found in the telescope manual it can also be calculated by dividing the focal length by the aperture Also essential is the Focuser Step Size Some digital focusers know what this is inherently you can click the Auto button to fill in the information Other focusers do not have this information they are just motors hooked up to focusers from other 6 183 Maxlm DL User Manual manufacturers In this case take out a ruler Move the focuser 1000 steps measure the distance it moves and divide that by 1000 Enter this value into the Focuser Step Size Be sure to select the proper units for the focuser step size either Microinches millionths of an inch or Microns millionths of a meter as appropriate Tip if you cannot see the
195. completed sequence definition which you may modify if desired for example you can add binning to a wizard generated calibration sequence or change it to generate multiple flats with different filters The wizard always uses sequence slots 1 up to 4 depending on how many are needed the Enable check boxes for slots which are not needed are cleared but their content is not otherwise disturbed You must close the Setup Sequence dialog by clicking OK to finalize the new script closing the dialog via Cancel will discard it and keep the previous sequence settings Setup Mosaic 6 154 A mosaic specification defines the number and spacing of the individual image tiles and a position on the sky about which the images are taken that will ultimately be combined to create a wide field image The overall mosaic is always in the shape of a rectangle although you can terminate image acquisition early or begin it late to modify the shape Since the final mosaic itself is built by the interactive Mosaic command you also have the freedom to exclude certain parts or include other adjoining areas Command Reference The size of an individual tile is defined by your optical configuration effective focal length and the physical dimensions of your CCD camera array You must determine this reasonably accurately before you can properly configure a mosaic specification the Pixel Scale Editor available from the Spatial Calibration area of the Information Wind
196. completely blank image buffer helps the blending feature work properly The Open command is used to load image files into an image buffer A variety of file formats are supported including FITS SBIG monochrome formats BMP files 8 bit or 16 bit depth TIFF images except those using LZW compression which is protected by patent JPEG and PNG compressed images PC Lynxx images and RAW format 6 1 Maxlm DL User Manual 6 2 images with optional header skip RAW and FITS images can have 8 bit 16 bit and 32 bit integer formats or IEEE floating point format Note that the RAW format can be used to read files from Starlight Xpress camera control software ia Fiber Ai Fite Cone He Pan Sie Fosa ms Sima P inteciada Palo do cps ER Hs F Overa fie Pood Loa Ela Dietas x Obes Hoe E a q hiriren HS a kispi TG rags hehe 112 The MaxIm DL Open dialog is based upon the standard Windows Open dialog Multiple files of the same format can be opened simultaneously using standard Windows file multi select features Shift to select a range of files CTRL to select multiple individual files If the File Filter is set to All Files then the separate File Format combo box is enabled If the file has a recognized extension and valid header then the file format will automatically be shown when the file is selected When the file format matches the type of file details on the f
197. conds since the camera was commanded to take the exposure The display continues updating as long as the camera is exposing When the exposure has been downloaded adjust the screen stretch to make the white blocks more visible if necessary and examine the image You need to determine the time delay which occurred before the shutter opened This is normally given by the leftmost digit in each of the top two rows seconds and tenths and the number of the top illuminated block in the first column that has any blocks lit in the example below the delay is 0 37 seconds Note that if the delay is such that the shutter opened near the end of a second and the exposure ran into the next second we want the first lit tenth and Command Reference hundredth whose predecessors are not lit Thus if both 00 top left corner and 99 bottom right are lit the delay will be given by the first lit block in the right hand grouping of contiguous lit blocks EG gt 5 2 cy 5 0 a CGE Enter the three digits of the measured delay in the sec 10ths and 100ths fields and click Apply It is advisable to repeat the test several times to be sure that the results are sufficiently consistent to warrant time tagging images to the nearest 100th of a second Finally it is necessary that the computer s clock be set accurately to Universal Time commercial packages are available to set the computer time by dialing up time services such as WWV Alterna
198. connconnancnnanononnnnnnanonnanonna conan nonanan nnaconns 4 30 Starlight Xpress HX9 USB oonocnnccconccnonancnnancnonnnnonncnnnanonnn conan conan ncnanccinns 4 30 Starlight Xpress MAI tt die 4 31 Starlight Xpress MXS USB ooonoccnccnonccconancnoancnnnncnnnnconnn conan conan conan ncnanncnnns 4 32 Starlight Xpress MX5 USB STAR2000 ooooocccnooccnooncconncnonnccnnanonnnnccnanccnnne 4 32 Starlight Xpress MX7 MX7C MXOcoooicccinocinooncnonncnonnnonnnnonnnnonanncnanccnnns 4 33 Starlight Xpress MX7 MX9 USB ooonoocnncccnnoncnooncnonnncnnnnonnnnonnnnonanncnanacinno 4 34 Starlight Xpress MX7 MX9 USB STAR2000 ocoooocooccnoonononncnannnnanancnnaninnnos 4 34 Starlight Xpress MX7C USB onnie i e E E ea ei 4 35 Starlight Xpress MX7C USB STAR2000 ccooooconooccnooncnonncnonnnnnnanonnnnonnn nacio 4 35 Starlight Xpress SXV H9 oooooonncccinccnoncncnnancnnanononnnnnnnn nora conan conan conan cnn ee 4 36 Video DirectShow ccccccccccccecessccesssseceeeesseeeseneaseeeeseeeeessnaeeeeseneeeeeseeeeenas 4 37 FILTER SS AAA O oenetvensepevnde EREKE EARE eR e ER 4 38 Plug In Filter WhCE1 ccscccssecsssecesseeesseeceseeceseaeesseecsseecssaeeesaeeesaeessaeees 4 38 Filter Wheel Simulator cccccccccccceeesccceenscceeenceeeeeeceeceenaeeeenaeeeessaneeeeennees 4 39 ACE SMGrt Filter A E 4 40 APO GCC sence shee ions E S As E E adda daa EE E sy 4 41 Apogee Alta cesccsccveicsdccveasedcevssad ca 4 42 EREMicroF COLOR iii iia 4 42 CVE AB SOL iii caia diran 4 43 DFM E
199. convergence failure with the Poisson noise model is an incorrect setting for Photoelectrons per ADU For the uniform noise model try adjusting the noise level setting Increasing the uniform noise level or background level will often make it easier for the algorithm to converge Note that increasing the uniform noise level or background level too much may reduce the effectiveness of the deconvolution Stopping Criteria The question of when to stop iterating is a matter of judgment Too few iterations will result in an image that is not completely deconvolved Too many iterations will cause excessive noise amplification particularly in areas with faint continuous details General guidelines are as follows The image should obviously look sharper than the original version Often the brighter areas will deconvolve first followed by the fainter features Some images are much more difficult to deconvolve than others Often 10 15 iterations are sufficient occasionally 40 or more are required If the image converges too slowly check the PSF and Noise model settings It is quite possible to overdo it Once the image is sharpened very little additional improvement will be seen But the algorithm will continue to try to deconvolve the noise floor which was not blurred by the PSF The background will start looking noisy and curdled General Recommendations There are certain processing steps that should be performed before deconvolution
200. copy strips or areas This is extremely useful for cleaning up areas that have significant background in them If you can find a source area with the same background characteristics your repair can be seamless The Clone tool also allows you to copy from one image to another In addition to copying from any area in the source image to any area in the destination image you can lock the two positions together This is handy for merging information from two slightly different versions of the same image for example you could use this to smooth or sharpen some region of the image You can use the Undo buffer of the image as the source this allows you to selective undo processing operations on certain areas of an image Bloom Removal All CCD cameras have a maximum well capacity If the number of photons detected exceeds this amount the pixel will overflow into adjacent wells Normally the photoelectrons are held in place by electric fields generated by the overlying electrodes But when too many electrons accumulate their own electric field swamps out that from the electrodes The electrons are still constrained horizontally because the columns are defined by insulating oxide so they migrate vertically In addition some electrons become stuck in charge traps and do not leave the pixel until after a number of clocking operations These effects cause the overflow to bloom vertically For science observations the data in these p
201. cremental step size to 50 and click Move In or Move Out Take an image with the camera to verify that the focuser is actually moving and the focus is changing 6 Now switch to the Autofocus tab W prisein Condal 7 Before starting autofocus click the Settings button There are several parameters that must be set up correctly for autofocus to work 2 28 Tutorials The Telescope Focal Ratio is essential It determines the depth of focus and therefore the step size that is used when hunting for best focus The focal ratio is often found in the telescope manual it can also be calculated by dividing the focal length by the aperture CET oxi asna E Focal Hato Em 3 nt Crean Firat Mocha Subi re Urea iaai Cnt Sah E 4 Anal fice a EN Carnal de r F dirda 3 itt 100 E a E Fara Fora Foco Sip Soe mai Mi Fle D a C Ween he Mia be ai kari 2 Cane Lag jas Pi EM ihe besi h Fha Dia Preece D mechan Hrer El Also essential is the Focuser Step Size Some digital focusers know what this is inherently you can click the Auto button to fill in the information Other digital focusers do not have this information they are just motors hooked up to focusers from other manufacturers In this case take out a ruler Move the focuser 1000 steps measure the distance it moves and divide that by 1000 Enter that into the Focuser Step Size be sure to set Microinches or Microns as appropriate Tip if you cannot see the focuser move
202. ct for RAW files If MaxIm DL cannot recognize the file extension it will initiate the File Open dialog with the file path already entered This allows the user to select format options such as RAW file pixel format and aspect ratio interpolation The Exit command causes MaxIm DL to shut down All open image buffers will be closed The user will be prompted to save any modified images that have not already been saved to file There are several other standard Windows methods to close the application such as clicking the close button on the right side of the title bar If MaxIm CCD is active if a link has been established or attempted to be established with a camera autoguider or filter wheel you will be asked to confirm before shutting down MaxIm DL You will also be asked for confirmation if there are any unsaved files or if any other applications or scripts are currently accessing MaxIm DL Edit Menu Undo Redo 6 22 The Undo command reverses the last processing operation After selecting Undo the results from the last processing operation can be restored using the Redo command The Redo command restores the processing operation previously canceled by the Undo command Command Reference Copy The Copy command copies the currently selected image to the clipboard The copied image will have a color depth of 8 bits and will display exactly as shown on the screen i e the current screen stretch will be used in rendering th
203. ction it is advisable to keep the Apply filter only to pixels restriction folded up and inapplicable When it is displayed it is possible for inappropriate minimum and maximum pixel range values to silently prevent a filter from having any effect at all Unsharp Mask Unsharp masking is a method of sharpening or high pass filtering an image It amounts to subtracting a low pass filtered version of an image from itself The low pass filtered version is called the mask The Unsharp Mask dialog provides a number of different mask modes You can specify FFT filters and pre defined or user defined kernel filters The mask filters work identically to those in the FFT Filter and Kernel Filter commands The Set User Filter button also works identically to that in the Kernel Filter dialog For FFT Filters the Cutoff field controls the strength of the filter The Cutoff radius is entered as a percentage of the image dimensions Entering a smaller value produces a 6 107 Maxlm DL User Manual stronger filter A strong filter is useful for removing large scale brightness variations while a weak filter is useful for emphasizing fine detail ai Fite Tyee FT Lorian te C Ced farce 7 Earl Loa Mee pee Cored Uber Fier Set FFT Handed Perse aa fees a ep pr oj a st rare The Mask Weight is used to control the strength of the mask The mask weight is in percent the higher the number the stronger the mask The Geometric
204. ction must also be performed It is essential that both the flat field frames and light frames are properly bias corrected otherwise the flat field operation will not work correctly mathematically subtraction and division are not commutative You can do this manually first or just let MaxIm DL do it automatically as part of the full calibration procedure Combining Frames All imaging frames recorded by a CCD camera include noise When you add or subtract images the noise always adds Subtracting a single dark frame from an image will remove large pixel to pixel variations in the average accumulation of dark current It will also increase the random dark current noise in the image by 41 If instead you averaged ten dark frames together prior to subtraction the noise will only be increased by 5 If you use 20 or 40 frames the added noise will be negligible The standard combine method is to average the frames This produces the best results for purely random Gaussian noise Unfortunately if there is an outlier pixel on one frame e g cosmic ray hit or a star in a twilight flat then it will be included in the average Median combine is much more effective at suppressing outlier pixels Unfortunately median combine increases the noise level 25 compared to averaging When median combining flat field frames renormalization is also required This ensures that each frame is at the same average brightness MaxIm DL does this automaticall
205. ctions not calibration so you do not have to re enable the direction in order to calibrate the guider Declination Compensation 3 10 When the telescope is pointed near the pole the apparent motion of the stars slow down This can be easily seen by noting that Polaris is almost stationary Unfortunately this variation in speed affects the calibration of the autoguider If you calibrate at the equator and then move to a polar region the autoguider will compensate too slowly in RA If you calibrate near the pole and then move to the equator the autoguider will badly overcompensate Either situation can lead to poor guiding The obvious way to overcome this is to recalibrate prior to each exposure This is time consuming and largely unnecessary The recommended procedure is to calibrate once and use the Declination field to adjust for the position of the telescope When you first calibrate you should do so on a star near to the equator Enter the declination of the calibration star in the Declination field When you move to a different position on the sky reset the Declination field to match the new telescope position MaxIm CCD will now automatically adjust its calibration to compensate for the change in telescope position Whenever you reposition the telescope adjusting this field to Guide to CCD Imaging match the declination of the telescope will eliminate the need to recalibrate If you have an active link to a telescope in the Te
206. d There are several common sources of flat fielding variations Typical CCD sensors have pixel to pixel variations on the order of 1 Vignetting in the optical system can reduce the light flux at the corners of the sensor Dust on optical surfaces near the sensor can cast shadows often called dust donuts due to their appearance in centrally obstructed optical systems To create a flat field frame the optical system is illuminated by a uniform light source and an exposure is taken To avoid non linearity at the top and noise at the bottom the exposure is usually chosen to get an average value of 30 to 50 of the saturation level The flat field is then renormalized by dividing each pixel into the average value in the array Any pixel that is more sensitive will be assigned a number slightly below 1 any pixel that is less sensitive will be assigned a number slightly above 1 When this frame is multiplied by a raw image it removes the sensitivity variations Flat fielding is the most troublesome calibration method The entire aperture of the optical system must be evenly illuminated with light if this is not done very carefully then the flat field will be wrong Light leaks will ruin the calibration by adding unfocussed light that did not pass through the optical system Once calibrated the CCD camera cannot be moved or refocused Some sensors have significant flat field variation as a function of wavelength color and it can be dif
207. d Cypa e 002000 A os Casal Cena bos The computer s parallel port address must be selected in Port Set Interface to Fast Parallel if the fast parallel interface option is being used otherwise select Direct The Speed Adj is normally set to 100 but can be used to adjust the download speed of the camera Many users adjust this to the highest setting that does not corrupt the image to provide the highest download speed Note that when using the Fast Parallel Interface the adjustment inside the interface box has a greater effect on the download speed Interrupts can be set to Disable to prevent other programs from running during the program download if other programs are interfering with the download and causing spurious noise When using this mode it is recommended to include a 1 second delay between exposures when doing rapid focus frames otherwise it may be difficult to stop the exposures since the mouse freezes This option has no effect under Windows NT 2000 XP nor is it necessary No special settings are required for 12 bit or 16 bit cameras Important Note On Windows NT 2000 XP systems MaxIm DL must be installed from an Administrator level account in order for this driver to be properly installed The Starlight Xpress cameras use open loop cooling so the cooler controls are not 4 31 Maxlm DL User Manual enabled when this camera is in use Tip for best performance the USB interface upgrade is highly rec
208. d Simply check or uncheck the entry for the specific toolbar In addition text labels can be displayed against all toolbar buttons in a particular toolbar by first selecting the specific bar in the Toolbars list then clicking Show text labels Command Reference This tab is also used to restore MaxIm DL s menu and or toolbars to their original configuration undoing any customization that has been performed Select the bar and click Reset You can also Reset All toolbars and the menu bar at once In either case a confirmatory dialog is displayed before the reset occurs Menu Tab The Menu tab provides an alternative way of resetting the MaxIm DL CCD application menu to its original configuration Simply click Reset then confirm that you wish to reset the Default Menu The Show Menus for dropdown is reserved for future use Shiki ar Pa inen Hemin Sho Ma m Catia a 2 He P B eons ermm Dp abar omy chars Pry Options Tab The Options tab allows control over the display of tooltips explanatory tags that are displayed if the mouse is left stationary over a toolbar button for a brief time and the way toolbar icons are displayed Click Show ScreenTips on toolbars if you want tooltips to be displayed When this item is selected you can also choose to Show shortcut keys in ScreenTips as a reminder Shortcut keys are the keystroke combinations that activate the corresponding 6 61 Maxlm DL User Manual comm
209. d a whole image dark frame is taken during the preliminary exposure used to Command Reference locate a guide star During tracking the necessary subframe is extracted from this dark exposure and is subtracted from the current tracking exposure subframe In this way the dark frame does not have to be taken again It also allows dark frame subtraction to work during offset tracking described under Advanced Settings If you change the exposure and restart Track mode without taking a new image in Expose mode no full frame dark exposure is available and MaxIm CCD takes a guide box sized dark frame instead If MaxIm CCD is guiding on an extremely bright star Autodark can be turned off to speed up autoguider operations When Use Scope Dec is checked MaxIm CCD reads the declination from the telescope at the start of tracking and updates the Declination field automatically This provides automatic compensation for the declination of the telescope and eliminates the need to recalibrate after slews where declination chagnes Note that users of German Equatorial mounts will still need to set the Pier Flip control when flipping the mount over If Watch Star is checked the star being tracked will be displayed on every update in a small image window This allows you to continuously monitor the tracked star Note that if you are exposing multi filter sequences and the filter wheel is in front of the autoguider camera you should make sure that the exposu
210. d cyan magenta and yellow filters TWO two arbitrary images are combined as the red and green channels CRI red green and blue images taken using a CRI Micro color tunable filter this setting can also be used for mixing images so that each image Command Reference contributes to more than one color plane When using LRGB or LCMY you can select the Conversion color space The first option is CIE L a b where the color space is converted to the L a b model the luminance frame is replaced and the image is converted back to RGB The second option is RGB where the luminance image is directly modified based on the color ratios between the three color planes The second step is to select the images to be combined The image which was active prior to invoking the command will appear in one of the slots as determined by examining the first letter of the value of the FILTER keyword in the FITS header or in the absence of a FILTER keyword the last letter of the file name In RGB and LRGB modes the letters R G B are taken to denote Red Green and Blue images respectively while in CMY and LCMY modes C M Y denote Cyan Magenta and Yellow When using the FILTER keyword any other letter is taken as luminance L when parsing frame information from the filename only L or W white is accepted for this Using the same identification algorithm the command automatically inserts into the other dropdowns any other open images that were assign
211. d to the header or not This setting is used on output only when reading FITS files MaxIm DL will properly determine the observation time regardless of how it is set Command Reference In addition you can create keywords of your own devising to record additional information as desired User defined keywords can represent data in any of the four FITS data types string integer real or logical Key names consist of from 1 to 8 upper case characters hyphens and underscores character string data is limited to a maximum of 68 characters Note that user defined keys are not displayed in the File Details field of the Open or Save As dialogs and do not have a Description comment in the FITS Header Window LE Had Gama FITE Hasia Sine ted Cita ici Ad Li Valm LECT TELE S00 Vea DA TALE jpt dE 05S FER SHOES fay meti z Type Sad vine FF Get OBJECT fim Tesco Coni pastos ID i papas E Sed INSTRUM hor cares phain credo os teat oo You cannot use the FITS Header tab to insert FITS keywords that already have meaning to MaxIm DL This restriction is imposed in order to prevent creating inconsistent or erroneous FITS files To enter a value for a new FITS keyword type its name in the Key combo box Then select the Type for the data and enter the desired Value Click the Set button to create the new entry or replace the old one If the key is already present in the list box Set is only enabled when
212. dar gh apas Bh he shares hot Dirman Geb cue can ba mermi bp ubica delo bere ahh areg apra a e hale cosd A bet gaad atag a Thai Wipe ia ob tn Sedat a uds urinated dormers oe tho trabi thp M od linet al thee pou nd opera ore bo be perc ec boca is AA Create Master Frames Align 6 80 This command only becomes available if you have just clicked OK in the Set Calibration dialog but haven t yet calibrated any images It generates one master image for each image group created by Set Calibration and displays them as image buffers They can then be saved for future use in the Set Calibration command This function saves recalculation time and disk space if a set of calibration frames is used repeatedly Many CCD users generate a library of master calibration frames which are used over and over Often a large number of calibration frames are recorded at a variety of temperature settings The Align command is used to align a set of images Two dialog boxes appear Select Images followed by Align Images Command Reference Select Images When the command is activated a Select Images dialog box appears first It allows you to select the images to be included Select one or more of the images in the Available Images list on the left using the mouse then click the gt gt button to copy them to the Selected Images list on the right You can also remove images by selecting them on the right and clicking the lt lt butt
213. data is entered into when the mouse is clicked The Auto button allows you to automatically select the Command Reference brightest star in the image as the object to be moved The Lock button allows you to lock the To field so it cannot be accidentally changed This is useful if the star must be positioned accurately for example when aligning it with a spectrograph slit The manual controls allow you to activate one of the output relays for a time determined by the Sec field Clicking one of the buttons moves the mount in the desired direction The buttons may be reassigned using the Swap X reverses X buttons Swap Y reverses Y buttons and Swap Axes controls switches X and Y buttons If the Auto Expose control is on the autoguider will automatically take an exposure after every move operation The Guider Status field shows the current autoguider activity The Abort button allows you to abort slews initiated by both the From To and manual motion controls The Close button closes the dialog Tracking Error Graph The Tracking Error Graph is a graphical presentation of the most recent 15 minutes of guiding errors You can choose to display the errors in either or both axes with or without RMS trend lines and expressed in either the camera X Y or telescope RA Dec frame of reference The graph is scrolled toward the left automatically when the right edge is reached The vertical scale and time duration of the graph are selectabl
214. de This can happen if the computer is disconnected by accident The only way to restore normal operation is to power down the camera SCSI Mode Abort appearing on the camera s display is normal SCSI Mode You must have an Adaptec 1480A or 2940UW card installed Slower SCSI cards will not work with the Pictor cameras in 32 bit programs The link will always fail during download if you use a slower card SCSI Mode If you have trouble connecting make sure that the Pictor camera shows up as a scanner in the Windows Device Manager under Control Panel The 32 bit Adaptec drivers must be installed as well as the ASPI drivers These drivers can be found on the Adaptec web site Note contrary to Adaptec documentation ASPI drivers are required for Pictor operation under Windows 2000 SCSI Mode If you get Link Fail Error 4 messages when running other applications such as planetarium programs or remote control programs update your SCSI and ASPI drivers Unfortunately on some machines it may not be possible to download while other programs are running This is due to a compatibility problem between the Windows drivers and the camera SCSI I versus SCSI II 9 5 Maxlm DL User Manual 208XT and 216XT e Wait for 30 seconds after powering up camera before attempting to connect SBIG and Celestron Cameras The drivers for all SBIG and Celestron cameras except for serial port interface cameras are provided by Santa Barbara Instruments
215. default FITS keys site location telescope description audible alarms etc Run Script start a procedure written in VBScript or JScript The commands on the Edit toolbar are listed below click on the icon for more information Undo undo the last image processing operation FE Redo redo the last processing operation de Copy copy the currently selected image to the clipboard View Command Reference E paste create a new image from the contents of the clipboard E Crop trim the currently selected image to a user specified rectangle Mosaic combine multiple partially overlapping images into a single large image a Duplicate create a new image that is an exact copy of the currently selected one A Annotate annotate an image with lines boxes circles text etc ce Flip reverse the currently selected image top to bottom Fi Mirror reverse the currently selected image left to right Rotate left rotate the currently selected image 90 to the left counter clockwise Rotate right rotate the currently selected image 90 to the right clockwise Rotate 180 rotate the currently selected image 180 Rotate rotate the currently selected image by a specified amount in either direction i Edit Pixels draw on the currently selected image setting pixels to specified values Copy Region copy circular region s defined by the mouse cursor from one ima
216. der operation Unlike normal autoguiders the AO 7 tip tilt mirror will be doing most of the corrections while autoguiding The motor drive will only be activated occasionally This means that the exact calibration speed is unimportant only the directions must be set correctly Licata Tick Die Espias FF Enable brindar dura Acaban Lee il FS Enable bia dos mn 3 Drive Coals ise Pump Ties rel 0 td D hm Sethe Cier Tiree mej a s ls 4 E A The Enable X Motor Axis and Enable Y Motor Axis check boxes determine whether the mount s drive motors will be used to apply additional automatic corrections in the X and Y directions when drift exceeds the AO 7 s abilities to guide out Individual selectors are useful if for example the mount can only be controlled in Right Ascension Turn off both these fields to completely disable mount control This can be done if the mount tracking is sufficiently accurate or if the user manually adjusts the mount while monitoring the mirror position with the Track tab The motor directions Reverse X Axis and Reverse Y Axis can be automatically set using the Calibrate Drive mode on the Locate tab However the directions can be set manually if the Manual Settings check box is checked The Swap Motor Axes check box is turned on when the X axis of the autoguider image corresponds to the Y correction axis Assuming the X axis relay controls the Right Ascension axis the check box is turned off when
217. ders the actual direction depends on the orientation of the camera As it does so red lines are added to the Autoguider Image indicating where the guide star has been Each motion must be long enough 20 pixels or so to ensure a good calibration but not so far as to move off the CCD chip That is the reason for the Cal Time setting I a Hal Emma Setra Sequence Fran hise Suede Setup r Espora Decision Equajss O a E De a T Pei Fe Eemal i Gude a B Er 1010 Y Er DLA a En 04 Y En 103 Daur P x Fa e290 Y Ene 110 ie EE ey Enen oa i bc Er PAA En LA TE 13 We re now ready to guide Switch the guider mode to Track and click Start The Autoguider Image is reduced to the small 32x32 pixel image used during tracking You can zoom in on it using the button on the toolbar The simulator imitates some large guider errors so you ll be able to see the star moving off center and then being pulled back again 14 You can now switch to the Expose tab and start an exposure Note that a minimum five second delay is forced for exposures on the main CCD This is to allow time for the autoguider to settle between exposures If needed this delay can be increased by setting Delay s to a higher value A few final notes The calibration settings change if you move the telescope in declination To avoid having to recalibrate for every image you can use declination compensation Set the Declination field to the declinati
218. devices require the ASCOM Platform available from http ascom standards org downloads html Dome control and synchronization with the telescope is performed using the ASCOM Dome Control Panel This control panel is connected to the telescope and dome Applications such as MaxIm DL that need to connect to the telescope are instead connected to the dome control panel See ASCOM Hubs for more information CCD Cameras and Autoguiders Third party Plug in drivers are normally installed by placing their files in the MaxIm DL program installation directory you must restart MaxIm DL after installation Please refer to the documentation included with the driver for additional installation and setup information Also note that the manufacturer provides software support for the plug in drivers For information on writing Plug in Drivers please visit the MaxIm DL Extras section at http www cyanogen com 4 1 Maxlm DL User Manual 4 2 Apogee Audine and Genesis Celestron PixCel cameras Cookbook CB245 Finger Lakes Instrumentation ISI CCD800 CCD1600 Drivers for Apogee AP KX and SPH cameras are included with the MaxIm DL installation Drivers for Apogee Alta are also included however these are new cameras and the drivers are updated fairly frequently It is essential that you install any driver update disk that is supplied with the camera The Audine camera driver must be downloaded and installed See SBIG Driv
219. dow select the Solved Position and click OK Now click the Go To button again to position the telescope precisely on the intended coordinates For information on individual dialog controls close this help window and use the EI button in the dialog s title bar Advanced PinPoint Parameters PinPoint has a number of advanced parameters which do not normally require adjustment by the user except in special cases Access to these is through the Advanced PinPoint Parameters dialog Each numerical parameter has an associated Auto checkbox when set PinPoint determines the optimum value for this parameter itself This allows you to override only one or two parameters without having to worry about values for all of them Projection Type specifies the mathematical model used to map the Cartesian coordinates of image pixel locations to the angles inherent in spherical coordinates used to describe object positions in the sky This is usually set to Gnomonic tangent plane TAN Please see the PinPoint documentation for more information on projections The Maximum Residual arc sec is checked against the actual residual in the image which is a measurement of how accurate the analysis results are The residual is calculated by measuring how far off predicted catalog star positions are from their actual positions in the image If the maximum residual limit is enabled and the residual exceeds the entered value the astrometric reduction fails Minim
220. e toggles the Command Sequence macro record playback control window on and off oO Night Vision toggles Night Vision red screen display mode on and off Animate display a sequence of images in a single window with automatic timed advance or manual forward back controls a Equalize Screen Stretch adjust the screen stretch of all other images to match that of the currently selected one Analyze Process 6 56 The commands on the Analyze toolbar are listed below click on the icon for more information PinPoint Astrometry solve the currently selected image for astrometric star positions Photometry extract accurate brightness measurements from a set of images T Open Photometry File display light curves of data saved during previous photometry sessions The commands on the Process toolbar are listed below click on the icon for more information Calibrate calibrate the currently selected image Loads previous settings if Set Calibration has not been activated manually Only available for monochrome images Calibrate All calibrate all currently uncalibrated open images for which calibration data sets exist de Set Calibration invoke the Set Calibration dialog to create edit or delete calibration data sets E Align align a set of images F Combine align and combine a set of images into a single new image L Remove Bad Pixels replace hot or dead pixels due to defects
221. e The peak excursion and current RMS value of each error are displayed at the bottom of the graph for quick reference The window can be resized to any desired size the graph automatically stretches or shrinks to fill it HFa PRE Y Peek din AHS 0 PEE Tracking errors are always collected whether this window is active or not so you can turn it on to check for guiding anomalies if you suspect one has occurred based on inspection of a main camera image All options are selected from the button menu Y at the bottom left corner of the window 6 171 Maxlm DL User Manual 6 172 erica Some Tope dom Tine Span eb vr Post Velen l E ardd Y Erroa Tre Cate w Kard Tear Load Daha a WET pra Sale fends Lire CEt pih a J The Plot submenu contains commands to select what is plotted Choose Camera Axes or Telescope Axes depending on whether you want to see the guiding errors as measured in the camera frame of reference or as rotated to the telescope frame The latter setting can be useful when determining if poor guiding results from a mechanical problem in the telescope mount Select X Error to display only the error in the X axis Y Error for that in Y X and Y Errors for both to be superimposed on one graph or X and Y separate to display them in separate graphs within the same window as in the example shown above X errors are always plotted in dark green and Y errors in dark blue Select Show RMS Trends to display
222. e It is quite simple to photograph images directly from the screen if due care is taken The Full Screen command on the View menu scales the selected image to fill the screen and suppresses display of all other objects on the Windows desktop For better results you should first use the Process menu Resize command to scale the image to match the screen This command interpolates the image which will give a smoother representation The room lights should be off during the exposure If your monitor has LED indicators it is a good idea to temporarily cover them with two layers of black electrical tape Load a 35 mm SLR camera with ISO 100 slide film and attach it to a tripod Use a lens that allows you to fill the picture with the screen image try to pick a lens which can be placed some distance from the screen this will minimize geometric distortion Align the camera square to the monitor and focus Set the exposure to 1 second and the f stop to approximately 4 5 some bracketing may be required on your first attempt be sure to record your settings The long exposure will average out the effects of the monitor s refresh scans The photograph will tend to increase contrast To compensate for this adjust the monitor controls so that the image looks washed out This should be done in the dark so you can better see the image By turning the contrast control down and increasing the brightness control you can reduce the intensity of the
223. e mouse to move the carets This allows you to keep the contrast constant but change the brightness Similarly the carets can be moved in opposite directions by holding the CTRL key down creen derecha OS Hal A Al mdt un E a la Hah bo tic pena mem Pech eu pa canta aes pa ap A oon When using manual stretch you can also zoom in on the histogram Adjust the green and red carets then click the button The histogram will be zoomed in so that the carets are moved to the edge To zoom out click the button Automatic Stretch Setup Several of the automatic stretch settings can be adjusted The Low Medium and High modes can be set up Manual Moon and Planet cannot To change a setting select the appropriate stretch mode and click the gt gt button This expands the dialog box to reveal the auto stretch settings Click lt lt to hide this information The Minimum Percentile and Maximum Percentile can be adjusted These affect the corresponding Minimum and Maximum pixel values To adjust click either the spin control or type in new values and click Set You can also restore the default setting by clicking Default To understand the percentile settings if you set Minimum Percentile to 10 then the stretch will be adjusted so that 10 of the pixel values are below the red caret This convention is for ease of use the actual calculation is performed using a more sophisticated algorithm than simple percentil
224. e or in the case of serial output command mode for the guider activation itself to complete prior to taking the next guider image A small delay is also recommended when using Losmandy mounts The Move Commands settings control the behavior of the Move dialog accessed using the Guide tab s Move button Maximum Slew X and Maximum Slew Y limit the maximum slew that will be performed using this command These limits can be set to prevent large accidental slews The Delay After Command control allows you to program in a delay after each move command It should be used in the same situations for which Delay After Correction is recommended Because not all mounts are capable of running the right ascension and declination axis guide motors simultaneously MaxIm CCD sends correction commands to each axis sequentially If your mount is capable of guiding in both axes at the same time you can turn on Enable Simultaneous RA and Dec Correction Please consult the documentation for your mount before using this option because it can potentially damage equipment not capable of simultaneous operation in both axes Enable Simultaneous RA and Dec Correction is ignored when Control Via is set to Command Reference Telescope because the ASCOM telescope interface does not permit this mode of operation Offset Tracking is an advanced feature that allows you to specify a series of positions for the guider to track to This can be used to track solar system
225. e unchanged Pacino traca Sensors Jl mx You can choose the direction in which Backlash Compensation is applied Select Apply on Inward Travel or Apply on Outward Travel according to taste experience with your equipment or the recommendation of your focuser manufacturer Please see below for details on setting up various telescope and focuser drivers Both use open standard ASCOM interfaces http ascom standards org so additional drivers 6 187 Maxlm DL User Manual may be available SBIG AO 7 Control Window The SBIG AO 7 is a tip tilt autoguider accessory that integrates with the SBIG dual chip CCD cameras The AO 7 requires a radically different user interface than that provided by the standard MaxIm CCD autoguider functions therefore the Guide tab is not used It is strongly recommended that this entire section be read before attempting to use the AO 7 tip tilt autoguider unit The documentation supplied with the AO 7 should also be read to familiarize yourself with the characteristics of the device The SBIG AO 7 device uses a special driver which controls both the camera and the AO 7 unit itself The Guide tab is not used instead a special AO 7 Control window appears The AO 7 Control window is similar to the MaxIm CCD window in that it is a tabbed dialog Lansa Track Dive Stam ETE Trek Tare per nro op igien ES be Moon fea E EL imaj 2 TS arde acing rah ALT peseta ATTA Fs Tati Cond C
226. e V shapes they are often described as looking like comets or seagulls If an optic is aligned properly see Collimation then there should be no coma at the center of the field There may however be coma in the corners of the field because they are off axis If an optical system is not aligned properly coma may be visible throughout the field Every CCD camera produces a certain amount of dark current which accumulates in the pixels during an exposure The dark current is produced by heat and is a source of noise in images The noise results from randomness in the dark current and pixel to pixel variations in the amount of dark current The pixel to pixel variations in dark current can be removed by subtracting a dark frame but the associated noise cannot be removed A dark frame is an exposure taken using a CCD camera with the shutter closed The duration of the dark frame should match that of the images being taken and it should be made at the same temperature It is used to compensate for pixel to pixel variations in the dark current A dead pixel is a defect in the CCD array the pixel is usually stuck at zero or some fixed level causing it to appear considerably darker than the surrounding pixels A dark but not dead pixel may also occur in images after dark frame subtraction usually because of a hot pixel which has a much higher rate of dark current accumulation than the average Deconvolution is the opposite of c
227. e between binned and non binned RGB components is generally not discernable Note binning is often counter productive on moderate to long exposures due to photon shot noise from the sky background Experimentation is recommended to determine the best approach for your observing site and equipment MaxIm DL fully supports automated LRGB imaging via the Sequence tab You can configure different exposure and binning settings for the various filters When combining the L frame with the RGB frames using Combine Color MaxIm DL can automatically rescale the binned color frames to match the luminance frame CMY Imaging An alternative technique that has been promoted in recent years is the use of Cyan Yellow and Magenta filters The advantages quoted include wider bandwidth resulting in more light and therefore higher signal to noise ratio CMY imaging is fully supported in MaxIm DL Unfortunately there are several problems with CMY filters To build a usable RGB image from the CMY set the images have to be added and subtracted from each other Since the noise in the three channels is uncorrelated the resulting noise in each R G and B channel is larger than that in the CMY channels As a result the improvement in SNR is extremely tiny and is not worth the extra effort required CMY filters have additional complications Attaining an accurate color balance with a subtractive system in the presence of the varying sensitivity of the camera acros
228. e blooms may escape identification if set too low small regions of unusually shaped stellar concentration may be erroneously tagged In extreme cases when set either too high or too low you will get the error No blooms detected in image Each identified bloom is highlighted by a red rectangle which contains a red cross positioned at the center of energy of the bloom This should be the location of star that caused the bloom If you are not satisfied with the size or shape of a bloom s bounding box you can reposition or resize it by dragging a side or corner Similarly you can reposition the center of energy by dragging the cross To remove a bloom bounding box and its associated center of energy altogether right click on either the box or cross and pick Remove from the pop up menu that appears This might be necessary if a close double star was misidentified as a short bloom If right clicking presents the standard image pop up menu for aperture adjustment instead you didn t click exactly on the marker It is advisable to zoom in to 200 or 400 magnification when making this kind of adjustment An alternate method of adjusting bloom bounding boxes and centers is to call up the Bloom Properties from the right click menu This allows you to specify values for the Bloom Center X and Y coordinates and the Left Right Top and Bottom X and Y values for the Bounding Box either by typing the numbers or more conveniently by using the up
229. e called a transfer function Then an FFT is taken of the image Each pixel in the FFT ed image is multiplied by the corresponding pixel in the filter array The FFT is reversed and voila you have a filtered image Mathematically the process is identical to kernel filtering but the processing occurs much more quickly The big advantage of FFTs is their speed Any filter no matter how complicated takes exactly the same amount of time A second advantage is that the exact shape of the filter can be very carefully controlled to finely adjust the amount of blurring or sharpening Often the filter shape is calculated using a Butterworth equation but there are other ways to get the shape Median Filtering 3 24 There is another method of low pass filtering that is even better at eliminating noise Instead of replacing a pixel with the average of its neighbors it is replaced with the median of its neighbors A median is calculated by sorting the values in increasing order The value in the middle of the list is the median Half the pixels are brighter than the median and half are dimmer With a median filter any pixel that is much different from its neighbors is eliminated It therefore suppresses impulsive noise such as hot pixels and cosmic ray hits very strongly Unlike the other filters described so far the median filter is non linear This has some disadvantages for example an attempt to produce an unsharp mask with a
230. e checked and load will not disturb the definition of any slots that are not enabled in the seq file although it does clear their Enable check boxes You can use this feature to mix and match partial sequences provided they use different slot numbers Sequence Wizard The Sequence Wizard command sets up a sequence for you based on step by step input The first page gives you a choice of one of four basic types of sequence to produce 6 153 Maxlm DL User Manual e Monochrome M identical exposures of the same field e Tricolor N exposures with each of three different filters the exposure duration depending on the filter e Tricolor plus Luminance M luminance white light exposures and N exposures with each of three different filters with exposure durations depending on the filter binning can be coarser for the color exposures e Calibration an arbitrary number of exposures for each of flat fields dark frames and bias frames Deter ha e Tp sj ei LE erre rca pr dl haci ls rr ar dara coe be a ie r Thei Thm miid i eka pao imie mrema ra hah a ne lenin ade A A A Dia da la ps m o E E Torre Caba a eg de ees ace a ih Tarso coca oca Chea Deia si hha had a A Depending on the type of sequence chosen the wizard requests the image counts exposure durations filter selections image suffixes binning factors and finally the destination directory It finishes by displaying the Setup Sequence dialog with the
231. e equal to 3 pixels adjacent to a protected pixel receive only one quarter the effect of the full filter those two pixels away receive half the effect and those three pixels away receive three quarters When Feather distance is zero 100 filtered pixels can be adjacent to completely unaffected ones When not using pixel range restriction it is advisable to keep the Apply filter only to pixels restriction folded up and inapplicable When it is displayed it is possible for inappropriate minimum and maximum pixel range values to silently prevent a filter from having any effect at all Digital Development Digital Development Processing is an interesting algorithm invented by Dr Kunihiko Okano It performs a combination of gamma stretching and unsharp masking intended to simulate the effect of photographic development on images It is particularly effective at processing objects such as galaxies us File Type A C D fanal Lo Pan Excel A 0 E arial Alp Fite Sat oer Fil PPT Hechas iad M Mach Hal ral C Do DDP amorem Essokgemrd Aides Like Unsharp Mask this command requires a low pass filter setting You can select either an FFT or kernel filter of various strengths The filters work identically to those in the FFT Filter and Kernel Filter commands The Set User Filter button also works identically to that in the Kernel Filter dialog For FFT Filters the Cutoff field controls the strength of
232. e image CTRL C may be used to copy text from windows and dialog boxes Paste The Paste command copies an image from the clipboard into MaxIm DL The image on the clipboard must be in a compatible bitmap format CTRL V may be used to copy text into dialog box edit fields Crop The Crop command can be used to reduce the size of the image The desired area can be selected using the mouse by pressing and holding the left mouse button while dragging across the image The resulting crop rectangle can be resized by grabbing the corners with the mouse or moved by grabbing a side A dx Cunterd iea with EBB Heo W Coc Hew bergt wide hise K Dia E del Hew 165 Oita ha 3 Alternatively you can enter new values in pixels for Width Height X Offset and Y Offset To see the area selected in the image window click Update When Update is clicked the values are checked and if they exceed the image dimensions they will be automatically readjusted Click OK to crop the image The Reset button will set the boundary to include the entire image Mosaic The Mosaic command allows you to combine a set of images together into a single large seamless image Mosaic does not enlarge or reduce the individual contributing images so they must all be at the same scale Before running the Mosaic command you should normally open all the images you intend to 6 23 Maxlm DL User Manual combine You may also want to adjust the scr
233. e is to apply a low pass filter only to the darker areas of an image so as to reduce the effect of noise there yet not soften the edges of stars Some care is required in its use and a little Command Reference experimentation and experience will teach you how and when to apply it Click the otherwise unlabelled unfold button Ito expand the Kernel Filters dialog revealing the Apply filter only to pixels restriction E lo A A o dl Pl Gori Ls Pal with vakaa bar 000 z ad px yj ir a a thle Enter the minimum and maximum values of pixels to be affected into the two With values between fields Pixels within Reduce radius by pixels of a pixel whose value is outside this range are completely protected against the operation of the filter The filtered values of qualifying pixels that lie within Feather distance of a protected pixel are blended with the original value using a weight that varies with the distance for example with Feather distance equal to 3 pixels adjacent to a protected pixel receive only one quarter the effect of the full filter those two pixels away receive half the effect and those three pixels away receive three quarters When Feather distance is zero 100 filtered pixels can be adjacent to completely unaffected ones When not using pixel range restriction it is advisable to keep the Apply filter only to pixels restriction folded up and inapplicable When it is displayed it is possible for inappropria
234. e never goes completely flat at the top It is best to work incrementally running the command several times in succession tweaking the image a bit at each step In the example image the tight false nucleus of the comet is still apparent even though the dust jets have been boosted up to make them visible In a subsequent iteration the faint outer tail would be boosted to help distinguish it from the background Some artistic sense is in order Try not to excessively boost the contrast burn out the bright regions or over exaggerate the faint details If you have a heavy hand the result Guide to CCD Imaging will be a gaudy unnatural looking image The trick is to make all of the image features visible while maintaining a light touch so the image looks natural Histogram Specification Histogram Specification is a powerful algorithm that allows you to force the image histogram into just about any shape If an image contains a lot of detail at the bright end and low end but nothing in between reshaping the histogram will automatically compress out the empty range in the middle The histogram shows you how many pixels are present in different brightness ranges Equalizing the histogram makes every pixel brightness level equally likely While that optimally accentuates contrast in all brightness ranges the effect is very harsh Some brightness levels might have fewer pixels but more interesting information Instead of equalizing across
235. e rate In most cases you can simply increase the guider exposure time to slow down the updates however a delay after correction function is available if needed Image Scale To obtain the best images it is very important to match your CCD camera to your optical system While wide field panoramas are certainly possible with a CCD camera the high sensitivity makes them particularly well suited to high resolution imaging Resolution depends on both the focal length of the telescope and the size of the pixels in the CCD array Long focal lengths and small pixels result in higher resolution Too much resolution and the images will be fuzzy Too low resolution and you will not be achieving the full potential of the instrument you may even end up with small square looking stars Often the matching can be adjusting by using auxiliary optics reducers and barlows or binning The key to good performance is achieving proper Nyquist sampling Nyquist Sampling 3 12 The Nyquist Sampling Theorem sets the fundamental limits on any system that digitizes signals whether it be a CD player a telecommunications system or a CCD camera The theorem tells you how fine sampling is required to produce a perfect representation with no loss in quality The American physicist and electrical engineer Harry Nyquist proved that if the sampling is at least twice the highest spatial frequency component in the image no distortion will occur and you can
236. e the Telescope Catalog to position the scope there or the telescope alignment is sufficiently bad that you had to nudge the telescope beyond the limits of where MaxIm DL thinks the object is 2 If Set INSTRUME from camera plug in is checked MaxIm DL will obtain the name of the CCD camera from the camera plug in when it takes an image and automatically fill in the INSTRUME keyword Some plug ins cannot identify the camera model in this case the name of the plug in is inserted instead Please note that the camera model or plug in name is not shown in the Keyword Value list box After adding editing or deleting FITS keywords or changing the checkboxes you must click Apply or OK to cause the change to take effect Site and Optics 6 18 The Site and Optics tab allows you to enter and or verify information about your geographical coordinates current time and optical configuration that is automatically added to the FITS header when a new image is acquired from the camera Site location and time are also used when calculating planet positions and the altitude and azimuth of an object Site location can be loaded from the telescope driver if available by turning on the Use telescope s location if available check box If you modify the telescope location for example by means of the hand controller while MaxIm DL is connected to the telescope you will have to click Refresh to cause the new coordinates to be read in again When
237. e to logarithmic Before and After Gamma What the log rescale function does is stretch different parts of the images differently This allows you to see the bright details at lower contrast while still seeing the faint details The logarithm function actually changes the shape of the histogram itself On many images log rescale is a bit aggressive the image will look washed out In some cases we might even want to do the opposite highlighting bright objects at the expense of faint details Gamma correction is a more general technique It is related to log rescale in that it also uses logarithmic functions but it is a bit more complicated A number called Gamma controls the exact shape of the curve Histogram Specification 3 20 All stretching operations can be visualized by looking at the effect on the histogram We can modify the shape of the histogram to improve the view of the object By using a process called histogram specification we can make the histogram flat sloped or any curve we want The process is similar to how some teachers bell curve marks The students are listed by order of grade on the exam The top student on the list gets 100 the next 99 and so on If the teacher wants most of the class to get a mark near 75 she can assign more students grades in the 70 80 range With this technique the student s final grade depends on his rank in the class not on the actual mark The teacher can generate an
238. e to stop a continuous exposure sequence The Subframe controls allow you to specify a limited area on the CCD chip to read out This is useful for speeding up the readout when focusing As with the Settings tab you can drag the mouse on an image while holding the left button to draw the desired subframe area This function is only available when the Focus tab is displayed The Reset button restores the subframe settings to include the entire CCD chip The Auto button locates the brightest pixel in the image and specifies a small subframe region around it The Dark check box enables automatic dark frame subtraction A dark frame exposure will automatically be taken when required and applied against all later images with the same settings If the camera does not have a shutter you will be prompted to cover and uncover the aperture as required The Continuous check box enables continuous imaging When the Start Focus button is pressed images will be acquired continuously until the Stop button is pressed A progress bar is included just below the Stop button It illustrates graphically the progress of the exposure Just below the progress bar is a status field which indicates the current camera activity The Focus tab is usually used in conjunction with the Inspect tab which provides helpful information on the image focus The Start Focus Stop and camera selection controls i e CCD Guider radio buttons are replicated on the Inspect tab
239. e toolbar or menu Another way to delete an item is to use the right click menu shown below To copy a button from a toolbar follow the same procedure but hold down the Ctrl key In this case the mouse cursor contains a boxed to indicate that a copy operation rather than a move is in progress The same procedures work for menu items and you can move or copy commands between toolbars and menus at will To change the appearance of a button or menu item right click on it A pop up menu appears inas Gace Filer gos Plugin E EE ento terna w q Cabe But rage Select Image for buttons only Text or Image and Text to specify whether you want toolbar icon only command name only or both To change the button or menu item label click Button Appearance and enter the new Button text an ampersand in this string marks the character following as the hotkey used in conjunction with Alt for quickly selecting that menu item Reset to Default restores the original button text You can also Delete the button or menu item using the pop up menu To insert or remove a separator right click on the button or menu item that follows or will follow it and check or uncheck Start Group Note You cannot customize context right click menus or fly out menus in dialogs menus that pop up when you click the El button Toolbars Tab 6 60 The Toolbars tab is an alternative way of controlling which of the eight MaxIm DL CCD toolbars are displaye
240. e wheel can bend or the mounting or bearings can flex at right angles to the normal rotation The resulting motion is usually backwards you try to move the mount North and it goes South This only happens for a brief period of time after reversing directions eventually the worm turns enough that the gear is forced to move in the correct direction Stiction problems can be complex mechanically it can often be hard to determine what the root cause is Many telescope mounts even high end models suffer from this problem and it may vary between different samples of the same model The problem has a terrible effect on guiding because it forces overcorrection and it cannot be effectively solved in software If you experience bad guiding in declination and cannot resolve it through adjusting the calibration or aggressiveness you may have a stiction problem One solution that works is to note the average drift in declination and disable corrections in that direction The guider should only be able to push against the average drift not with it This works surprisingly well Some users deliberately adjust their polar alignment slightly off to ensure that the drift is in a consistent direction You should avoid large offsets that may cause field rotation You can disable one guide direction by clearing the appropriate Output checkbox in the Guider Settings section of the Guide tab Settings dialog These check boxes only affect tracking corre
241. each axis and enabling guiding motor operation in each direction Control Via is set to Camera Relays This setting informs MaxIm CCD how the guiding motors or in this case simulator are controlled Display Mode is set to Pixels with Delta should be on This causes measured guide star positions to be converted to errors from nominal and displayed in units of camera pixels Make sure Binning is set to 1 and click the Reset button to reset the subframe settings Select the Advanced tab of the Guider Settings dialog click its Defaults button and confirm that you want to set all fields to their recommended initial values If a filename appears in File Path click Clear Click OK to return to the Guide tab These settings only need to be made once they are remembered the next time you start the software Now click the Start button After a few seconds the simulated Autoguider Image will be displayed The brightest star will automatically be selected as the guide star With a real autoguider if you wanted to select a different star you would click on the star Do not draw a box around it Now switch the guider mode to Calibrate and click the Start button again The camera will take a series of pictures each time moving the simulated telescope mount by sending a command to the simulated autoguider relays The stars will move to the right back to center downwards and back to center again with real Tutorials autogui
242. ecause of the randomness of the dark current Although it accumulates at a steady average rate the dark current is quite random The more dark current that accumulates the more random noise it contributes to the image Noise makes it difficult or impossible to detect the signal photoelectrons produced by photons in order to detect an object reliably you need at least three times as much signal as noise For low light levels and long exposures some means of reducing dark current is essential Since dark current increases with temperature the obvious solution is to cool the sensor down Scientific grade cameras typically operate at freezing temperatures typically anywhere from 0 C to 70 C Some CCD sensors are specially designed to minimize dark current and can operate near the upper part of the range others require more cooling The cooling may be provided by liquid nitrogen or by more a convenient but less powerful thermoelectric cooler TEC Large well depth is also important for good performance For highly accurate measurements very good signal to noise ratio SNR is required meaning that more photoelectrons must be detected A larger well allows more electrons can be collected resulting in more accurate measurements Large well depth also results in greater dynamic range that is the range of brightness over which the sensor will operate At the bottom end is the noise floor below which the SNR is inadequate for detection
243. ecially nebulosity will be much fainter Unfortunately your computer screen can only display 8 bit images or a data range of 0 through 255 in reality it is not even this good you cannot distinguish 256 different brightness levels on a computer monitor How do we bridge this gap Simple by scaling the data so the interesting parts are in the correct range In MaxIm 1 7 Maxlm DL User Manual DL we have the Screen Stretch window You set values for the Minimum and Maximum levels When an image is displayed any pixel value below the minimum is set to O black and any pixel above the maximum is set to 255 white The values between minimum and maximum appear as shades of gray This means adjusting the sliders or numbers in the screen stretch window will change how the image looks on the screen but will not actually modify the image MaxIm DL will try to automatically figure out the best values for you When you load a new image it typically defaults to the Medium Auto Stretch mode Files saved in FITS format may contain a recommended initial Screen Stretch while 8 bit images automatically display the entire range You can change to different auto stretch modes using the Screen Stretch window These automatic modes have to be a compromise they will produce decent results for almost any image but not necessarily the best You can easily adjust any image manually The fastest and easiest way is to use Quick Stretch Simpl
244. ecommended to ensure repeatability Meade 416XT 1616XT With 616 For this driver select Meade 416 1616 on the Setup tab The Meade Pictor 416XT and 1616XT in serial mode can directly control a Pictor 616 filter wheel No special settings are required The user can assign names for each of the color filter slots under Filter Name If your filter wheel has fewer slots than allowed for by this driver simply leave the Filter Name in the extra slots blank they will not appear in the drop list filter selectors If the filters vary in thickness a Focus Offset can be entered for each filter This causes the focus position to be offset appropriately every time an exposure is taken with a new filter position If this feature is used absolute positioning focusers are strongly recommended to ensure repeatability 4 47 Maxlm DL User Manual Sete ade 116 Pe Lib Ala Heads RIANT Geral Dre Veraon A li iene ee Pale 200712004 Cacti Lie Y Cama Metal Tot eee ae oe Hame NEIRIE Meade SCSI With 616 For this driver select Meade SCSI on the Setup tab The Meade Pictor 416XT and 1616XT in SCSI mode can directly control a Pictor 616 filter wheel No special settings are required Aris ede SL SI ajaj a TATI ra eros E Hnr malo raihi el T A ATYA Dikar iia Linde Carra Hirde Tuppart Charen paren dr dance 5 05 The user can assign names for each of the color filter slots under Filter Name If your filter wheel has fewer slots than
245. ect By choosing different low pass filters we can pick the one that has enough noise smoothing without blurring the image too much We could also make the kernel larger The examples above were 3x3 pixels for a total of nine We could use 5x5 just as easily or even more The only problem with using larger kernels is the number of calculations required becomes very large A variation on this technique is a Gaussian Blur which simply allows you to define a particular shape of blur kernel with just a single number the radius of a Gaussian normal distribution High Pass Filtering 3 22 A high pass filter can be used to make an image appear sharper These filters emphasize fine details in the image exactly the opposite of the low pass filter High pass filtering works in exactly the same way as low pass filtering it just uses a different convolution kernel In the example below notice the minus signs for the adjacent pixels If there is no change in intensity nothing happens But if one pixel is brighter than its immediate Guide to CCD Imaging neighbors it gets boosted Unfortunately while low pass filtering smoothes out noise high pass filtering does just the opposite it amplifies noise You can get away with this if the original image is not too noisy otherwise the noise will overwhelm the image High pass filtering can also cause small faint details to be greatly exaggerated An over processed image will look
246. ected in the COM Port field The Baud Rate field is used to control the communications speed higher speeds provide faster image downloads but slower speeds may be more reliable if communications are marginal The Anti blooming control allows you to control the camera s anti blooming gate Saturated pixels can produce streaks across the image the anti blooming reduces this problem A higher anti bloom level allows more saturation before a streak will appear but decreases the sensitivity of the camera somewhat Use the lowest setting that prevents blooming SBIG STV 4 26 For this driver please select SBIG STV on the Setup tab The SBIG STV connects via serial interface The correct COM Port must be selected and the Baud Rate must match the setting accessed using the front panel on the STV When used as an imaging camera two Mode settings are available Hi Res produces a 320x200 image with 7 4 micron pixels Hardware 2x2 binning is also available which produces a 160x100 image with 14 8 micron pixels SSS Tiz 5 GTV re For 2M J iF Tapaigh pel 2000 2004 D aces Lied Es e ers Caral E ll EEN I CO Peat Laias Hri Gan inci pak Joan r nea j TEE gt MH In Lo Res mode the STV produces a 320x200 image with 14 8 micron pixels Software 2x2 binning is also available which produces a 160x100 image with 29 6 micron pixels Gain allows you to control the gain level used in the STV Turning on Auto Dark tells the S
247. ed as an autoguider the user will be prompted to cover the camera when dark frames are required SBIG ST 5 Serial For this driver please select SBIG ST 5 on the Setup tab The SBIG ST S is an older version of the ST 5C that uses a serial port interface The communications port to which the camera is connected must be selected in the COM Port field The Baud Rate field is used to control the communications speed higher speeds provide faster image downloads but slower speeds may be more reliable if communications are marginal ACC als GRAS ETE Seeman Dieses Meis d DO Teppet jc FEM O Areco Lidia Es Er a Cac Caney Plate C EEE CIU Peat Did Ma All hear The Anti Bloom control allows you to control the camera s anti blooming gate Saturated pixels can produce streaks across the image the anti blooming reduces this problem A higher anti bloom level allows more saturation before a streak will appear but decreases the sensitivity of the camera somewhat Use the lowest setting that prevents blooming The ST 5 can support a CFW 8 filter wheel to use this option set the Filter Wheel to SBIG ST 5 SBIG ST 6 For this driver please select SBIG ST 6 on the Setup tab SSS Tai e a Dancis Les Eassa Caper EPR een tore toc The Santa Barbara Instrument Group ST 6 cameras connect to the PC via a standard 4 25 Maxlm DL User Manual serial port The communications port to which the camera is connected must be sel
248. ed the appropriate filters and whose filenames match the key image name When the FILTER keyword method is used an approximate match is accepted All images are entered in every control so you can use the drop list to correct a wrong selection When using LRGB or LCMY combine modes the images are automatically resized to a common binning factor used if needed The resultant binning will be that of the image with the smallest binning which is usually the luminance frame The scale factors are determined from the XBINNING and YBINNING keywords in the FITS header Combine Color normally uses the Double Size command in order to achieve the best final results when the destination binning is half that of the source for example converting a 2x2 binned images to match an unbinned luminance image If you prefer to use the equivalent of a straight Resize command check Fast Resize This control is not enabled unless it is applicable to the particular images being combined when none of the selected images have binning ratios of 2 1 Fast Resize is always implied Resizing for Preview Images also always uses the fast method If the images are not aligned prior to executing this command this will be obvious in the Preview Image provided Auto Preview is on leaving this on is recommended Click Align to invoke the Align dialog and register them The first image Red Cyan or Luminance depending on the combine mode is automatically selected
249. ed to show you the area that will be plotted The coordinates of the region will be displayed on the dialog box bottom left of center 6 49 Maxlm DL User Manual 6 50 Ka Fink Lined ape Arg E mn hae a t If you point the mouse at the line graph a vertical cursor will be displayed The brightness level at that point in the graph will be displayed at the bottom of the dialog box bottom right of center along with the corresponding image coordinates A tic mark will also be shown on the image itself in the corresponding position Lines drawn on the image can be moved and resized using the cursor Grab a corner of a box to resize it or grab the end of a line to reorient it or change its length You can also move the entire box or line by grabbing it with the mouse anywhere except on the ends or corners The Settings button allows you to set up the vertical plot axis You can use Auto Scale default or enter in the Min and Max values to appear on the axis zj eee LCa Ma fan TUFE wi g ma The Export button allows you to save a comma separated variable CSV file to disk CSV files can be imported into other applications such as spreadsheets Except as otherwise noted below the exported file contains either two or four values per line for monochrome and color images respectively The first value is always an integer and is the horizontal coordinate of the graph Pixel Location along X or Y The remaining value
250. ee the Open a File Tutorial E Click the Undo button on the toolbar to remove the stretch from the previous tutorial ieee an eid ion ILH Suratan ems or Beisan Leet bel Cancel rar age 4 sa Fl ico TEN A Select the Histogram Specification command on the Process menu Select the Gaussian option and click OK Since this command can significantly change the Tutorials dynamic range min and max values of the image you may want to adjust the Screen Stretch window settings after processing completes In this case setting the mode to Low gives pleasing results This processing highlighted the outer tail of the comet but did not saturate the inner core Histogram specification is useful for making details visible simultaneously at greatly differing brightness levels Try experimenting with different settings including manually drawn histogram shapes When drawing manually it is often easier to start from the Straight Line or Uniform options and then modify the graph click on the graph shape to add a point or move an existing point by dragging If you drag a point left or right past its neighbor the neighbor will be removed automatically Deconvolution We will now sharpen an image of galaxy NGC4565 using Deconvolution The image was taken with a PC Lynxx CCD camera and a 16 inch telescope that was out of alignment collimation resulting in a distortion called coma which makes the stars look like V
251. eed and Angle deg which must be measured on your own equipment and the subframe definitions Left Top Width and Height which have their own Reset button Advanced Settings This section describes the second of the two pages comprising the Guider Settings tabbed dialog which is activated from the Options button menu of the Guide tab 6 167 Maxlm DL User Manual 6 168 us sara iiei Gacieg be Command OH hiim hi H ha uig biasha de gt REEL Oi aj lira lo Y e Fada herana jsi cane rari a Dels cere jc ero Oe Se e Corra eee HU H Pema elev jel Ena dhaka Caid pu 4 Dua After Compete preci T Epistle pelan Aub aed pe oeer Ofre E Fie Par Seis The Guiding controls set limits for track mode operations The Minimum Move X and Minimum Move Y sets the smallest motion the autoguider will make This provides a small dead band which can be useful for preventing oscillations in the guide star position due to unnecessary corrections and to help overcome the effects of backlash The Maximum Move X and Maximum Move Y can be used to limit the maximum amount of motion permitted during guiding Lowering this value can prevent the guider from tracking out a momentary large error such as might occur if a large wind gust occurs A non zero value in the Delay After Correction field causes a time delay after each guider output command This allows time for the telescope to settl
252. een stretch of one of them for optimum visibility of faint stars nebulosity etc then use Equalize Screen Stretch in the View menu to make all images uniform in appearance Then create a blank image buffer using the File menu New command Be sure to create a monochrome image or color image as appropriate The new image buffer must be large enough to include the entire mosaic It can be cropped later if necessary 6 24 Once you have created your blank image run the Mosaic command A small toolbox will appear in the top left corner of the MaxIm DL window Select your first image referred to as a tile of the mosaic using the list at the top of the toolbox and click Place The selected image will appear in the mosaic image Click on the image hold down the button and drag the image to a suitable location in the mosaic buffer When you are happy with the position of the image click the Blend button to lock it in place Next select a different image using the list at the top of the toolbox and click the Place button again Images you have already used in this mosaic still appear in the list but the Place button is disabled The second image will now appear in the Mosaic image buffer Drag it around using the left mouse button Areas which overlap with previously blended images will appear translucent Now adjust the positioning of the newly placed image until its features match up with those previously placed Besides mouse dragging se
253. el port cameras may require setting the parallel port configuration to Bidirectional ECP or EPP in the BIOS e If using an ISA interface card make sure the BIOS setting 16 bit I O Recovery Time is set to either off or none If neither of these two settings is available use the minimum setting e Check the ISA bus address on the card The value in the INI file should match if not edit the INI file e Check for ISA bus conflicts if you are having problems with the card try another address Troubleshooting Make sure you are using the current INI file for the particular model of camera Older INI files may not work because they are missing certain parameters required by the newer drivers If in doubt contact Apogee Instruments Meade Cameras 416XT and 1616XT Make sure the latest version of firmware is loaded into camera using Pictor View Wait for 30 seconds after powering up camera before attempting to connect The camera is not quite ready when the beep beep sound occurs it is still trying to reset the filter wheel even if it doesn t have one After connecting turn on the cooler and set temperature wait for temperature display to appear before attempting to take an image Be sure to use a subframe when focusing this greatly enhances download speed Serial Mode If the computer appears to be too slow to keep up with serial communications the camera will automatically revert to a slow speed readout mo
254. elated to the printer operation Often these bugs will affect some applications and not others depending on what driver features the particular application uses The following problems have been traced to defective video or printer drivers e Video screen corruption at certain zoom levels video driver e Failure to draw certain user interface details printer driver e Math coprocessor corruption potentially resulting in software crash printer driver e Excessive consumption of system resources video driver e Unrepeatable random crashes video or printer driver If any of the above situations occur we recommend obtaining new drivers for both your printer and video card from the manufacturer It is usually possible to download updated drivers from the manufacturer s web site Basic Operation 1 6 In the following discussion it is assumed that the reader is generally familiar with programs that run under the Windows operating system We strongly recommend that the user read through the tutorials They provide a basic introduction to MaxIm DL operations including things that may not be entirely obvious to a new user at first glance Introduction Accessing Images You can quickly switch between images using the tabs running across the top of the main window For most image processing commands you can still access the image while the command is open You can pan and zoom it or use tools such as Screen Stretch and Quick S
255. em can often be corrected just by switching to the Modified Spline function The curve shown in the diagram is similar to applying a gamma function to the image More complex curves are possible you can create a very non linear mapping between the input levels and the output levels 6 99 Maxlm DL User Manual Curva E pon icira r i ipad aja Ds iza Wh PI A a ima m Epad Forage ene vi be onal For color images the Edit Channel selectors will be available You can adjust the overall luminance by selecting Luminance Only or tweak the three color planes individually When Luminance Only is off the transfer graph shows three lines one for each color Select Red Green or Blue to edit the transfter graph for that color plane kue port E Sane n F E Ams cures e Mona When editing the line you can right click on the graph to bring up a menu If the image is monochrome you are always working in monochrome mode and the right hand pane of the menu will not be displayed If the image is color then the right hand pane is displayed and is used to select the color plane that will be modified when you click on the graph Clicking R G B or Mono is equivalent to clicking on the Red Green Blue or Luminance Only controls in the Edit Channel group box Insert a point inserts a point just like left clicking the graph The Delete a point option is only available if you right click on a point that s already been created
256. enied message check step 2 above If you get an out of memory message run Ob do a File new and try again There seems to be some mystery about this but if only TheSky is selected in Ob s Server Settings this problem usually does not occur If you get another error message like ActiveX can t create object you don t have all of the Software Bisque components needed to use their VB Scripting support Refer to Software Bisque documentation for more info The ASCOM Platform must be installed for this option to appear Focuser Setup 4 60 Focuser drivers used by MaxIm DL CCD comply with the ASCOM Standard These drivers may be supplied by third party equipment manufacturers or included as part of the ASCOM Platform The ASCOM Platform is a collection of drivers most of which are open source These drivers have been contributed by interested individuals as well as astronomical companies including Diffraction Limited The ASCOM Platform is free and can be downloaded from the ASCOM Download page http ascom standards org downloads html A copy is also included on the distribution CD ROM although the on line version may be newer as drivers are added and updated on a regular basis Please note that relative mode focusers based on DC motors rather servo or stepper motors may not be suitable for use with the built in SharpStar autofocus It may be possible however to use FocusMax with them Please see http ascom standards
257. ent and then click the GOTO button again If your object appears on chip but not centered you can use the Auto Center feature of Guide to CCD Imaging the Telescope Control Once Auto Center is calibrated Center tab you can right click the object on the image and select Point telescope here The telescope will be slewed to move the point you clicked on to the center of the image If there is significant backlash in the mount you may need to do this a second time You should also consider using MaxPoint which is available at extra cost www cyanogen com MaxPoint models the errors in a telescope mount and corrects for them Even on inexpensive GOTO telescopes you can easily achieve pointing accuracies of 1 2 arc minutes which is sufficient to put objects near the center of your CCD sensor over the entire sky Autoguiding When taking long exposures on astronomical telescopes tracking is required to compensate for the Earth s rotation Typical astronomical telescope mounts are not accurate enough for long exposure imaging without some form of guiding Tracking errors are usually sufficiently small on short duration images 15 to 90 seconds depending on the mount that guiding is not required Therefore a series of short exposure images can be taken and combined together later using the Combine Files command However in many cases a single long exposure is superior due to the elimination of extra readout noise and the residual b
258. ent images by clicking on them with the mouse To close the window click on the Close button or use the View menu FITS Header command View Mode In the View mode the FITS header is presented essentially as it appears in the file itself The data in the View mode only updates when the file is written to disk it will not include changes made with the Edit mode or other MaxIm DL functions until the file is saved Edit Mode Switch between the View and Edit modes using the tabs at the top In the Edit mode the individual keywords can be modified by the user Keywords can also be added or deleted The table at top includes a list of keywords the value of the keyword and for standard keywords a brief description The three columns can be resized using the mouse by dragging the vertical bars in the title row This allows you to view text that is longer than the assigned column width Scroll bars allow you to move horizontally and vertically to view the entire table if necessary 6 45 Maxlm DL User Manual To modify a keyword either click on it in the Keyword column select it from the drop down Key Name list or type its name in the Key Name field directly A value may then be entered in Value To add a keyword to the header select it from the default values in the Key Name drop list or create a new keyword by typing in a name The keyword name must be alphanumeric and not exceed 8 characters in length Keyword names may include le
259. entation is useful because it can be reversed by an inverse FFT and because it breaks the image down by spatial frequency The Fast in FFT refers to a special algorithm which calculates the Fourier Transform very efficiently File formats are used to store image information in a consistent way so that they can be shared between applications The files often include headers which contain extra information on the image such as dimensions and exposure time The following formats are supported by MaxIm DL BMP Bit Map graphics file used in Windows and OS 2 systems CCD format used by PC Lynxx cameras FITS Flexible Image Transport System the standard for astronomical images This is the recommended format JPEG a widely used lossy format used for high image compression ratios PNG Portable Network Graphics a new file type with lossless compression Raw unformatted image a binary array of integer or real values ST formats used by Santa Barbara Instruments Group cameras TIFF Tag Image File Format a widely used image format A processing operation that changes pixel values based on the values of their neighbors A filter can emphasize objects with a particular spatial frequency A filter is implemented as a convolution operation A flat field frame is an image of an evenly illuminated source These frames are used to compensate for both pixel to pixel variations in sensitivity and the effects of optical
260. ented in turn the user simply clicks on a particular star or other recognizable feature in each image In order to speed up the process turn on the Auto Next check box Every time the mouse is clicked on the image the next image will automatically be displayed When the first registration point has been set on each image the computer will beep and the first image will be displayed again Move to a second star and repeat the process until the computer beeps a second time The Star 1 and Star 2 buttons will toggle to show you which point is being set If Auto Next is not being used or you want to change a single registration point use the Star 1 or Star 2 button to control which reference point is being changed You can move through the images using the Next Image and Previous Image buttons One of the images can be set as the reference image using the Set As Reference button The selected image will not be moved and all other images will be adjusted to align with it If the reference point is a star or point source turn on the Use Centroid check box At each clicked location a centroid will automatically be calculated and used to refine the adjustment to the sub pixel level If any image in the sequence is of poor quality click the Reject Image button to remove it from the list You can restore it by clicking on the button again Any image that has not had two reference points clicked on cannot be registered and is therefore automatically
261. er FITS key and is enabled for input Type the name of any FITS keyword present in your image headers which contains a value that can be interpreted as a date time String valued keys containing slash or hyphen delimited year month day and colon delimited hr min sec values are interpreted correctly A time in hours minutes and seconds without a date is arbitrarily assigned a date of 2000 Jan 01 Integer and real valued FITS keywords are used directly as the X axis data Images lacking the specified keyword are omitted from the Image list In all cases the time value obtained for a file is displayed in the read only Time of Image edit box Next select the images to analyze The Image list contains all the currently open images in date time order the date time must be present in the FITS header which will be true if the images were taken with MaxIm CCD You can exclude an image from photometry analysis by selecting it and clicking the Exclude button In the Image list the names of excluded images are shown in a gray strikeout font When such an image is selected the Exclude button changes to Include and serves to restore the image to the data being plotted In practice images are often excluded from analysis only after a preliminary plot has shown that they yield noisy measurements this can be done from the plot itself and is described below When you select an image in the Image list it is displayed in the Photometry image window You
262. er Name in the extra slots blank they will not appear in the drop list filter selectors If the filters vary in thickness a Focus Offset can be entered for each filter This causes the focus position to be offset appropriately every time an exposure is taken with a new filter position If this feature is used absolute positioning focusers are strongly recommended to ensure repeatability If you wish to control a dual wheel ACE SmartFilter you must create an ACE INI file and put it in the MaxIm DL program directory Equipment Setup ACE INI must be a text file containing one line per filter slot Each line has two numbers separated by a comma The first number indicates which filter to use in the first wheel and the second number indicates which filter to use in the second wheel Here is an example IDO e In this example the third filter slot will move filter wheel 1 to slot 3 and filter wheel 2 to slot 1 Apogee For this driver select Apogee on the Setup tab Ha Fes ys Ceria Fae SD 200 Dic Lista Cara edad Teri upped ppal cd eran Pegar This selection is used for Apogee filter wheels that are controlled directly through the camera This is only available for certain camera models The user can assign names for each of the color filter slots under Filter Name If your filter wheel has fewer slots than allowed for by this driver simply leave the Filter Name in the extra slots blank they will not appear in the drop list
263. eras use open loop cooling so the cooler controls are not enabled when this camera is in use Starlight Xpress MX7 MX9 USB STAR2000 For this driver choose STAR2K MX7 9 on the Setup tab ita ATA als a SH Clement pr LOA ca Lo psp tl i Rs cs meo This driver supports STAR2000 operation for the Starlight Xpress MX716 USB and MX916 USB cameras The appropriate Starlight Xpress USB drivers that come with the camera must be installed for the camera to work For best results with the MX7C camera use the special MX7C version of this driver If you have connected a STAR2000 dongle and wish to use it for outputting autoguider 4 34 Equipment Setup commands select the appropriate COM Port otherwise set it to None Select the appropriate output mode either ST4 for autoguider pulses or LX200 for serial port If you wish to use a Starlight Xpress Autoguider Interface box non STAR2000 set COM Port to None and go to the Guide tab Settings and change Control Via to SX COM The Starlight Xpress cameras use open loop cooling so the cooler controls are not enabled when this camera is in use Note When configuring this driver in the Setup tab set Main CCD Camera to STAR2K MX7 9 and the Autoguider to Same as main camera Starlight Xpress MX7C USB For this driver choose SX MX7C USB on the Setup tab The Starlight Xpress MX7C USB camera connects to the PC via a USB interface bale lid Apr Me UA even cee 4
264. eration Successfully converted and saved files are removed from the list box leaving only those for which an error occurred In this case the OK button will change to Retry To find out what error occurred point the mouse cursor at an image name in the list The appropriate error message will appear in the Status Bar at the bottom of the MaxIm DL main window This allows you to view any error message produced for each of the files The revert command reloads the last saved version of the currently selected image The currently selected file format File Open dialog should match the type of image You will be prompted before discarding the current image Note that this operation disables the Undo command since the image buffer is destroyed Page Setup The page setup command allows you to select page orientation and margins for the printed image You can select paper size and source page orientation and margins 6 13 Maxlm DL User Manual A Sisi Pacos iZ 3 o E E hemes Megerretery r Panal wN A Eros w gt mm CE Print The Print command allows you to print the currently selected image on a graphics printer You can select a printer using the Name field set up the printer using Properties and select the number of copies to print using Copies SSS ajai _ 2 rad HP Ls dE PL E HA ce joa Settings The Settings dialog is a tabbed dialog box containing various tabs for configuring program behavior and defa
265. ers are supplied by the manufacturer including the plug in driver for MaxIm DL All drivers required for these cameras are built into MaxIm DL FLI drivers must be installed separately They are available from http www fli cam com software htm Please note that FLI s web site actually includes two different versions of their drivers It is recommended that you use the older generation of drivers with older parallel port cameras in MaxIm DL you select FLI 1st Gen to run with the older drivers All drivers required for these cameras are built into MaxIm DL Drivers are supplied by the manufacturer including the plug in driver for MaxIm DL All Meade cameras are capable of operating through the serial port All drivers required for operating in serial mode are built into MaxIm DL The 416XT and 1616XT cameras are also capable of operating on the SCSI interface for higher speed Please follow Meade s recommendation on SCSI adapters only the models they recommend will work properly You must have the latest Adaptec driver for your host interface card installed You also must have the latest Adaptec ASPI driver installed These can be obtained from http www adaptec com Apogee for AP KX SPH Apogee Alta for Alta cameras Audine SBIG Universal Consult manufacturer s instructions Finger Lakes for USB and Ethernet cameras FLI 1st Gen for parallel port cameras Hi SIS 22 or Hi SIS 44 Consult manufacturer s inst
266. es 6 38 Command Reference Information Window The Information window displays a variety of information on selected areas of the image The window can be switched on and off using the Information Window command on the View menu or by using the button on the Toolbar The window can remain open as a floating toolbox without interfering with other commands The Information window has four modes of operation Aperture Region Area and Astrometric There is also a Magnitude display that can be calibrated to show accurate stellar magnitudes Except in Area mode the mouse cursor will change to a crosshair and bullseye when the Information window is active and the mouse is over the selected image or preview The sizes of the various elements of the circular cursor can be changed using the mouse with the right click menu To lock the cursor at a specific position and freeze the information display double click on the image When locked the circular cursor can be moved using the arrow keys You can then copy text from the status area of the Information window to the clipboard using the mouse and CTRL C or right click the mouse in the status area and select Copy from the resulting context menu To restore normal operation click the mouse again on the image Aperture Aperture mode shows statistics on the area under the circular cursor as the mouse is moved around the image The current Cursor position and inner and outer radii are shown
267. es are used AO 7 Locate Tab The Locate tab is primarily used to locate a guide star It also allows the user to calibrate the telescope drive motor and the AO 7 mirror deflection Selecting one of the three Mode options Locate Calibrate Drive or Calibrate AO 7 allows changes the operation that will be executed by the Start button Loca Ticks Dive Sasa Evade 5 la E Deghiasin pa TF CaF l Conin Locate Mode In order to find a suitable guide star to track on first select the Locate mode Choose an Exposure duration in seconds and click the Start button If necessary a dark frame 6 191 Maxlm DL User Manual will be taken and subtracted from the light frame Once the image is taken MaxIm DL will automatically select the best guide star candidate in the image and report its information in the Guide Star group box The Guide Star X and Y fields display the guide star position in pixels within the CCD chip and its maximum pixel brightness is shown in the Brightness field below the coordinates A small cross is drawn on the image to indicate the star s position If you wish you may click on any other star in the image to override the automatic star selection and select a new guide star to track Use the Binning control to enter the binning value to use when acquiring images through the guide camera With larger bin sizes the exposure time can be reduced while still obtaining a useable image The maximum bi
268. es more time but can produce a sharper final image A Min Fulton 6 29 Maxlm DL User Manual Edit Pixels The Edit Pixels command can be used to make cosmetic changes to an image Unlike most paint programs however the actual value painted depends on the screen stretch as set by the Screen Stretch window This allows for editing any image not just those restricted to 8 bit values It does however have the side effect of making the paint value dependent on the stretch settings echt Ponte xl Mo PAS Pob Pie Up Cats A fizi tesa Cale G fais Lines Le ff _ Flare J Meca The paint color may be determined in four different ways A monochrome value may be entered manually by typing a value into the Intensity field and pressing Enter or clicking Update For Color images red green and blue values may be entered in the same fashion Alternatively a value may be picked up from the image using the Pick Up Color mode When selected the user clicks on a pixel whose value is to be used for painting A color may also be selected from a palette using the Choose Color button Undo is provided for both the last paint action and all paint actions Similar Redo functions are also provided Clone Tool 6 30 The Clone Tool lets you alter images by copying circular regions defined by the aperture of the mouse rings cursor from one location to another You can do this either within an image or copy areas from different images I
269. ess or Advanced Setup button The Initialization file may contain camera initialization settings the path may be selected using the Browse button The Ethernet Address is for certain cameras that use an Ethernet interface The Advanced Setup button brings up an additional options dialog box For some camera models the Advanced Setup dialog is also available while the camera is operating 4 9 Maxlm DL User Manual For information on settings please consult the documentation supplied with the driver Apogee AP KX SPH AM Series For this driver choose Apogee on the Setup tab The Apogee camera drivers support all models including AM AP KX and SPH series operating on ISA PCI and parallel port interfaces Note PCI requires Windows 98 or higher For Apogee Alta cameras please use the separate Apogee Alta driver SS Tx Braet ea pn d A E Bm Cois Mia Dio TTL Comic When initializing an Apogee CCD camera MaxIm CCD needs information on the parameters of the camera being used Apogee cameras use a wide variety of detectors and there are differences in the camera electronics between the various models This information is obtained from an ini file that is provided by the manufacturer with the camera INI files for all current camera models are also provided in a subdirectory to the MaxIm DL program directory called Apogee INI Files For assistance in setting up INI files please contact Apogee Instruments w
270. ess autoguider interface a custom connection through a parallel port or other means Same as Main Camera This option is available only for the autoguider When selected the main camera is also used as the autoguider If the camera is capable of simultaneous imaging and autoguiding then it appears as two separately controlled cameras Otherwise the camera is only available in one mode at a time If you set both the main camera and autoguider to the same model you will see a warning message suggesting that you need to use this selection If you actually intended to connect two different cameras that both use the same driver then ignore this warning note that some manufacturers do not support multiple cameras on the same computer Plug In Camera Plug in drivers may be included with MaxIm CCD or supplied separately by third party vendors Some third party drivers may also be included on the MaxIm DL CCD distribution disk as a convenience to customers Technical support for all third party drivers is provided by the camera manufacturer zizi Aie Des imon d I IE Coppa j 2000 2004 D fl action Limia L Tehea ippo pon core mo Cias biai mir Pie Fia pe 2j Loberia 54 pee Fears pre ma Taris Limma ligi Paty Lassi TTL Ganacd Coke Ma Dice horas x C Pons ina aj The driver determines the controls that appear on this dialog There may be up to five input parameters and optionally one Initialization File Ethernet Addr
271. ess is set too high gt 10 the star may oscillate too low and the system will be slow too respond to stellar wander You can adjust Aggressiveness while the AO 7 is tracking set it to a value which minimizes the RMS Wander A value of 6 to 8 usually provides optimum tracking The Max Move field sets the maximum correction in pixels that can be applied in a single cycle Note that the absolute maximum deflection the AO 7 unit can accommodate is about 15 pixels for an ST 7 or ST 8 Lowering Max Move will allow the AO 7 to ignore large fluctuations occasionally caused by brief wind gusts that are too fast to track out Decreasing this value too much will reduce the effectiveness of the AO 7 As with the Aggressiveness setting this field can be adjusted while autoguiding and should be used to minimize the RMS Wander Clicking on the Start button will initiate autoguiding on the star that was selected using the Locate tab Before the small tracking image is displayed in the dialog the computer will accumulate eight dark frames in order to have a low noise dark frame to subtract from the short duration light frames The autoguiding can be stopped at any time by clicking on the Stop button While autoguiding the image of the guide star magnified 400 will be continuously updated As well the values for RMS Wander the AO 7 Tilt position the update Rate and the Total Counts will be updated The RMS Wander is the average deviation of the g
272. est method is to take images through red green and blue filters If the exposures are balanced the three color images can be combined together directly to make a color composite with perhaps only an alignment adjustment For single shot color cameras the Convert MX and Convert RGB commands can be used to create the color image from information encoded in the image itself The Color Stack allows you to stack an arbitrary number of filtered images together and assign each a unique color This can be useful in creating false color images or in integrating additional filter channels such as Hydrogen Alpha Finally you can create artificial color based on brightness levels using Pseudo Color In some cases this can reveal structures that are difficult to see in the original image Adding Luminance The straightforward method of creating a color image is to combine red green and blue filtered images together This works well because the human eye works exactly the same way there are individual red green and blue receptors cone cells in the retina When working with low light levels it can be difficult to achieve sufficient exposure time in all three color bands to produce a clean low noise image The LRGB technique is a shortcut that can be used to reduce the total exposure time required by adding a Luminance frame to the three standard color planes 3 41 Maxlm DL User Manual A common technique is therefore to take
273. est set fairly high to increase the sensitivity of the quick exposure and also to reduce the download Command Reference time The maximum binning level depends on the camera that is in use Apply Auto dark calibration turns on the auto dark feature which automatically subtracts a dark frame from the exposure so as to increase signal to noise ratio The Site button brings up the Site and Optics page of the File Settings dialog box which together with the time is used to calculate the orientation of the sky Catalog Tab The Catalog tab provides a convenient way to locate astronomical objects You can extract the object position from a built in catalog provided courtesy of the Saguaro Astronomy Club Hal Teiripe Catalog Coros Focuos Andou Se mia nl GRAO MP ag tT Minsky HOUERS wi j tje a fed fe Soto are is Newt 0 Select the Object type to Deep sky Solar system or Named stars Then click the drop down list button and select an object or catalog If a catalog is picked you can then enter the catalog number by typing it into the field or by clicking the numerical keypad buttons with the mouse The keypad buttons are useful when you are working in the dark and cannot see the keyboard In addition to numbers there are backspace decimal point and change sign buttons on the keypad Once you have selected your object you can use the Go To or Sync buttons These work exactly as on t
274. estination image that is you can add tiles to a mosaic that was partially created previously In this case the Mosaic command no longer knows the positions edges of the tiles that were blended in the earlier session nor has access to their pixel data Because of this it cannot directly apply the weighted sum technique to combine the old and new data Instead it approximates the blending process by setting the weight for every preexisting data pixel equal to its distance D from the nearest zero non data pixel up to the limit set by the Blend Area control The limit exists because it is very time consuming to compute these weights for large values of D and because limiting them has little visible effect on the image as long as the background is properly equalized Blend Area is not strictly a feathering distance because background pixels further than this from the edge can still be combined with data from tiles in a weighted sum it is just that their weights cease to drop off with distance Blend Area values of 20 to 30 are typically quite adequate It has not effect at all if Mosaic is started on an empty canvas Once you have placed and blended all of the images click the Close button If the image buffer extends significantly beyond the tile data in any direction and you do not plan to add more tiles later you may wish to use the Crop command to eliminate the unneeded areas Duplicate The Duplicate command will cause a second co
275. et controls the black or background level Try adjusting it and see what the effect is The Minimum field updates as you adjust the setting i Ha Aa Hewes Mara E sereno re E Placing the Red and Green carets close together produces a high contrast conversely Tutorials placing them far apart produces a low contrast Reversing the positions of the two carets Red to the right of Green will produce a negative image When moving the carets with the mouse experiment with holding down either the SHIFT or CTRL keys The SHIFT key makes the carets move together keeping the contrast constant but changing the brightness The CTRL key makes the carets move in opposite directions You can also modify the Maximum and Minimum fields directly by typing in a new number and then pressing Enter Note if you type in the numeric entry fields you must press Enter or click Update for the new value to take effect When adjusting monochrome images by moving the carets with the mouse the screen updates as you drag the caret When adjusting color images the screen does not update until you release the mouse button Since updating color images is slower this allows you to make large changes without having to wait for the updates Notes Remember these functions only affect the image display They have no effect on the image buffer itself This allows you to conveniently change the stretch at any time without affecting any later image processing
276. evel in various regions of the image and then fits a bilinear equation to the background points The resulting model is subtracted from the image thus reducing the variations Note that the algorithm works best on star fields images with a large foreground object consuming a significant part of the field can bias the background extraction 6 121 Maxlm DL User Manual Color Menu Combine Color 6 122 The Combine Color command is used for combining up to four monochrome CCD images into a single color image Most CCD cameras require that monochrome images be taken through various color filters and then combined afterwards into a color composite image This command can also be used to compare two or three unfiltered images by producing a composite and looking for color differences Comparisons can also be done using the Animate command onder Colne ux Corman Tue DE FAB Fae FT CH fo LONA A TADO CA oean calor paca CE Loa e Coed D Sie Resi Fate FP Bid dado Equ align Lumens HT AGEL be zl lurenance Weight a 10 a A orm Bran FL Fa be Blue UT bE Pidpad Cola L fe Geek iiad z Ried 1 il co ff E aje me O A j fas The first step in color conversion is to select the Conversion Type Six options are available RGB red green and blue filters LRGB red green blue filters and luminance white unfiltered CMY cyan magenta and yellow filters LCMY luminance white unfiltered an
277. ew measurement technique invented by Larry Weber and Steve Brady It determines the diameter of a circle that encloses half the total flux count in the star image It can handle much larger diameter stars than FWHM up to 100 pixels and is often more consistent from image to image X 513 Y 385 Max 19875 FWHM 4 99 Ya FD 5 36 A larger display of the focus statistics can be invoked by clicking the Large View button The following information from the Inspect tab is displayed in large print in the Focus Statistics window X Y FWHM Y FD Max The window can be closed by clicking on the close button on the title bar closing the MaxIm CCD window or by switching to a tab other than Focus or Inspect 6 159 Maxlm DL User Manual Guide Tab TIP Autoguiding can be a complex operation If you are having trouble autoguiding please see the Autoguider Operating Tips and Troubleshooting sections ES Us Espora Setting Sequence Foo mpa Gude Est U Emprrra a Benoa Co fF a fo a EA D r pare Emmi PEE BY Ens 000 j 1 vine oa Onion H Y En 0I Ends Smene Ens Da F L Gari a a a ne a a kine AS TE The Guide tab is used to control an auxiliary autoguider CCD An autoguider is used on astronomical telescopes to maintain accurate pointing during an exposure Some CCD cameras include a second CCD chip that is used for tracking in other cases a second CCD camera can be used to provide this f
278. f the color filter slots under Filter Name If your filter wheel has fewer slots than allowed for by this driver simply leave the Filter Name in the extra slots blank they will not appear in the drop list filter selectors If the filters vary in thickness a Focus Offset can be entered for each filter This causes the focus position to be offset appropriately every time an exposure is taken with a new filter position If this feature is used absolute positioning focusers are strongly recommended to ensure repeatability Please see Notes On Direct Serial Port Connection for information on making the necessary electrical connections Optec MaxFilter This wheel emulates an SBIG CFW8 Please refer to SBIG Compatible Filter Wheels for information on connecting this wheel True Technology with SBIG Compatibility Mode True Technology Custom Wheels with the optional SBIG compatibility mode should be controlled using SBIG Universal if controlled via an SBIG camera SBIG Parallel if connected directly to the PC parallel port SBIG ST 5 if controlled via an ST 5 serial camera or SBIG ST 6 if controlled via an ST 6 camera Notes On Direct Parallel Port Connection This method uses the PC to generate precise timing pulses on the parallel port PC s are not very good at real time signal generation so some special programming was required to make this work Please verify that filter wheel operation is reliable before attempting to use this dri
279. ffer from accuracy problems whereas the latter are rather difficult and time consuming to use CCD cameras permit the simultaneous capture of quantitative data for both the target star or object and other comparison stars Typically photometric measurements of stars are performed using filters Several filter systems are in use including Johnson UBVRI Kron Cousins UBVRI and Bessell Comparing different filter bands allows the determination of a color index for a star Fundamental physical parameters for a star can be determined using these methods Many stars vary in brightness analyzing the light curves can be used to set constraints on physical models measure distances etc MaxIm DL includes two photometric measurement tools both based on aperture photometry measuring the total light within a circular aperture The simplest is the Guide to CCD Imaging Information window which can be calibrated to a star of known magnitude on an image Then other stars can be measured using that calibration The Analyze menu Photometry command can be used to perform more accurate measurements and plot them over time This command performs a careful background subtraction using median mean techniques and also takes partial pixels into account when integrating the light inside the measurement aperture Data can be plotted for measured stars comparison stars and check stars The aperture used for the measurements is fully adjustable An annular
280. ficult to create a reasonable facsimile of the normal illumination spectrum Given all these problems a good flat field can be very difficult to achieve in the field and so this calibration is sometimes skipped If there is no vignetting and dust donuts are not an issue calibrating the camera alone may be sufficient Cover the end of a roughly six inch long opaque tube with a translucent material a few layers of white photocopy paper will do in a pinch Place this over the front of the CCD camera gently illuminate the assembly with white light natural or incandescent not fluorescent or LED and take an exposure which produces a brightness level of roughly 30 of full scale The resulting images can be used to flat field the camera regardless of the optics used Note that the window must be clean no dust spots for this to work properly A common technique for astronomical applications is to use twilight flats where the twilight sky is used as a diffuse light source Rapidly changing light levels can be troublesome but the illumination can be very uniform if care is taken to avoid recording stars or to remove them by shifting the telescope between exposures and using median combine with renormalization A more advanced technique is to use sky flats This is 3 31 Maxlm DL User Manual described in more detail below The flat field frames themselves must be calibrated to remove bias and for longer exposures dark corre
281. filter selectors If the filters vary in thickness a Focus Offset can be entered for each filter This causes the focus position to be offset appropriately every time an exposure is taken with a new filter position If this feature is used absolute positioning focusers are strongly recommended 4 41 Maxlm DL User Manual to ensure repeatability Apogee Alta For this driver select Apogee Alta on the Setup tab Hal Ae Coria Apoges An i 4 00 4 Pela A laseri akai Carra h del Teche ppad upped Bra oa roger Aba Pas Pier Haren Pocono feat Aaj i an 1 Bia 4 Fier 4 i Pis Piers This selection is used for Apogee filter wheels that are controlled directly through the camera This is only available for certain camera models The user can assign names for each of the color filter slots under Filter Name If your filter wheel has fewer slots than allowed for by this driver simply leave the Filter Name in the extra slots blank they will not appear in the drop list filter selectors If the filters vary in thickness a Focus Offset can be entered for each filter This causes the focus position to be offset appropriately every time an exposure is taken with a new filter position If this feature is used absolute positioning focusers are strongly recommended to ensure repeatability CRI Micro Color 4 42 For this driver select CRI Tunable on the Setup tab CRI Micro Color LCD tunable filters have no moving parts The
282. filter wheel manufacturer is provided by the manufacturer The user can assign names for each of the color filter slots under Filter Name If your Equipment Setup filter wheel has fewer slots than allowed for by this driver or if there are slots you do not want to use simply leave the corresponding Filter Name entries blank these slots will not appear in the drop list filter selectors If the filters vary in thickness a Focus Offset can be entered for each filter This causes the focus position to be offset appropriately every time an exposure is taken with a new filter position If this feature is used absolute positioning focusers are strongly recommended to ensure repeatability pete aL vewersal A Mal aH ceed Vee Fates o Ciern Coppeght 21198212000 Dacian Lined C mera hindad upper cargan E pane con Wittens El Moet Parina There may be up to three additional controls on the right side of the dialog the exact function of these fields depends on the particular driver For information on settings please consult the documentation supplied with the driver Enter the name for each of your filters in the appropriate slots If your filter wheel has fewer slots than allowed for by this driver simply leave the extra slots blank Blank slots are allowed only at the end of the list The blank slots will not appear in the drop down filter selector lists Filter Wheel Simulator For this driver select Simulator on the Setup t
283. first captured until the row is complete then the second row will begin one tile to the south of the first When Alternating directions is checked images on even numbered rows are captured in the direction opposite to odd numbered rows minimizing telescope motion and time lost when slewing back across the mosaic 6 155 Maxlm DL User Manual 6 156 The position of the mosaic on the sky is specified by either that of the tile at the starting Corner actually the center of the corner tile or by the Center of the mosaic as a whole Having identified which scheme you are going to use by the left hand radio buttons in the Mosaic Position you must also either supply a starting RA and Dec or if the telescope is already properly pointed select Current telescope position The former is appropriate if your system is well aligned and trustworthy the latter if you have just completed finding and focusing on the object Starting tile number should normally be set to one 1 to instruct MaxIm CCD to capture the entire mosaic Its range is up to and including the product of the W and H mosaic dimensions It is updated automatically as each tile s image is acquired and is primarily intended for resuming after an interruption But you can set the Starting tile number to the index of any tile in the mosaic though you must be sure you understand the numbering scheme implied by your selection of Direction and Alternating directions Setting this control to
284. flat field will not work properly If you are not doing photometry brightness measurement and the image is sufficiently clean for your purposes then you do not absolutely need a flat field frame Nor is a flat field absolutely necessary for astrometry since the centroid algorithm used is quite robust however it may help if the signal to noise ratio is poor For general imaging there are alternative methods to correct overall vignetting such as the Flatten Background command A can of compressed air is very effective for dust donuts Nevertheless if you want the best performance from your camera or are doing photometric measurements then a flat field frame is mandatory As an absolute minimum you should always subtract at least a dark frame The MaxIm CCD camera control window includes an auto dark feature that should be turned on if you are not otherwise calibrating your images It is however always better to average dark frames if at all possible Sky Flats Sky Flats have the advantage of exactly replicating the illumination pattern and spectrum of actual imaging conditions simply because actual sky images are used Sky Flats are especially important for back illuminated thinned CCD sensors which can suffer from an effect known as fringing Fringing is an interference pattern in reflections between the front and back surfaces of the sensor the pattern seen is due to very tiny variations in the thickness of the sensor The pat
285. focuser controls as well as those in FocusMax 4 Ifyou think you have too many hubs try to simplify the configuration For example Desktop Universe has a hub but if you re already using POTH to link in the dome control you should just ignore the Desktop Universe hub Simply connect DTU to POTH alongside your other programs CCD Camera Autoguider Setup 4 8 MaxIm DL includes several dozen different camera drivers described in the following pages Note that in order for these drivers to function they may require the manufacturer s camera drivers to be installed Specifically the manufacturer s drivers must be installed for cameras from e Apogee e Audine Genesis except parallel port e DTA e Finger Lakes Instruments e ISI CCD800 CCD1600 e Meade SCSI Adaptec ASPI and SCSI card drivers e Princeton and Photometrics models from Roper PVCam software e SBIG camera except serial port interface models e Starlight Xpress USB cameras Equipment Setup e All video sources require manufacturer s drivers In MaxIm DL all cameras can be used as autoguiders Note however that some cameras may not be recommended for use as autoguiders due to shutter reliability or response time problems Some cameras have the necessary camera relays for sending autoguider control pulses to the telescope mount Other cameras require using either the Telescope Control window and a GOTO telescope with ASCOM PulseGuide capability a Starlight Xpr
286. g it while holding down the right mouse button Command Reference As an exercise start by clicking on the rightmost point in the triangle then move to the brightest red color about half way to the center and click again Make sure Cycles is set to 1 The image will be converted from gray scale to shades of red You can add a third point by clicking again on another color Additional points can also be added a line will connect the new point with the one that was previously placed If you wish to move a placed point position the mouse over it hold down the left mouse button and drag it to a new location You can also delete a point by right clicking on it Mist Comahranes aj tn Fo The map can take on different styles designed to shift the range of colors in the gamut The Logarithmic mode shows more cyan yellow and magenta shades The Linear mode produces linear color changes along a straight line You can reverse the order of the colors by turning on Reverse Mapping You can change the number of times the colors repeat by adjusting the Cycles control for example setting Cycles to 2 will make the color scheme repeat twice This control can be used to generate the appearance of a contour map Realign Planes The Realign Planes command can be used to manually tweak tricolor images if the three color planes are not precisely aligned to each other You can shift any of the three color planes in X and Y directions The P
287. g stars you can automatically align tiles as you place them simply place a tile approximately in position then click Snap to pop it into place automatically If you turn on Auto Background Equalization the overlap areas on the edges of the tiles will be compared and an adjustment automatically made to match them up in brightness Try to make sure that the source images have the same exposure and that the sky conditions are the same If the background levels change it can cause problems with the blending Flat fielding is particularly important any vignetting will show up as a pattern in the final mosaic If necessary use the Flatten Background command on each time prior to building the mosaic You should also make sure that there are no edge artifacts from your camera If there are they should be cropped off before trying to assemble the mosaic Guide to CCD Imaging Editing Small glitches and artifacts can be readily removed using the Edit Pixels command Using this command you can pick up or select a color then apply it to one or more pixels The Clone tool is much more powerful You can select any size aperture using the right click menu You can then copy data from one region to another You can copy pixels from one place in an image to another you specify the source region and then click on the destination where you want the pixels copied to As you move the cursor around the source region moves in parallel This allows you to
288. ge Note that proper display of a critically sampled image requires a reconstruction filter interpolation to a higher sample rate for proper image display A stretch function affects the brightness and contrast of an image A Permanent Stretch function does not just affect the appearance of an image on the screen it changes the values in the image buffer The Stretch dialog performs a permanent stretch while the Screen Stretch window controls the screen stretch Photometry is the accurate measurement of brightness This is a commonly used scientific tool particularly in astronomy Light is radiated in small energy packets called photons Although photons are often visualized as particles they also have the characteristics of a wave Photons from a light source are emitted in a random fashion following a Poisson distribution This is a fundamental source of noise in any measurement of light ADU stands for Analog to Digital Unit For CCD cameras the number of Photoelectrons per ADU tells you how many photoelectrons are required to 8 5 Maxlm DL User Manual Pixel Pixel Format Poisson Point Spread Function PSF Quantization Rayleigh Root Mean Square RMS Scaling Screen Stretch Stretch Signal to Noise Ratio Spatial Frequency Standard Deviation Statistical Distribution 8 6 increase the pixel value by one count A photoelectron is produced whenever a photon light packet is detected by the
289. ge if necessary Save As is safer because it always pauses to allow you to specify the destination filename but you are then responsible for avoiding overwriting valuable data The upper part of Command Sequence window contains a list of Operations initially empty There is a small toolbar at the upper right corner of the window which used for 6 47 Maxlm DL User Manual 6 48 deleting or changing the order of steps in the sequence at the upper right The lower part contains a status message area and seven buttons used for controlling recording playback and sequence management To start recording a script click the Record button 1 The red circle lights up to a brighter color and the status line changes from Idle to Recording Now perform the desired commands Only commands shown in the MaxIm DL application menu can be recorded operations initiated using buttons on the CCD Control or other modeless tool windows named in the View menu are not As each command is completed its name is added to the end of the Operations list Commands are not added if you Cancel out of the command dialog To the right of the new command in the list the Manual checkbox indicates the disposition of this command during playback when checked playback will pause to allow you to modify the command s settings Some commands never interact with the user or alternatively always require user intervention for these the checkbox is gray and the dispositio
290. ge to another E Bin 2x2 decrease the size of an image by averaging pixels in 2x2 blocks Bin 3x3 decrease the size of an image by averaging pixels in 3x3 blocks ER Deinterlace split an image into odd and even frames The commands on the View toolbar are listed below click on the icon for more information The commands which appear on the Standard toolbar are indicated with standard written after the command name A Zoom invoke the Zoom dialog to display the currently selected image at a specified zoom factor Zoom In standard zooms in by factors of 2 limit of 1600 L Zoom Out standard zooms out by factors of 2 limit of 25 E Full Screen display the currently selected image full screen without window frames menus etc E screen Stretch standard toggles the Screen Stretch window on and off ES Information standard toggles the information window on and off CCD Control Window standard toggles the MaxIm CCD control window on and off requires MaxIm CCD option 6 55 Maxlm DL User Manual 4 Telescope Control Window standard toggles the MaxIm Telescope control window on and off requires MaxIm CCD option E Zoom Window toggles the Zoom Window inspection tool on and off FITS Header standard toggles the FITS Header viewer editor window on and off Line Profile toggles the Line Profile data inspection tool window on and off Command Sequenc
291. ge variety of CCD cameras filter wheels focusers autoguiders and telescopes System Requirements MaxIm DL requires Windows 98 Windows 98 SE Windows ME Windows NT 4 0 Windows 2000 or Windows XP or higher The following hardware is required Processor Pentium or equivalent or higher Memory minimum 16 MB Win 98 ME 24 MB Win NT 2000 XP more for larger images Preferred memory size is 32 to 64 MB for small to medium format CCD sensors Processing large images will require larger memory Disk Space 20 MB for program 100 MB swap file recommended Video Display 800x600 16 bit color or higher monochrome images only can be displayed on 8 bit color video cards 1024x768 or higher is recommended Mouse Internet Explorer required for Help system Note that MaxIm DL benefits greatly from increased memory size particularly if large images are to be processed Also Windows NT does not support USB devices Alternative Operating Systems The following configurations have been demonstrated to work with MaxIm DL but these configurations have not been tested by our staff and are not supported Windows 95 Apple Macintosh with SoftWindows 1 1 Maxlm DL User Manual e Apple Macintosh with VirtualPC Only serial and USB interface devices will work on Macintosh systems Windows 95 and Windows NT does not support USB devices Linux UNIX is not supported Installation M
292. ght normal image frame dial in an exposure of a few seconds using the Minutes and Seconds fields set Delay to zero and the filter selection to Red 7 Click Expose and the test pattern will appear Taking Exposures Advanced We can now proceed to more advanced camera control operations 1 Click on the Sequence tab 2 This tab allows you to set up a set of monochrome tricolor or multi filter 2 18 Tutorials exposures Enter a base file name such as Test Image in the Autosave Filename field The filenames for Individual exposures taken by the sequence will be composed of this a sequence number and a filter specific suffix A Hal Emon Seira Sequence Faan impo Gurls Estap sa paar Fieri o am Ep al ll E oar a Tiel bags Tos a Ligh Ec Click the Options button select Set Destination Path from the resulting menu and browse to a convenient location on your hard drive to save the images Click Open when you have found the correct folder Select the Setup Sequence command to configure the exposures ig Enpre re Deere fea T Eie b i n e a a Sifas Je JP karlara de JE le E J El ie dee oF marara rr SSS Oe Se il och Ai a E ec dl oe rl oe fe 1 Fup ma Pula bi pein h Pa p a m pj Lim i As shown in the diagram enable the first three slots and disable the rest by clicking on the appropriate Enable check boxes Use the scroll bar at the right hand side to view
293. ging from O through 65535 Subsequent processing can increase the bit depth beyond this point By default images taken with the CCD camera are saved in FITS 16 bit format If you perform processing that increases the bit depth you should save in FITS IEEE Float format Novice users often have trouble saving images in formats like JPEG which can only handle 8 bit data The File menu Save As command warns you in a text box when the data in the image exceeds the capabilities of the file If this happens make sure the Screen Stretch is set appropriately and turn on the Auto Stretch check box The image will automatically be scaled so the saved image will look just like the image on screen Note that when this is done data precision is permanently lost It is strongly recommended to first save your images in a high bit depth format like FITS or 16 bit TIFF so that you do not lose data Image Processing Basics Most image processing functions either adjust the range of all pixels together stretching or modify pixels based on the value of their neighbors filtering This section introduces the basic concepts and explains some of the variations available for each technique For information on using these functions to best effect please see Advanced Image Processing Stretching The single most important image processing function is known as stretching In its simplest form stretching is the same as adjusting the brightness and contrast of
294. grainy and unnatural and point sources will have dark donuts around them So while high pass filtering can often improve an image by sharpening detail overdoing it can actually degrade the image quality significantly Low pass and high pass filters are both available from MaxIm DL s Kernel Filter command together with some related variants Unsharp Mask An unsharp mask is simply another type of high pass filter First a mask is formed by low pass filtering an image This mask is then subtracted from the original image This has the effect of sharpening the image Usually the mask is scaled before it is subtracted this allows the user a great deal of control in the amount of sharpening that is applied The strength of the low pass filter used can also be adjusted A very strongly blurred mask can be used to remove large scale brightness differences while a slightly blurred mask will sharpen fine detail A variation of this technique uses a geometric mean mask In this method a logarithmic function is applied to the image before the mask is calculated This technique is very useful for sharpening images that have faint details superimposed on large brightness variations Among other things this technique is very useful for revealing dust jets coming from the nucleus of a comet Another variation is called Digital Development Processing This technique was invented by Dr Kunihiko Okano He noticed that standard film processing chemistry
295. h dark background Medium a medium contrast setting with dark background High high contrast setting with dark background Moon even higher contrast setting with dark background slightly saturated pixels Planet highest contrast but adjusted so that no feature in the image saturates Max Val adjust so that the brightest pixel is set to the maximum brightness and the zero level is set to black Manual user adjustments either using the mouse histogram or Minimum and Maximum field Recall that the stretch mode can also be set through the image context menu which appears when right clicking on an image 6 36 Command Reference Quick Stretch The Quick Stretch box is located in the upper right corner of the Screen Stretch window To activate quick stretch first select the image you wish to adjust by clicking on it with the mouse Point the mouse cursor at the Quick Stretch box and press and hold the left mouse button it will change into a four way arrow cursor shown above Drag the mouse to control the stretch as follows e Up increase brightness e Down decrease brightness e Right increase contrast e Left decrease contrast Monochrome images update in real time as the adjustments are made If you are making very large adjustments you should release the cursor occasionally to allow the software to re optimize the palette Color images may update more slowly depending on their size Qui
296. h similar properties If Include Subfolders is checked then the Auto Generate command will also find all of the files in the subfolders of the Source Folder and add them to groups as well zj Humba oi pac O mar os 3 Mamadas finest Heran pes GP Ds We jara oth oe a a 1 grosa baa pri When the Sigma Clip or SD Mask Standard Deviation Mask a custom algorithm contributed by Ray Gralak combine algorithms are selected additional parameters are required to control how the images are combined In both cases the input images are normalized to the same intensity level before they are combined Normalization works by examining a rectangular Normalization area that occupies the center of each input image the size of the rectangle is a proportion of the input image as specified by the Normalization area Two algorithms are available for normalizing the images If Delta Level is selected then only the image background levels will be modified by normalization If Linear is selected then linear regression is used to determine a combination of changes to the background level and the scaling of the image data resulting in images with equivalent overall intensity levels Both algorithms work by calculating the mean of each pixel value for all of the input images as well as the standard deviation of those pixel values If Ignore Black Pixels is checked then any pixel with a value of 0 is excluded from the mean standard deviation calculation
297. han the errors Control Via is used to set the output method for the autoguider Many cameras include built in relays that can be used to output pulses to the motor controller select Camera Relays for this option Alternatively you can output pulses on a parallel LPT port or select a COM port to which serial commands can be sent COM port mode is recommended for advanced users only You can also connect to a Starlight Xpress relay box if you select SX COM1 through SX COM20 note for STAR2000 leave this set to Camera Relays You do not have to be using a Starlight Xpress camera in order to use the relay box To send autoguider commands to the telescope via the Telescope Control interface select Telescope This requires an active link to a telescope that has Pulse Guide capability such as an LX 200 If the telescope is not linked or a linked telescope does not have this capability then no motion will occur For parallel port autoguider output select the port address to use The connections are ground pin 18 through 25 X pin 2 X pin 3 Y pin 4 and Y pin 5 Active low Command Reference signals are also available X pin 6 X pin 7 Y pin 8 and Y pin 9 Warning the PC parallel port should not be connected directly to a telescope mount without a relay box Incorrect hardware connections could cause damage to the computer For serial port autoguider output the selected COM port is initialized to 9600 baud 8 bits no pari
298. hange filters execute scripts solve images for Astrometric Resynchronization described with the Sequence Tab or allow the guider to settle Several additional options and commands are available from the menu called up by the E Options button o bp des Same Meat et fir A Shaan cp Mara boa Pl Load Sequera EE Group by Slot affects the order in which exposures are taken by the sequence When Group by Slot is checked all exposures for a particular slot are done together before any exposures from the next slot minimizing filter wheel rotation When it is not Command Reference checked if each slot has the same Repeat count a single exposure is done for each slot in succession and the set repeats that many times If different Repeat counts are set for different slots the order is more complicated because MaxIm CCD attempts to distribute each slot s exposures uniformly over the entire sequence This mode is more appropriate if imaging a rapidly rotating planet or if there is some risk that the entire sequence may not complete successfully due to clouds etc Frequently you will want the same number of exposures for each slot Rather than having to enter the same value in every Repeat field select the Same Repeat Count for All command from the button menu When this is checked all Repeat fields are set to the same value and they are slaved together so that changing any of them affects them all The independent or unlocked value
299. he download cycle This is advisable for high performance camera models such as the AP7 On some systems the mouse pointer may freeze during download when the priority is set to High TTL Control when enabled brings up a control window This window allows you to turn on and off the eight TTL outputs provided by the camera hardware Note that you should not simultaneously use the autoguider pulse output feature and the TTL output feature ajfe cj oj elfr fa wy For one shot color cameras the Color Filter Offset is used to specify the origin of the color filter pattern that covers the chip This information is necessary in order for the camera to automatically produce color images Individual cameras can have the filter pattern offset by one pixel in either or both of the X amp Y axes If automatic color synthesis fails to produces color images that look reasonable try changing this setting until the color quality improves Important For ISA interfaces some computers require a BIOS setting to be adjusted for the Apogee ISA plug in card to operate properly The 16 Bit I O Recovery Time setting should be set to N A on some computers this is the off or just the lowest setting Apogee Alta For this driver please select Apogee Alta on the Setup tab All settings for the Apogee Alta are under the Advanced button The same dialog box is available while the camera is connected by clicking the Options button on the Settings T
300. he FFT Filters dialog supports an advanced feature called pixel range restriction which allows you to apply the filter to a subset of the image One example of its use is to low pass filter only to the darker areas of an image so as to reduce the effect of noise there yet not soften the edges of stars Some care is required in its use and a little experimentation and experience will teach you how and when to apply it Click the Pixel Range Restriction unfold button 21 to expand the FFT Filters dialog revealing the Apply filter only to pixels restriction Piel A Amaia ES Aja Apok him or lp peg h vaka barean OCCU ES d pimo A ie Taia gt e JE Enter the minimum and maximum values of pixels to be affected into the two With values between fields Pixels within Reduce radius by pixels of a pixel whose value is outside this range are completely protected against the operation of the filter The filtered values of qualifying pixels that lie within Feather distance of a protected pixel are blended with the original value using a weight that varies with the distance for example with Feather distance equal to 3 pixels adjacent to a protected pixel receive only one quarter the effect of the full filter those two pixels away receive half the effect and those three pixels away receive three quarters When Feather distance is zero 100 filtered pixels can be adjacent to completely unaffected ones When not using pixel range restri
301. he Telescope tab The Sync button gives you the option of synchronizing the telescope to a PinPoint solved position or on the current position as given by the catalog Ux Sencha kkoo vet 0 Cuag postor of AGOST Pa h i ty De 1 AO r mes You can also search for objects by clicking the Nearby button You can select which catalogs to include using the check boxes under Included catalogs You can limit the maximum magnitude faintest object using the Brighter than mag field 6 179 Maxlm DL User Manual Dark nebulae which have no magnitude specified can be included by turning on Include dark nebulae You can also opt to Include objects with unspecified magnitude The Max slew distance in degrees can be entered This restricts the search to only those objects within the specified distance of the current telescope position x Teach cme beimid caer Pigh um f Harsa fisz aikan lira F adei dad rebel Hb im pe techie obch aih ir de p UBL Maa des 1 00 z PE diska a Let chen Em 2 7 Lo a fe CREE bbe 125 M7 HG CEDE GLO BE no CES Bay 113 Dajmy m3 HZ HG CESE Eon Bi R jad 2506 e EE When you have established the search criteria click List objects A listing of objects meeting your search criteria will appear The object Type and Magnitude will be shown To determine the position on the sky click once on the Catalog Identification and the RA and Dec will be shown Click the Go To button to immedia
302. he image that contains no detail This value is required when using the Lucy Richardson method Click Auto Extract to automatically determine the correct settings for Background and Uniform Noise Level Alternatively you can extract these values from the image manually using Extract by Mouse Click When this button is pressed you can use the mouse to select one or more regions each the current size of the aperture innermost circle of the mouse rings cursor where the background level is to be measured Right click on an image to change the aperture size via the standard context menu Point the Command Reference mouse to a dark area of the image which contains no detail then click If more than one area is selected the results are averaged red marker circles are left to indicate the region s that you have sampled X and Y show the coordinates of the most recent area sampled and N shows the number of areas included in the measurement you can click Reset to start over You can sample the noise statistics from any open image Normally you will want to sample from the image you are about to deconvolve but in special cases you might choose to obtain the noise statistics from a different one Just click on the title bar or image tab of the desired image before clicking Auto Extract or Extract by Mouse Click PSF Model The key to successful deconvolution is obtaining a good point spread function PSF The PSF is a model of how the image
303. he images to compensate for any differences in the average background level In most cases this should be turned on to equalize the sky background In some cases it may be necessary to turn this off and make any necessary adjustments later in the Color Balance command An example is an image which is completely full of dense Command Reference nebulosity there is no background in the image Color Stack The Color Stack command is used to create a color image from a set of monochrome images If the images are not aligned prior to executing this command this will be obvious in the Preview Image if Auto Preview is on leaving this on is recommended Click the Align button to adjust them This will display the Align Images dialog which operates in the same way when invoked by the Color Stack dialog as it does when invoked from the menu Note that changes made in Align mode modify the selected image buffers even if Color Stack is canceled Control will automatically return to this command when the Align Images dialog box is closed eS al H ipi ina J p ec Sa Bt Drago iraj a RE apos a a 3 MITA El ao orma pena 4 Click the Add Image button to add a new image to the list of images that will be combined Clicking the Remove Image button will remove the last image from the list of inputs A maximum of twenty images may be combined into a single output image The images to be combined are specified using the
304. he mouse button when the cursor is at or above the horizontal midline of its neighbor If you release the mouse button when the cursor is in the lower half of an existing toolbar the toolbar will be inserted in a new band just below When a toolbar is floating it can be resized by dragging either of the lower left or right corners thus altering the shape of the toolbar and rearranging the buttons within it Standard The commands on the Standard toolbar are listed below click on the icon for more information Note that most of these are found on other toolbars as well as indicated Open open a file also found on the File toolbar El Save save a file Activates Save As dialog if the file does not yet exist also found on the File toolbar Undo undo the last image processing operation also found on the Edit toolbar FE Redo redo the last processing operation also found on the Edit toolbar E screen Stretch toggles the Screen Stretch window on and off also found on the View toolbar ES Information toggles the information window on and off also found on the View toolbar L CCD Control Window toggles the MaxIm CCD control window on and off requires MaxIm CCD option also found on the View toolbar 4 Telescope Control Window toggles the MaxIm Telescope control window on and off requires MaxIm CCD option also found on the View toolbar 2 FITS Header toggles the FITS Header viewer edito
305. he noise more than it smoothes the signal A boxcar average filter is rather harsh in practice we use a less aggressive filter Nevertheless smoothing an image to reduce noise reduces sharpness in a rather visible fashion In the bright foreground and midrange regions of an image there is frequently a lot of fine detail The signal to noise ratio is intrinsically good because the bright data overwhelms the noise sources So usually no smoothing is required for bright areas The background of the image on the other hand intrinsically has poor signal to noise ratio There may be detail there as well but the poor SNR makes it difficult to discern Therefore smoothing those areas reducing the noise may actually enhance the perception of faint details The best solution is therefore to selectively smooth the background areas of an image One way to do that is to use the pixel range limitation feature of MaxIm DL s filters On the Kernel Filters or FFT Filters dialog box click the gt gt button to reveal the pixel range restriction controls Measure the pixel values in the background area using the Information window this can be opened while the filter command is active You need to select a number between the typical background levels and typical midrange levels Set the filter to work only on pixels between O and that number For very fine control of the amount of blurring the Kernel Filter command has a Gaussian Blur
306. he particular device you are using Commonly available options include Video Capture Filter Video Capture Pin and Video Crossbar so Capture Fic Wee Capture Fim Wide Creches Video Capture Filter usually has two tabs Video Decoder and Video Proc Amp The latter allows you to adjust the video device s brightness and contrast Video Capture Pin allows you to select the Frame Rate in frames per second and Output Size in pixels The latter is particularly useful since some devices default to relatively low resolution modes Most live setup features are not retained when the link is disconnected however frame size is restored automatically For other settings you must reset them each time you connect to the device Filter Wheel Setup Most filter wheels connect via USB or Serial interface Some models connect directly to the CCD camera or are internal to the camera itself Several models are compatible with the pulse protocol used on SBIG cameras These wheels can be connected directly to an SBIG camera or may be connected directly to the PC via the serial or parallel port Please see SBIG Compatible Filter Wheels for more information Plug In Filter Wheel 4 38 Plug in drivers may be included with MaxIm CCD or supplied separately by third party vendors Some third party drivers may also be included on the MaxIm DL CCD distribution disk as a convenience to customers Technical support for any plug in drivers supplied by the
307. he sequence are configured using the Setup Sequence dialog activated by the Setup Sequence command Alternatively you can use the Sequence Wizard which provides a simple step by step procedure for configuring four different types of sequences Sequences initially created by the wizard can be further customized using the Setup Sequence dialog The Set Destination Path command brings up a folder selection dialog that allows you to select the folder into which the files are saved In some cases it is desirable that the images in a sequence not all be centred at exactly the same point in the sky but instead cluster around the specified position For example you might want this if your CCD camera had a significant defect that could not be remedied by the usual image calibration procedures The Sequence tab provides two ways of doing this Dither Images via Guider and Dither Images via Mount The first method requires that an autoguider is available and running see the Guide tab In effect MaxIm CCD automatically adjusts the coordinates of the guide star between exposures of the sequence such that the centers of the images are randomly distributed near the initial position The second method requires that your mount be controllable by the computer and accomplishes the same thing by slewing the telescope to randomly picked nearby locations between exposures The two methods are mutually exclusive so that selecting one deselects the other You can
308. he star left the field of view Note that if you disable one motor drive axis on the Drive tab only three exposures will be taken in the Calibrate Drive Mode The location and brightness of the star used in the calibration will be displayed in the Guide Star X Y and Brightness fields after each exposure From the collected data the AO 7 Control will then calculate the required calibration settings These settings can be viewed on the Drive tab for Calibrate Drive mode or the Setup tab for Calibrate AO 7 mode If you have trouble calibrating the AO 7 mirror try enabling the Cal Pause setting This Command Reference setting pauses the calibration for three seconds after each mirror deflection ensuring that the mirror position has stabilized before taking an image to measure the star s movement Cal Pause has no effect on the drive calibration If during the calibration the star leaves the field moves at a 45 degree angle or does not move sufficiently in one or both directions minimum 5 pixels an error message will be displayed If the star moved too little or too much in one axis during the Calibrate Drive routine click the Drive tab and change the Calibration Time for the appropriate axis Note that the software has been designed to ignore as much as possible a second star entering the field Usually the Binning should be set to 1x1 when calibrating the AO 7 in order to increase the image resolution and hence calibration accuracy
309. heck box Images from memory do not have a path they are tagged with Image when Show Path 1s not checked You can remove images from the list by selecting them with the mouse and clicking the Remove button Once all the images are selected use the Convert To settings to select the File Format Size Format if required by the file format used and Compression Type Auto Stretch can be used to save images that exceed the allowable range of data values for 6 12 Revert Command Reference that format if any pixels exceed the allowed range the Screen Stretch settings are applied to the image automatically prior to saving You can also use the Add suffix option to append characters to the end of the file name prior to saving The suffix is inserted before the extension unless it contains a period in which case it replaces the default file extension which would otherwise be used for the selected file type Select the location for the saved files using the Path button or click Write Output to Source Folder to cause the files to be saved back into the folder from which they were loaded This option cannot be used when an image has never been saved for example one freshly acquired from a CCD camera In the event that saving a file will cause it to overwrite an existing file you can select skip save overwrite it or move to subfolder You can specify the subfolder name in the adjacent field Click OK to start the batch save op
310. heels with the SBIG compatibility option use the TrueTech driver for serial interface wheels Select the Parallel Port address in Port In most cases if a parallel port camera is used this must be a different parallel port The user can assign names for each of the color filter slots under Filter Name If your filter wheel has fewer slots than allowed for by this driver simply leave the Filter Name in the extra slots blank they will not appear in the drop list filter selectors If the filters vary in thickness a Focus Offset can be entered for each filter This causes the focus position to be offset appropriately every time an exposure is taken with a new filter position If this feature is used absolute positioning focusers are strongly recommended to ensure repeatability Homeyer 4 54 For this driver select Homeyer on the Setup tab ax Hormpa Sarai Pari Depas warren 4 00 honein Copy j AAH Cacan Led upper ae a Hera This driver allows direct connection of a Homeyer filter wheel to a PC serial port Please see Notes On Direct Serial Port Connection for information on making the necessary connections This wheel emulates an SBIG CFW8 Please refer to SBIG Compatible Filter Wheels for information on connecting this wheel through an SBIG camera Equipment Setup Connection to a PC parallel port is also possible See Notes On Direct Parallel Port Connection for more information The user can assign names for each o
311. high precision alignment for a permanent mount you may wish to wait several minutes to see the drift Now stop guiding and switch to Focus mode Set up a very short exposure binned for speed and continuous exposures Adjust the mount in azimuth watching the star move This way you can tell exactly how far you are moving the mount see below for calculating image scale If the star drifts North adjust the azimuth to the East If the star drifts South adjust the azimuth to the West Re center the star using the telescope slow motion controls and repeat steps 4 through 6 until the drift is small Point to a star near the East horizon close to the equator Make sure the star is at least 20 degrees above the horizon to avoid excessive refraction Start the guider in Track mode and watch the north south drift as before Note which way the star is moving and how quickly Stop guiding and switch to Focus mode again use continuous short binned exposures Adjust the mount in elevation watching the star motion to see how much you are moving it If the star drifts North move the polar axis down If the star drifts South move the polar axis up Recenter the star using the telescope slow motion controls and repeat step 10 through 12 until the drift is small Go back to step 4 and start again until the drift is small in both positions Remember to reconnect or re enable your autoguider when you are done Paul Boltwood has pionee
312. high sky brightness conditions Preserving Bit Depth 3 26 An important feature of MaxIm DL is that it stores images internally in 32 bit floating point format Although this increases memory consumption compared to standard desktop image editing programs it gives much greater flexibility and helps preserve data precision If you were to sum or average together 256 individual 16 bit images the actual bit depth of the result could be as high as 24 bits In reality you probably have only 12 to 14 bits of usable data in each image nevertheless the final result would still have 20 to 22 bits Obviously if you store this result in a 16 bit or 8 bit file format you will need to rescale the image and clip and or truncate part of the useful data If you scale the image so that Guide to CCD Imaging you maintain faint image detail and good background statistics you will end up clipping off the brighter objects Therefore when working with images like this it is best to save them in FITS format with IEEE Float pixel format Most desktop image editing programs only work at 8 bits Even if you plan to export data to a desktop editing program for final tweaks it makes sense to do as much processing as possible at high bit depth first When that is completed you should save the result to a high bit depth format and then export the data to a format compatible with your editing program This way if you find you need to make additional adjustments
313. hile keeping the image exactly as shown Such an image could be used as a source for the Clone Tool allowing individual deconvolved stars to be copied back to a mostly original image When deconvolution is not iterating you can also use Undo Redo to toggle between views of the original and latest deconvolved images Color images can be deconvolved The software automatically extracts and deconvolves the luminance image recombining it with the color information when displaying intermediate and final results If the results are not acceptable you can use the Split Tricolor command to split the image into separate Red Green and Blue channels deconvolve each separately and then use the Combine Color command to reassemble the color image In Case of Convergence Problems 6 118 If your image will not converge try the following Make sure the Background Level in the Set Noise command is just below the average background level in the image If you are using the Poisson noise model recommended for most deep sky images make sure you have Photons per ADU set correctly If you are using the Uniform noise model adjust the noise level to match the reading seen in the Information window s Dev field when you point the cursor at a smooth area of the image Command Reference 4 Try adjusting your point spread function an inaccurate setting could cause convergence problems 5 Ifyou are using the Poisson noise model with the Maximum
314. his in a temporary folder on your hard drive You will be automatically sent via e mail a 30 day MaxIm DL CCD demo license The license will be required the first time you run the software Install the software by double clicking on the downloaded file Follow the instructions to install if you choose the default settings all program features will be installed Start MaxIm DL by clicking on the program icon The first time you run it you will be presented with the User Registration dialog box Enter the demo license you received via e mail use your permanent license if you have already purchased the software Note all text must be entered exactly as shown on the license You can enter the serial number more easily if you select it in your e mail using the mouse and copy it to the clipboard CTRL C You can then paste it into the User Registration dialog box CTRL V When you have successfully entered your license the OK button will enable Click OK to launch MaxIm DL The demo license will expire on the date shown Each time you start the software using a Demo license you will be advised of the 1 3 Maxlm DL User Manual number of days remaining and given the opportunity to enter a new license You can also enter a new license using the Help menu Enter License command Ha Pisa aries pou been irradia l on hor Faced Fase cone Era rested core Espey Yem 0004 Hast f Cop i ma a uk hor LH Bots Kioks Fo aaar it E
315. hnology Custom Wheels Some models also support SBIG compatibility mode See the next section for information on configuring these wheels in SBIG mode nx Tam Tetralogy Cation Wane Shiver Virsa 400 Henne q The Custom Wheel connects via a serial port as selected by COM Port The user can assign names for each of the color filter slots under Filter Name If your filter wheel has fewer slots than allowed for by this driver simply leave the Filter Name 4 49 Maxlm DL User Manual in the extra slots blank they will not appear in the drop list filter selectors If the filters vary in thickness a Focus Offset can be entered for each filter This causes the focus position to be offset appropriately every time an exposure is taken with a new filter position If this feature is used absolute positioning focusers are strongly recommended to ensure repeatability SBIG Compatible Filter Wheels For all CFW8 and compatible filter wheel models connected directly to an SBIG CCD camera please see SBIG Universal Filter Wheel For filter wheels connected via SBIG serial port based cameras refer to the entry below for the specific camera model For connecting SBIG CFW 8 or compatible filter wheels to the PC parallel port please see SBIG Parallel CFW 8 Homeyer Optec below Also see Notes On Direct Parallel Port Connection For connecting Homeyer or other SBIG CFW 8 filter wheels to the PC serial port please see Homeyer below Also see No
316. how the image was blurred it is essentially an image of a perfect point source taken with the same camera For astronomical images it is often easy to determine the point spread functions since every single star image represents the PSF For other types of images it may be necessary to guess at a model MaxIm DL includes features that help you choose the best model The second piece of information required is some information on the noise level and the average background level in the image MaxIm DL has to know how hard to work at deconvolving each pixel it uses a noise model and knowledge of the background level to do this Basics When an image is blurred mathematically it is convolved with a point spread function PSF This blurring can be removed through a process of deconvolution A convolution can be calculated quite easily by taking the Fast Fourier Transform FFT of the image and the PSF multiplying the two together pixel by pixel and taking the inverse FFT In principle deconvolution can be performed in the same fashion by using division instead of multiplication However this is not practical in reality due to the possibility of zeros in the PSF and strong noise amplification in areas where the values in the PSF is small Iterative methods such as Maximum Entropy and Lucy Richardson overcome this problem An initial guess image is constructed and then adjusted in a series of steps called iterations These iterations continue unt
317. ialog 6 170 Move To Subfolder 6 13 Moving Object 6 71 Multiple Exposures 3 14 Multiply 6 103 Mute 6 21 MXsS 4 31 MX512 4 31 MX516 4 31 MX5 C 4 31 Named Stars 6 179 New 3 18 6 1 New Buffer 6 142 New Window 6 138 Night Vision 6 52 Noise 3 21 3 49 3 50 6 92 8 5 8 6 Noise Model 6 113 10 17 Maxlm DL User Manual Noise Models 3 49 Noise Reduction 3 39 Nonlinear Stretching 3 19 NOTES 6 16 Nyquist 3 16 8 5 Nyquist Sampling 3 12 OBJECT 6 18 Object Tagging 6 69 OBSERVER 6 16 Obstruction 6 19 Odd Field 6 33 Offset Tracking 6 169 Open 1 12 2 1 2 9 6 1 Operating System Upgrade 9 3 Optec IFW 4 5 4 48 Optec MaxFilter 4 55 Optics 6 18 Options 6 144 Options Tab 6 61 Other Software 5 1 Output Range 6 98 Overlay 6 9 6 85 6 91 Overwrite 6 13 Page Setup 6 13 Paste 6 23 Pause 6 141 PC Lynxx 6 1 6 10 Peak Values 6 173 Pentium 1 1 Period Folding 6 73 Permanent Stretch 6 98 Photometrics 4 3 4 21 Photometry 3 52 6 69 6 74 8 5 Photometry Plots 6 72 Photon 8 5 Photons per ADU 3 49 8 5 Photons Wizard 3 49 6 119 Pictor 4 18 4 19 4 20 Pictor 616 4 47 4 48 10 18 Piecewise Linear 6 99 PinPoint 3 51 5 7 6 42 6 65 PinPoint Parameters 6 67 PixCel 4 2 Pixel 8 6 Pixel Format 8 6 Pixel Math 6 102 Pixel Range Restriction 6 104 6 107 6 108 Pixel Scale 6 43 6 66 Pixel Scale Editor 6 6
318. ible to disable the bias subtraction and dark subtraction steps using the Dark Subtract Flats or Bias Subtract Flats check boxes The Add Group button allows you to create a new empty group The group is assigned the filter name that is present in the combo box next to the Add Group button If lt AUTO gt is selected then the group will be assigned the filter name of the first file that is added to it Remove Group is used to delete the selected group and the Clear All Groups button deletes all of the existing groups The Group Properties for the selected group are displayed below the list of groups Each group contains a set of images that are combined to produce a master image that latter being used for image calibration Clicking the Add button displays a dialog that allows you to add new files to the list Remove deletes the currently selected files from the group Normally the list of files shows the full path to each file If you click Show File Names Only then only the file name will be displayed The Combine Type combo box allows you to specify the algorithm to be used for combining the images in the group into a single master image The available algorithms are Average Median Sigma Clip and SD Mask Median can be useful for suppressing hot pixels cosmic ray hits and other types of impulsive noise Median combining strongly suppresses outlying pixel values but it is slightly less effective than averaging in reducing the ove
319. ic application of axis locks stowing pins etc Unparking a telescope is returning it to the operational status from the parked configuration The ASCOM interface does not provide a way of determining whether the telescope is parked so both commands are enabled during a MaxIm DL session until one of them has been issued Consult your telescope owner s manual for precautions regarding parking and unparking The last two entries in the menu control the coordinate frame MaxIm DL uses to display telescope orientation When Display RA Dec in J2000 is selected it assumes all coordinates you enter apply to epoch J2000 0 the celestial coordinate reference corresponding to the position of the equator and equinox at the beginning of the year 2000 This is the reference frame used in most current catalogs Note however that when you select this mode the celestial coordinates reported in the status field of the Telescope tab will typically differ slightly from those reported by any digital displays on Command Reference the telescope itself That is because the telescope must necessarily work in the frame Epoch of instant also known as JNow MaxIm DL precesses coordinates from J2000 0 to JNow when sending them to the telescope and precesses positions reported by the telescope back to J2000 0 If you select Display RA Dec in JNow all coordinates shown in the status windows are JNow Coordinates of objects given in the listbox on the Nearby Objects dialog
320. ick Cancel to leave the associated sound file unchanged After changing alarms in any way you must click Apply or OK to cause the change to take effect Run Script This command allows you to start a VBScript or JScript running Scripts can be set up to perform just about any image processing or exposure function via MaxIm DL s COM Automation interface also known as ActiveX COM Automation ActiveX is an industry standard method for different programs to communicate with each other MaxIm DL s COM interface conforms to the ASCOM standard http ascom standards org Complete documentation of MaxIm DL s objects properties and methods is provided in the on line help The Select Script File dialog allows you to browse your hard disk or network to locate a 6 21 Maxlm DL User Manual VBScript or JScript file Open the file to start the script running The Windows CScript command processor is used to run the script and a window appears showing the progress of the script execution Scripting is built into all versions of Windows 98 Windows ME Windows NT 4 0 Windows 2000 and Windows XP and higher Scripting can also be accessed from other scripting and programming languages including Java Perl Visual Basic Visual C etc Most Recently Used File List Exit The File menu includes a list of recently used files Selecting one of these files will open it if the file extension is recognized and previous settings are corre
321. ick exposure will be taken after each centering movement Autofocus Tutorial Autofocus requires a compatible digital focuser see Telescope Control Reference This tutorial assumes you have the camera already linked and attached to a working telescope 1 The first step is to set up the focuser Activate the Telescope Control window using the toolbar button or Telescope Control Window from the View menu Select your focuser model using the Focuser drop list on the Setup tab Click the Focuser Options button and select the Setup command from the displayed menu to configure the communications port if required Click the Focuser Connect button to 2 27 Maxlm DL User Manual establish the link with the focuser Y prisene Condal qa Telescope Catalog Coria Focus Auton Setup Teen y Foa Teter Emisia PioboF oou 7 Ha Cesi Hatea rior P Upor El 3 If you have a computer controllable telescope you can set it up and connect it as well This is convenient for adjusting the telescope pointing but not required 4 Switch to the Focuser tab PS ickevepc conil Telescope Catalog Cerin Festes daroian Seu Forse Sahu beable Incisrenid roan ETE NI TE wa FSFE Mit e saa fra Menos M Tempec ss Traci 5 Check that you can adjust the position of the focuser Change the Absolute position value and click Move To The focuser should move to the new position You can also adjust incrementally set the In
322. ick the mouse and the intensity value for the star will be measured and filled in Click the Set from FITS button to set the Exposure If the FITS header for the image includes exposure information which it will if it was taken with MaxIm CCD then Command Reference this information will be automatically entered The exposure information is used to scale measured intensities so that images with different exposure lengths can be compared CE al Cana Ms ve 205 Ms E Nee 17 Pot MAM 16r Haro ESE O luego PTAS Bede GSS Sil THEA Balme MEA Daimi Ka HELL Ys PUTA Fi 433 Fateh la DIA biayai Calhas Wery iame 4 Tanpi krear irge Epon S00 A bet bo FITS Mages om 3 Spaa alba ic Pimiacaa T gt pr AS frend ae mlaha El Jr fro ar L Please note that the Photometry function can provide more accurate measurements than the Information window can The Photometry function performs more complex and accurate background subtraction computations and uses partial pixels In the interest of speed the Information window performs a simpler calculation The Spatial Calibration function is used to convert from pixel units to arc seconds The two Pixel Scale values shown are in arc seconds per pixel If FITS scale is checked they will be set automatically from the World Coordinate System WCS information recorded in the FITS header by PinPoint or other astrometric analysis tools In the absence of WCS pixel scale is automatical
323. ie Emio Fin Specify a base filename for the images in the Autosave Filename control A three digit sequence number is automatically appended to this filename to identify each exposure followed by a user specified suffix that distinguishes each different type of exposure within the sequence e g different filter binning etc The suffixes are specified in the Sequence Setup dialog described below Do not include a file extension in the Autosave Filename images acquired by a sequence are always saved in FITS format with the fit extension The sequence number and unique suffix for the image currently being exposed downloaded or saved are concatenated and displayed in the read only Suffix field The Start at field allows you to specify the first sequence number that will be used This allows you to use the same base filename without overwriting previous files or changing the destination directory for the acquired images With the exception of the Start and Stop buttons described below all other controls for configuring a sequence are accessed from the Options button E menu eb lagares Sens Wane Sel Gabon Path Aucoin Sather Deacon Cather Inuager Aa da Ch peepee y ed Tip ei Cabre Hase Bariera hernias Retchminon himen e Fil Frere bies Peor patina Tab at Crrererioa Fim e Ban wigi Prirast 6 148 Command Reference The exposure times filter selection exposure count etc for each image in t
324. il the most pleasing display appears Whirlpool Galaxy Two Different Stretches In MaxIm DL the numbers are entered a bit differently The two values entered are Minimum and Maximum A pixel that is at the minimum value is set to zero and a pixel at the maximum value is set to 255 This method is more convenient because it leads to a simple way to display the stretch numbers graphically using a slider bar In MaxIm DL this slider bar appears in the Screen Stretch window histograms are described below Instead of entering numbers it is faster to use the Quick Stretch facility This allows you to modify the image appearance with small up down and left right movements of the mouse To do this hold down the Shift key then click and drag the mouse on the Guide to CCD Imaging image The problem with stretching is determining exactly how to stretch the image for best effect Often there are several different possibilities for the same image For example two different views of the same image of the Whirlpool Galaxy M51 are shown above The first image reveals all the detail in the spiral arms but the core of the galaxy is burnt out In the second image the spiral arms are all but gone but now we can see the supernova adjacent to the core of the galaxy Histograms To better understand the more complex stretching techniques it is helpful to understand histograms A histogram is a simple bar graph that shows the range of brightne
325. il the process converges on a solution The iterative process is as follows start with a guess usually a blank image Blur the guess image using the point spread function Compare it against the original image using statistical methods Now adjust the guess image using this information creating a new guess Repeat the process until the image converges on the correct result The iterative process can be unstable so it has to be controlled to prevent large excursions This is done using constraints The major difference between the various algorithms is the choice of constraints that are applied to the processing Maximum Entropy Deconvolution as the name implies chooses the solution that has the maximum information theory entropy This forces the solution to the maximum likelihood estimate Lucy Richardson has different but equally effective constraints The decision on when best to stop the iterations is a topic of ongoing debate If the iterations are stopped too soon the image is not sharpened completely If the iterations are stopped too late noise amplification becomes a problem Since the user must make this decision MaxIm DL shows the result of each iteration on the screen Point Spread Functions No image is a perfect representation of the real world All images have noise in them 3 47 Maxlm DL User Manual 3 48 caused by the detection process in the camera All images are also blurred to some extent whe
326. ile will be shown in the File Details box If no display is shown in the File Details box then the file is not compatible with that format and a different format selection should be used For RAW files the correct size format 8 bit 16 bit or 32 bit integer or 32 bit IEEE float must be selected as well as the correct image dimensions The File Details box will indicate the dimensions if the file size matches otherwise it will display Incorrect dimensions and show the number of pixels in the image This can help determine the correct image dimensions The Skip field allows you to skip a fixed sized file header at the beginning of the file Simply enter the number of bytes to skip to find the first pixel in the image This is useful for opening many unsupported image formats The Interpolate Pixels to Square feature instructs MaxIm DL to adjust for the pixel aspect ratio while loading the file bilinear interpolation is used The pixel dimensions Command Reference are normally extracted from the file header but the user can override them if required If Interpolate Pixels to Square is not selected MaxIm DL remembers the pixel aspect ratio for use in the Set Point Spread Function and Resize dialogs To read a raw file created with Starlight Xpress camera software select Raw format set Size Format to 16 bit Int and set the Width and Height to match the size of the image For example for MX5 cameras set Width to 510 and Height t
327. ill automatically be calculated and used to refine the adjustment to the sub pixel level If any image in the sequence is of poor quality click the Reject Image button to remove it from the list You can restore it by clicking on the button again Also any image that is not registered by clicking on it with the mouse is automatically rejected To determine if the results are satisfactory click the Overlay All Images button to produce a preview Astrometric This method uses the World Coordinate System WCS entries in the FITS header to determine how much to shift rotate and scale each image into alignment with the reference image The WCS information characterizes the precise image center pixel scale roll angle and other information describing the mapping between RA and declination and pixel X Y coordindates It is added to the FITS Header when an image is solved using the PinPoint Astrometry command or another astrometric package Only images that have been successfully solved can be aligned in this way all unsolved images are automatically rejected Since aligning an image changes its center orientation angle and or scale the existing WCS is invalidated on all images except the reference By default the reference image is the first image in the list but you can select another one by moving to it with Next Image or Previous Image then clicking Set As Reference To determine if the results are satisfactory click the Overlay A
328. image is scaled to the maximum size which will fit within the screen boundaries Any areas not covered by the image will be black The mouse cursor will also disappear after a couple of seconds This command is useful for photographing an image from the screen Good photographs can be obtained by using a macro lens at f 4 5 with ISO 100 film and a 1 second exposure with the room lights off This will suppress the raster scanning of the video monitor A tripod and cable release or timer are recommended to reduce vibration and motion Be sure to cover up any indicator lights on the monitor Since photographic film tends to increase contrast the video monitor s contrast and brightness controls need to be adjusted to compensate Reduce the image contrast so that the brightest parts of the image are less intense than normal and adjust the brightness level to make the background appear fairly bright The resulting image will not look very good on the monitor but it will be represented correctly on the film To exit Full Screen mode and restore the normal display click the mouse or press the ESC key CCD Control Window This function is available only if the MaxIm CCD option is purchased This command toggles the optional MaxIm CCD camera control window on and off See MaxIm CCD Camera Control Window for information on operating CCD cameras This command can be also activated through the toolbar Ml icon Telescope Control Window This command
329. image you just want centered and click Point exposed telescope here Note Auto center must be calibrated using the Telescope Control window Lock the Information window Double click on the image cursor window You can move the locked cursor around using the arrow keys Information window must be open Get Help on any control Click 21 in the upper right corner of the dialog box and then click on any control Maxlm DL User Manual Keyboard Operations This table lists the most commonly used shortcut keys ARTO a A cial Contest Semi Hao sheri C zoomia meoo Pau zoom owies Path switch windows ower re sn windows baca SWS Access a menu ALT menu character underlined letter in menu item Context Right click Menu Clicking the right mouse button anywhere in an image window causes a pop up menu also called a context menu to appear The entries in this menu can vary depending on which MaxIm DL CCD command is currently being executed if any and in some cases on exactly where in the image you clicked The menu contains commands to manipulate the circular cursor described in Mouse and Keyboard Operations configure the way in which the image is displayed and fine tune the pointing of an attached telescope Other functions appropriate to the current activity may also be included context menu entries of this kind are described along with the MaxIm DL CCD command that places them there The most co
330. in the CCD array El Add Noise add noise to the currently selected image Remove Bloom remove CCD bloom from bright stars in the currently selected image Filter Command Reference BM Resize change the size and or aspect ratio of the currently selected image E Double Size double the size of the currently selected image M Half Size reduce the size of the currently selected image by a factor of two O Make Pixels Square resample the currently selected image so that the resulting pixels subtend the same angle horizontally and vertically E Stretch invoke the Stretch dialog to permanently stretch an image buffer Histogram Specification invoke the Histogram Specification dialog to perform a histogram based stretch EE Curves perform a user defined stretch specified by a tone curve Threshold apply a threshold to either limit or set to zero pixels outside a specified range Pixel Math add subtract multiply or divide two images or scale and offset a single image The commands on the Filter toolbar are listed below click on the icon for more information Kernel Filters invoke the Kernel Filter command to sharpen or blur an image iE FFT Filters invoke the FFT Filter command Fast Fourier Transform filters to sharpen or blur an image Unsharp Mask invoke the Unsharp Mask command to sharpen an image E Digital Development invoke the Digital Development Processing c
331. inPoint AStVOMEETY poisina a acer nana cnn conan a cnc 6 65 Photomet iii naaa aaa 6 69 Open Photometry File sireeni sehera e apee alaen 6 74 PROCESS MENU v r EE EET ETE EE E EE E E E RE ER RR 6 75 Calibrate 0 A E E E E a oe Fe Sea NEES 6 75 Calibrate Albis Sie Bee Bee EEEE REE Re RE Eee 6 75 NS A A oases 6 73 Calibration Wiz fd i 6 80 Create Master Frames ooooonononannnnconnnonnnnnonocononnnnnnnnnnnncnnn cnn ai a 6 80 Table of Contents Allin 6 80 COMDINE So coto aia beh TEE NTEN AAA NE dia n 6 86 Remove Bad Pixels inen enni a e E nn nn nn nn nn nn nn nn nn nn nr nro 6 92 O A hostile dade dbase oda S A E SA siubecdsatenodsesiucee 6 93 Remove Bl Ba es ee Avie h Tvs ES RoR 6 94 REST ZOE e si a RE a OECTA Cb bE EER idk OME REE SEE hdc 6 96 DOUDIE Sizes SAA A BRS AAR Ai S 6 97 RNA bos Cents eh Otis le Tatas base des Tete NO 6 97 Make Pixels SQUdre escccsssccssssecsssecsscecesnecesseeeceseecesseeeseecseessseesesaeeesaes 6 97 Streteh A E RAN 6 98 CUIVOS naaa 6 99 Histogram Specificati0K oooocnonocccnnonannnnnonanonnnnannnnnnnnnnc nana cnc onanancconnnanos 6 100 TDP CSN OLA ii A R 6 101 Pixel Math cene iaa 6 102 FILTER MENU s a EE E EE E iii Daly iba 6 103 Kernel Filters 0 cit it a a ign denn cheaters E i ia aa 6 103 FET Filters ii 6 106 Unsharp MOSK iio ia 6 107 Digital Development cscccescccescccessecesseceeseeeeseecssceceseecesseeeseesseeseneeeees 6 109 Rank Filter AN RATA 6 110 Local Adaptive Filter cccssccesssccessc
332. ing and they want their demo units to look bright So they excessively boost the brightness and contrast and set the color temperature too high too blue Guide to CCD Imaging Monitor Calibration Tool By displaying the above Monitor Calibration Tool in the on screen Help you can properly adjust the contrast and brightness settings on your monitor Make sure that you can distinguish different grey levels across the entire strip A very badly adjusted monitor will look like this Excessive Contrast The improperly adjusted image is solid black on the left side and solid white on the right side Ideally you should be able to see shades of grey almost to the edge While you are adjusting your monitor you might want to check if your monitor allows you to set the color temperature and set it to around 6500K Unfortunately if you just have red green and blue intensity adjustments you would need a color temperature meter to set it accurately Gamma Gamma allows you to adjust the overall image A gamma less than one will increase the brightness of mid intensity pixels and de emphasize brighter pixels A gamma greater than one will have the opposite effect Often gamma is used as a final tweak to punch up the image a little or to pull back if the previous processing was a little too aggressive Gamma can be adjusted using the Process menu Stretch command 3 35 Maxlm DL User Manual Curves 3 36 The Curves co
333. ing operations on a set of similar images You record the sequence once by working through the processing steps on a single image then play it back to process the others either individually or in one or more groups You can save sequences to disk for later use The principal advantages of sequences as compared to scripting is in ease of creation no programming knowledge is required and it is quick to set up a sequence for an ad hoc job In addition the sequence mechanism readily allows operator intervention for fine tuning the processing Its main disadvantages are that it is slower to execute than a script and it is also less flexible because it provides no conditional structures such as ifs and loops In addition it can be difficult to ensure that MaxIm DL s focus goes to the desired document during window switching F6 Alt F6 creation e g New and Duplicate and deletion Close Although these operations can be recorded care is advised Operation hrs Ata Weenie dea Velas erred Elisa LASA Development p The other thing you need to remember when using sequences is that each command is still treated individually by MaxIm DL In particular you cannot Undo the effect of the whole sequence only the last command executed For this reason you should consider saving images before you process them with a sequence and avoid recording Save and Save All operations in a sequence this will permit you to get back to the original ima
334. ing section for information on working with MaxIm DL s objects MaxPoint MaxPoint models errors in your telescope mount and automatically corrects these errors to improve your pointing accuracy This is extremely useful when working with the limited field of view of many CCD cameras E Tom Ma ST Linh Tiano Dadas Lond 51 Creed DEA Casal Re Em ia i NR A A m AED O oer A teat ee a E i Hur bria gt inla E Zee Ya Err Maig ed qm hk T ab i curra cal Fem H P Al Cais 4 a E w C pacai Pri as ee Canc Ona Dx z 3 ATA aa a Fee b on A Al MaxPoint works as an ASCOM Hub you connect MaxIm DL to it and it connects to the telescope That way it is able to intercept all commands send to the mount and automatically correct them You can also connect other ASCOM capable programs to MaxPoint at the same time allowing multiple programs to access the same telescope mount A 30 day trial version is included on the MaxIm DL CD ROM You can also download a MaxPoint trial from http www cyanogen com PinPoint Full Version Although PinPoint LE comes included with MaxIm DL you may wish to use the more powerful capabilities of the full version MaxIm DL supports the full version and adds some extra capabilities For example the Information Window will display full catalog information on stars identified in the image The full version also includes Visual PinPoint which can be used for aste
335. ion Experimentation may be required to determine which one should be turned off If a guider axis is disabled then that axis will be skipped during calibration Only one axis may be disabled at a time If a guider output is disabled then no corrections in that direction will take place while tracking The guider output settings do not affect calibration The calibration can be set manually using the X Speed Y Speed and Angle controls These values are normally filled in by the automatic guider calibration function The speed values are entered in pixels per second that is how many pixels a star will move when the motors are actuated for one second The Angle is zero if north is at the top Display Scaling controls how data is displayed in the scrolling autoguider position error display on the Guide tab When Display Mode is set to Pixels and Delta is checked the errors X Err and Y Err difference between measured and desired position are displayed in pixel units When Display Mode is set to Arc seconds X Err and Y Err are displayed in arc seconds the effective focal length of the guider telescope must be set on the Site and Optics tab of the File Settings menu in order for the angular measure to be computed The Delta check box is disabled in Arc seconds mode When Display Mode is set to Pixels and Delta is not checked the scrolling autoguider position error display shows the measured star position X Pos and Y Pos in pixel units rather t
336. ion and guider subframe typically require reestablishing after a change The Shutter Latency Measurement command displays a dialog box which is used to determine the intrinsic delay between issuing the command to start an exposure and the instant at which the shutter actually opens Depending on the design of the camera hardware interface firmware and drivers this delay can be significant 0 25 to 1 sec However long this delay is in most systems it is quite consistent so characterizing it allows MaxIm CCD to time tag exposures to a precision of 1 100th of a second 10 msec assuming that the computer s clock is set to a like accuracy The measurement procedure described below requires fitting a camera lens to the CCD camera and moreover is normally done indoors rather than in the observatory Additional commands may appear in the Options button menu for certain camera models Camera Settings allows you to control various advanced camera features if any are available for the currently connected camera See the CCD Camera Autoguider Setup section for your particular camera model for more information If advanced settings are not available for the selected camera the command does not appear in the menu Download Image on Stop controls whether an exposure terminated by clicking the Stop button on the Expose Tab is downloaded or simply discarded If the camera does not have this capability the command does not appear in the menu Tip You can
337. ion to the image FITS headers With the latest version of TheSky the connection does not require any additional programs but some settings are required Start TheSky Select Telescope Server Settings In the Remote Client Capabilities area make sure all options are enabled check marks in the boxes Also enable Remote clients use Orchestrate s Image then slew to command with a check mark in its box Click OK to close the Server Settings dialog Once this is done you should be able to connect to the telescope Note if you have the Remote Astronomy Software Component Object Model RASCOM installed which comes with Orchestrate then you may need to set additional settings as follows 1 Download and install the latest versions of all Software Bisque software you are using Start TheSky Set the Telescope Server Settings as described above Connect TheSky to your telescope Telescope Link Establish GR TS Open the ob program located in the Orchestrate folder 4 59 Maxlm DL User Manual 6 In the Ob Observatory menu select Server Connections Turn on only TheSky for now Turn off CCDSoft and AutomaDome 7 Select File New the document should report that it is offering connections to TheSky and Telescope 8 Close Ob 9 Try to start the link in the Telescope control Setup tab You may get an Internet Explorer unsafe warning ignore it and answer Yes Try to move the telescope if you get a Permission D
338. irst Generation For this driver select FLI 1 Gen on the Setup tab Normally the standard Finger Lakes Instrumentation filter wheel driver is used This version uses the older FLI drivers The Finger Lakes Instrumentation CFW 1 connects via serial port Set COM Port to the COM port you are using The user can assign names for each of the color filter slots under Filter Name If your filter wheel has fewer slots than allowed for by this driver simply leave the Filter Name in the extra slots blank they will not appear in the drop list filter selectors If the filters 4 45 Maxlm DL User Manual vary in thickness a Focus Offset can be entered for each filter This causes the focus position to be offset appropriately every time an exposure is taken with a new filter position If this feature is used absolute positioning focusers are strongly recommended to ensure repeatability Seria PLI Lel Geom z jaj Enga Later it Gert Vernon Fin a Ceenaling epagh j EEH PLD ard Dhein Lre Tamma Hmi FU Drast Wen 1 00 JFL tet Ges COM Fa pan Manual Filter Wheel 4 46 For this driver select Manual on the Setup tab This driver will simply prompt the user to set the filter wheel manually The primary purpose of this driver is to provide a convenient means to enter the filter selection into the FITS header It can also be used to prompt the user to set the filter during long imaging sequences The user can assign names for each
339. is procedure accentuates small differences among nearby pixels at the cost of the loss of information about the relative brightnesses of pixels separated from each other by greater distances Hal CA oe weno Carcel Pis reer jo aj pel A Auta Fusa Because the rank filter algorithm is intrinsically very harsh its effect usually has to be diluted by mixing it with the original image thereby preserving more of the information about large scale brightness variations across the image The Weight controls how 6 110 Command Reference strongly the filter is applied Local Adaptive Filter This filter sharpens any fine image details that are of low contrast It determines the contrast of a region by calculating a ratio between the average value in the neighborhood and the standard deviation of the same neighborhood The difference between the pixel and the average background is then multiplied by this contrast factor Thus variations in areas of low contrast are preferentially amplified This algorithm can be very effective for extracting subtle details from planetary images however it can also cause excessive noise amplification so it should be used with care Conia f Cancel Radius controls the region that is considered local Smaller regions result in more amplification of smaller details but also tend to amplify noise more Contrast determines how much of the contrast amplification is applied Rota
340. is a measurement of the diameter of the star image at Y of the maximum intensity It is calculated by fitting a Gaussian shape to the star The Flatness is an indication of how out of round the star image is A flatness of zero is perfectly circular while a flatness of 0 1 indicates that the star is longer in one dimension than the other by 10 When Display in Arcsec is checked the FWHM is displayed in arc seconds instead of pixels The Calibrate section below describes how to set up the arc seconds display Please note that the Photometry function can provide more accurate Magnitude measurements than the Information window can The Photometry function performs more complex and accurate background subtraction computations and uses partial pixels In the interest of speed the Information window performs a simpler calculation Region mode is a simpler version of the Aperture mode which provides separate information for the Red Green and Blue planes of a color image CE x Cians Ms 25 7s 113 Mads 1 Mei 22 Hed Dis Aka Poni Pr FE ee Meee DRS FENE iM ire TS OT TE Hats miw mE FITA di ja MPI RETF Si Dre 16000 1565 q Cod Se Soo Cail 171 075 rel m A Cosi ai Pixel is the value directly under the cursor center All other measurements are calculated within the central aperture This includes Minimum Maximum Median Average Std Dev standard deviation Centroid X Centroid Y full width half maximum FWHM and Flatness Fo
341. is a waste of the camera s capabilities The three basic steps are bias dark and flat field calibration Each of these will be discussed in turn Bias Frame Calibration 3 28 Bias is an offset that occurs when a pixel is read from the CCD camera Unfortunately every pixel in the image often has a slightly different bias level If this pixel to pixel bias variation is not removed it becomes a source of noise in the image A bias frame is essentially a zero length exposure or as close as possible to zero length with the shutter closed Each pixel will have a slightly different value but except for a small amount of noise the value for any one pixel will be consistent from image to image Since the bias is consistent from image to image it can be subtracted The bias frame itself contains a small amount of readout noise This readout noise is produced inside the electronics that read the pixels It can be very low in sophisticated cameras but it is never zero This noise can be easily suppressed by combining a number of bias frames together Guide to CCD Imaging Ideally the other types of calibration frames dark and flat field should themselves be bias frame calibrated MaxIm DL does this automatically when bias frame files are selected The bias for a particular CCD camera is generally constant over a substantial period of time This means that you can take bias frames just once and use them on all your images for many months
342. is applied At 100 the full strength of the filter is applied At lower percentages a portion of the color information from the original image is used in addition to that of the filtered image Color Adjust This command helps you adjust the color balance of an image by showing you the effect of various changes You can configure it to adjust the Scale of each color or the Background color of the image The Rate of Change slider controls the amount of change An array of eight different versions of the image is shown The Final image in the center shows how the image will look after the adjustment is made Surrounding the Final image are images marked with various colors The images that 6 131 Maxlm DL User Manual are on opposite sides have the opposite effect Green is opposite Magenta Yellow is opposite Blue and Red is opposite Cyan Pome a tm ha hr Tam d Chae 4 If you click on one of these images it replaces the Final image You can do this repeatedly with different settings for Rate of Change and Scale Background until the image has a satisfactory appearance If you get too far off track click the Original image to reset and start again Convert MX 6 132 This command is specific to the Starlight Xpress single shot color CCD cameras This command converts a raw monochrome MX image into a color image The raw MX image is actually an image taken with a color video CCD chip these detectors
343. is scaled by the number of pixels RMS gives an accurate measurement of the amount of noise present Image scaling is simply the process of multiplying every pixel by a constant This increases or decreases both the brightness and contrast of an image A stretch function affects the brightness and contrast of an image The Screen Stretch only affects how an image looks on the screen it does not affect the pixel values in the memory buffer The Screen Stretch is controlled using the Screen Stretch window See screen stretch and permanent stretch See noise A region of an image where the pixel values vary slowly is said to have a low spatial frequency A region where the pixel values vary quickly has a high spatial frequency The Standard Deviation is a measure of the noise in a data set It is computed in a root mean square fashion The standard deviation is also a measure of the spread of a statistical distribution and the radius of the point spread function model A curve where the value of a measurement is plotted on the horizontal axis and probability frequency that the particular value is obtained is plotted on the vertical axis If a series of measurements are made and plotted on such a graph a statistical distribution results Many types of phenomenon follow particular types Subframe Unsharp Mask Vignetting Wavelength Weiner Filter Glossary of statistical distributions The most common are Gaussian normal and
344. isabled during animation Using the Animate command is a three step process selecting images aligning images and viewing Command Reference Select Images When the command is activated a Select Images dialog box appears first It allows you to select the images to be included Select one or more of the images in the Available Images list on the left using the mouse then click the gt gt button to copy them to the Selected Images list on the right You can also remove images by selecting them on the right and clicking the lt lt button Note that ranges of images can be selected using SHIFT click and individual images can be picked using CTRL click The Add All button adds all of the Available Images into the Selected Images list and the Remove All button clears the Selected Images list When more than two images are selected the order may be important The images may be sorted alphanumerically by name using the Sort List button The direction of sort is increasing downward unless the Reverse Sort check box is selected in which case the sort is decreasing downward Individual images may be moved up and down the list by selecting them with the mouse and clicking the Move Up or Move Down button as required Svea O MEI 000 14 45 0004 u51 Goh If the images are already aligned the OK button should be clicked to start viewing If the images need to be registered click the Align button At least two images m
345. ise it runs in a normal command window cscript command windows can be manually restored or minimized at Command Reference any time during the execution of the script For more information on scripts run by sequences see the Setup Sequence dialog To capture a sequence click the Start button MaxIm CCD will automatically slew the telescope to the starting location if Capture Mosaic or Continue Mosaic is selected and it is not already pointing in the proper direction and then begin imaging the sequence See the description of the Setup Sequence dialog for details on the order in which exposures are performed Note With the exception of modes where its usage is either required by or incompatible with the sequence options autoguider operation is independent of sequence execution and can be turned off and on at any time Normally if the autoguider is active at the start of a sequence it will continue to run throughout This is true even for cameras with integrated autoguider capability Autoguider imaging is paused during main camera readout with the guide star being automatically reacquired after the readout is complete A delay of five seconds is imposed in order to allow time for the guider to settle the value of which you can increase by setting Delay between on the Setup Sequence dialog to more than five A longer delay is advisable if Dither Images via Guider is in effect since the guide star coordinates are also being changed between e
346. it of room at the bottom to allow for proper temperature regulation If a camera s cooler is already on when you connect to the camera the three cooler control buttons will pop up This is done because the main camera and autoguider may not be in the same state it is reminding you to set up the coolers Command Reference When you prepare to shut down the first task is to warm up the cooler s Click the Warm Up button to start the cameras warming up The period of time required for the warm up depends on the particular camera model some cameras simply turn off the cooler while others gently raise the cooler temperature over a period of time If you need to switch off the cooler rapidly click Cooler Off to immediately power down the coolers Note however that this could result in thermal shock especially on cameras with very large delta T Repeated thermal shock could potentially damage the sensor or cooler stack Usually this is not an issue if the delta T is less than about 20 degrees C The setup dialog boxes for each individual camera model and filter wheel model are described in the CCD Camera Autoguider Setup and Filter Wheel Setup section All cameras are supported as autoguiders although not all include built in relays for controlling telescope mounts directly n b a few models have relays that cannot be controlled by software Note that certain camera models may have poor performance for autoguiding due to slow update rates
347. ithm of the Gaussian or normal distribution A filter which removes or reduces high frequency rapidly varying components of the image while leaving low frequency slowly varying components untouched A low pass filter will smooth an image An iterative deconvolution algorithm which avoids noise amplification by approaching the result in a serial of small steps Luminance Magnitude MaxEnt Maximum Likelihood Estimate Median Noise Nyquist Sampling Theorem Permanent Stretch Photometric Measurements Photon Photoelectrons per ADU Glossary In color imaging luminance is the component of the image which corresponds to total brightness Astronomical magnitudes are a logarithmic measurement scale where larger values indicate fainter objects The sun is 26 magnitude the brightest star about 1 6 magnitude and the faintest star the human eye can see is around 6 5 magnitude The faintest objects that can be imaged using sub meter class telescopes are around 24 magnitude Short for Maximum Entropy Deconvolution an iterative deconvolution algorithm which avoids noise amplification by approaching the result in a series of small steps A mathematical term for a technique by which a set of parameters are adjusted to maximize a probability density function The resulting parameter values are called the maximum likelihood estimates of the true values In a list of values the median is the middle value For
348. ixel This voltage is amplified and filtered and then passed to an Analog to Digital Converter which turns the voltage into a number That number is measured in ADUs If you multiply by the Gain also known as Photoelectrons per ADU you will get the number of electrons detected by the pixel bias frame is a zero length image taken using a CCD camera with the shutter closed It is used to compensate for pixel specific offsets in the CCD chip and camera electronics A method of increasing the sensitivity of a CCD camera at the expense of resolution Adjacent pixels are summed together into super pixels which have better signal to noise ratio A Butterworth filter is a particular filter shape that is widely used both in image processing and signal processing It was originally developed as an analog electronic filter but was later translated to the digital domain Charge Coupled Device a semiconductor device containing an array of light sensitive pixels The device is exposed to light then is read out by shifting the photoelectrons to a readout transistor in one corner of the array A measurement of the center of gravity of an image A centroid measurement of a star image for example can locate the exact center of the star to a fraction of a pixel Alignment of an optical system Misalignment is a common problem particularly with reflecting telescopes Poor collimation results in optical distortions particularly Coma
349. ixels is lost On the other hand for general imaging purposes the blooms can be simply edited out This is very tedious to do by hand but the Bloom Removal tool can do this quickly and effectively First the bloom is identified Then the bloom is deleted and replaced by interpolated data Finally the star image is cleaned up to make it round To ensure a clean removal the tool automatically adds noise to the pixels it is replacing This emulates the appearance of the background present in adjacent areas The 3 45 Maxlm DL User Manual background statistics are obtained by looking at pixels near the bloom but they can be manually adjusted for best effect Deinterlace Some video sources scan twice with even and odd lines being imaged at slightly different times If there is rapid image motion perhaps due to atmospheric seeing the image shows jagged edges This can be removed and the overall resolution improved by splitting the image in two using the Deinterlace command The resulting even and odd field images are each interpolated to replace the missing pixels Binning and Resizing Sometimes it is useful to shrink images The Binning command does this in the same manner as binning in a CCD camera simply combine the adjacent pixels together into a single super pixel Unlike a CCD camera this function averages the values instead of summing them however the effect is otherwise identical Simple binning does not ensure tha
350. ke the backgrounds equal and scale the results to the same dynamic range This is rarely necessary if all images were taken with the same camera and exposure time Since the effect of equalization is seen only after clicking the Blend button to lock the new tile into place it is important to be able to undo a blend operation Simply click Unblend and the tile becomes loose again you can change its equalization and or position and blend it again or you can Remove it altogether Remove is the opposite of Place just as Unblend is the opposite of Blend Tiles can be unblended in any order you are not restricted to unblending the most recent one Sometimes you need to know exactly where a particular tile was placed in the mosaic If 6 25 Maxlm DL User Manual Frame Active Tile is checked the tile currently selected in the list is outlined on the mosaic image with a blue rectangle This applies to both placed and blended tiles To reduce the appearance of seams in the image a blending process is applied At each pixel In the area of overlap between two or more tiles Mosaic calculates a weighted sum of the corresponding pixels in the contributing images The weights given to a pixel depends on its distances from the nearest edge of each contributing tile This method gives good results when tile background equalization has been performed correctly and requires no manual adjustments You do not have to start Mosaic with a completely black d
351. king at the screen Alarms need not always be used to report problems either by associating a brief unobtrusive sound with events such as Camera Exposure Completed and Guide Correction Started you can set up a sort of MaxIm heartbeat that assures you everything is working normally Hal Estres AITE Hada Sie td Cuties aci Adar xt pe oo d ar anes Gonmei chinai ras Camara wiomeimi re i mE pda Tech Stopped chard vere a amie Stee Faded it rs Tamsa baparrs Morisi cheda Cares egaa Completed char PAT Camera Espora Shea ted Lhit ee aera Pacers Compe ere ter ol J A particular condition is either associated with a sound file or it is not In the first case it appears in the Condition column of the list control in the second it appears in the Disabled Alarms droplist To add a new alarm to the list control select it from the droplist and click Add A file selector box opens permitting you to select the desired WAV file for this alarm WAV files can be in any directory and need not all be in the same place Pick the sound you want and click OK to return to the Audible Alarms tab New alarms are always added at the end of the list and the position of an alarm in the list indicates its priority relative to the others Higher priority alarms will preempt lower priority ones but not vice versa Also one shot alarms of lower priority do not resume sounding on completion of a higher priority one which inte
352. l be remembered The next time you want to start MaxIm CCD just click the Connect button and then Cooler On Focusing After setting up the camera and initializing the cooler the first step in using a CCD camera is to focus Tip when using two cameras set up the autoguider initially as the main camera and use the built in main camera focusing tools Then switch it over to be the autoguider and set up the main camera 1 Select the Focus tab by clicking on it with the mouse The Focus tab includes many of the controls from the Expose and Settings tabs but condensed into one compact 2 14 Tutorials form The Focus tab settings are completely independent of the Expose and Settings tabs This means that you can have two completely different sets of exposure settings and flip back and forth quickly between the two The simulated camera doesn t have any dark current so turn off the Dark control to save time Usually this is turned on to provide a lower noise display but can be disabled to speed things up slightly ax Enpi Setingn Sequence Pan inara Guede Eak Foo Esconde leg A eo GP ef PA Sib FT fmi La o eis a 3 Pas i 4 Hagel z bn A ES ee Turn Continuous mode off for now Continuous mode takes a series of images that can be stopped by clicking Stop This mode is useful when you want fast updates while you adjust the focuser Set an exposure of second using the Seconds field You can use
353. l is good so far Stop guiding and plug the cable back in Take an exposure of 1 second or less with the Guide tab and make sure you have a nice bright star reasonably near the center of the chip Start the calibration cycle Watch the star It should move in one directly move back again move at right angles and move back again To make this easier to see MaxIm DL automatically draws a line following the star Look at the numbers that the display window on the Guide tab shows you Make sure the star moved at least 10 pixels in each direction and that it returned close to its starting point If the star does not move very far then increase the corresponding Cal Time value in the settings first motion is X usually RA last is Y usually Dec If the star moves so fast that the star goes off the chip then check whether the mount s guide speed is higher than 1X If you see any error messages stop and figure out why otherwise the 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Troubleshooting calibration will be invalid Turn on the Graphical Track Log Switch to Guide mode Start tracking Watch the star and the track log and watch for guide star motion If it starts bouncing back and forth then reduce the Aggressiveness setting If you are having trouble note which axis it is Right Ascension or Declination Usually the X axis is wired to Right Ascension If you are seeing regular back and forth motion you have oscill
354. l is selected from the power supply box Cooler settings are controlled via manual switches so the cooler controls are not enabled when this camera is in use HiSIS 44 For this driver choose HiSIS 44 on the Setup tab SS Tx He aid Dever Vera I Eppoi pe TENIDA cios Lied ED a ma f Lora Bhd a Tsadi AA The camera does not have temperature regulated cooler control the cooler power level is selected from the power supply box Cooler settings are controlled via manual switches so the cooler controls are not enabled when this camera is in use 4 17 Maxlm DL User Manual Meade Pictor 208XT For this driver choose Meade 208XT on the Setup tab seba visado HEN EE TIH Hesi ART Gel ie Weer Lie LE Cong pol 2001 3084 O fisco Lied Es Ns oe Terc Cirsa Piai 3 COU Pos Didi Lit drier The communications port to which the camera is connected must be selected in the COM Port field The Baud Rate field is used to control the communications speed higher speeds provide faster image downloads but slower speeds may be more reliable if communications are marginal The Gain control can be used to boost the signal from the CCD chip prior to readout This is normally set to 1X but can be increased in situations where the image is extremely faint The Anti Blooming control allows you to control the camera s anti blooming gate Saturated pixels can produce streaks across the image the anti blooming redu
355. laced by interpolating from surrounding good pixels A small amount of Gaussian noise can be added to the interpolated values to improve the cosmetic appearance only bad pixels are affected The standard deviation of the noise can be entered using the Noise field E taj Ga Pond hiap tap gt ES jha Mice acd Hoy Coslada Any rd Piset Ve E Ses Ming Pace Cancel Clicking the Save Map button will save the current map and close the dialog without processing the image Process will save the current map process the current image and close the dialog The Cancel button will close the dialog without saving 6 92 Command Reference Automatic Map Generation Clicking the Auto Generate button will bring up the Auto Generate sub dialog Pau beret A Hal Desa pms haere ra OK Hot pelted Ea All pixels which have a value below the Dead Pixel Threshold will be marked as bad All pixels which have values above the Hot Pixel Threshold will also be labeled as bad One method for generating the map is to take a flat field exposure evenly illuminated source and knock out all pixels which are much above or below the average To eliminate hot pixels it is often better to take a dark frame and eliminate all pixels above a threshold Mouse Map Generation Turn on the Use Mouse check box and select the Mode as follows e Point click on a single pixel to mark as bad e Row click anywhere on a row to set e Column
356. lank they will not appear in the drop list filter selectors If the filters vary in thickness a Focus Offset can be entered for each filter This causes the focus position to be offset appropriately every time an exposure is taken with a new filter position The offset is expressed in focuser steps If this feature is used absolute positioning focusers are strongly recommended to ensure repeatability rett sister AS EE Altea a Coli CC ero Ferree 00 Pa Conve l IEA Circos lintel Taraia Hida ppt CEMANI Ean irrin et ive Pe Faas Of Daa 2 Ped On Fl a 1 Eh 3 4 Piar a a y Pi 5 i Fimi Fd rim T J 3 Ame 7 cues Once the camera autoguider and filter wheel have been selected and configured click the Connect button to initiate links to the hardware An error will be produced if any hardware fails to connect if so all links will be disconnected Once the camera s are connected you may need to set up the cooler Most supported cameras have closed loop cooler systems that can be set to a particular temperature Click Cooler On to start the cooler s If control is available you can then use the Cooler buttons for the main camera and autoguider to set the temperature pe coc ua Gapo 0 a Cancel Dial in the desired cooler temperature Setpoint C and click OK Note that the cooler temperature should be set as low as possible without exceeding the camera s cooling capacity There should be a b
357. le tracking Other system functions may become sluggish especially under Windows 98 ME Before operating the AO 7 please read the Overview of AO 7 Operation SBIG Camera with AO 7 When using the AO 7 tip tilt autoguiding accessory set to SBIG w AO 7 If a CFW 8 filter wheel is connected via the camera set the Filter selection to SBIG Universal fetes BAG AD asi Ot Carn Vee A Crees DER Duc Linda Es E PA Caca Lorena ile F iiinn Eo ke ie Cot Ta Gam AG Tang Pimi Usually the Autoguider is set to None since the Guide tab is not normally used with the AO 7 You can however use Same As Main Camera if you wish to use the Guide or Focus tab functions with the guide sensor when the AO 7 is not running For parallel port cameras select the parallel port address in Connect To For USB cameras select USB For Ethernet connection select Ethernet and enter the correct IP Address for the camera The IP Address is ignored when connecting to a parallel port or USB camera The download Priority can be adjusted Very High will ensure that no lines appear in the image due to readout delays but may make it difficult to operate the mouse Guider ABG turns on off the anti blooming gate for the autoguider sensor turning it on reduces blooming if the sensor saturates but decreases sensitivity slightly Normally it is left off Setting Binning Mode to Off chip is useful when a non anti blooming CCD chip is installed When enabled it
358. lear all four filter positions are valid The Filter Names should be set as follows Position Filter Name Equipment Setup 1 Clear 2 Red 3 Green 4 Blue When Type is set to Lunar only the first two positions are valid Position 1 should be identified as Clear and Position 2 should be identified as Lunar The remaining two slots should be left blank so that they will not be available in the filter selection drop list if they are not blank and the slot is selected the lunar filter will be selected Hal Amd Calin Copgaght lt 2000 04 Diacon Limited Canea H vol Lan aren san ETY Focus Offset should be left at 0 for each slot SBIG Parallel For this driver select SBIG Parallel on the Setup tab AHG 0 va Parada Port Filter thee Cire ere 0 VIBRA acion Lanta des fal a ma jas ja a ee Important note if the filter wheel is connected via an SBIG camera you must select SBIG Universal not SBIG Parallel 4 53 Maxlm DL User Manual Using this driver requires special wiring Please see Notes on Direct Parallel Port Connection for information on wiring connections The SBIG Universal filter wheel driver allows direct control of SBIG CFW 8 compatible filter wheels from the PC s parallel port This is useful when running these filter wheels in conjunction with non SBIG cameras This driver will run SBIG CFW 8 Optec MaxFilter Homeyer and True Technology Custom W
359. les in the lightest and darkest areas of the interim image For critical work you should set the Screen Stretch to High or to Manual with the Minimum and Maximum settings close together so as to exaggerate contrast Auto Flatten Background The Auto Flatten Background command can be used when the image background level across the frame varies in a systematic way and not due to the subject itself Causes of these kinds of variation include a radial falloff in brightness due to instrumental vignetting the proximity or inclusion in the image of bright stars or planets or gradients due to sky glow moonlight or light pollution Such problems can be reduced or even eliminated in many images by using this command It estimates the background level in various regions of the image and then fits a two dimensional polynomial surface to the background points The resulting model is subtracted from the image thus reducing the variations Note that the algorithm works best on star fields images with a large foreground object consuming a significant part of the field can bias the background extraction Auto Remove Gradient The Auto Remove Gradient command can be used when the image has a bright background that varies linearly across the frame Typical causes of gradients in astronomical images are sky glow moonlight and light pollution This problem can be reduced or even eliminated in many images by using this command It estimates the background l
360. lescope Control window the Declination field will be automatically filled in for you When using German Equatorial mounts it is necessary to rotate the telescope 180 degrees to switch between East and West This affects the calibration of the guider since it reverses the apparent direction of motion on the RA axis The Pier Flip control can be used to compensate for this if the X axis outputs are connected to the RA axis of the telescope the usual convention Simply toggle this control when you flip the telescope over the mount Troubleshooting Autoguiding is a deceptively complex operation since it is a two axis closed loop servo system with troublesome mechanical problems like backlash and stiction A detailed step by step guide to diagnosing autoguiding problems is included in the main Troubleshooting chapter Here are some quick things to check e Use the Graphical Track Log to monitor guiding performance See if problems are happening in Right Ascension or Declination or both and whether there is any pattern to it Periodic behavior suggests incorrect calibration or too high aggressiveness Sudden jumps suggest a mechanical problem such as backlash stiction or mount balance e For most mounts set the Aggressiveness between 5 and 8 You can adjust the Aggressiveness during tracking to see what effect it has e Ifthe mount has built in backlash compensation turn it off If you are not sure how to set the MaxIm CCD backlash c
361. licking on it with the mouse is automatically rejected To determine if the results are satisfactory click the Overlay All Images button to produce a preview Manual 2 stars This method is similar to the Manual 1 star method but performs both a shift and rotate using two registration points Each image is presented in turn the user simply clicks on a particular star or other recognizable feature in each image In order to speed up the process turn on the Auto Next check box Every time the mouse is clicked on the image the next image will automatically be displayed When the first registration point has been set on each image the computer will beep and the first image will be displayed again Move to a second star and repeat the process until the computer beeps a second time The Star 1 and Star 2 buttons will toggle to show 6 7 Maxlm DL User Manual 6 8 you which point is being set If Auto Next is not being used or you want to change a single registration point use the Star 1 or Star 2 button to control which reference point is being changed You can move through the images using the Next Image and Previous Image buttons One of the images can be set as the reference image using the Set As Reference button The selected image will not be moved and all other images will be adjusted to align with it If the reference point is a star or similar object turn on the Use Centroid check box At each clicked location a centroid w
362. little confusing at first since there can be many different ways to hook the blocks together Just spend a few minutes drawing a block diagram like that above and you will quickly see how to connect things up Some general principles 1 The MaxPoint hub should always connect directly to the telescope if at all possible Any application that connects below MaxPoint will not have the benefit of the pointing corrector Therefore it should be the main hub and all other applications should connect to it 4 7 Maxlm DL User Manual 2 Ifyou are using TheSky the TelescopeAPI plug in that comes with the ASCOM Platform can be used to connect it to ASCOM telescope drivers instead of using the built in drivers This is recommended since it allows TheSky to work with other programs However certain mounts e g Paramount can only be controlled by TheSky In this case there is a special TheSky controlled telescope driver that lets other programs connect to it Special settings are required be sure to review the instructions in TheSky Controlled Telescope 3 FocusMax an excellent freeware autofocus utility can act as a hub for focusers and telescopes You should connect MaxIm DL s telescope interface to FocusMax and then connect FocusMax directly to the telescope or MaxPoint or other hub if used You can do the same for the Focuser interface but this is not essential and you should only do so if you wish to use MaxIm DL s built in
363. ll Images button to produce a preview Planetary This method is intended for aligning images of planets It will work only when each image to be aligned contains a single substantial disk that is an approximately circular region of bright pixels completely surrounded by background The images are shifted to bring the centroids of their disks into coincidence No rotation or scaling is performed The Reject and Set As Reference buttons are available in planetary mode and work as Close Save Command Reference previously described To determine if the results are satisfactory click the Overlay All Images button to produce a preview Overlay This mode is useful when no clear registration points are visible such as planetary images with indistinct features You must first set one of the images as the reference image Look through the images using the Next Image and Previous Image buttons Pick an image and click the Set As Reference button in many cases the first image can be used Next move to another image using the Next Image or Previous Image button This image will be overlaid on the reference image with the reference in magenta and the new image in green The Overlay Controls can now be used to adjust the position of the image to match the reference There are four shift buttons with up down left and right arrows There are also two rotation buttons with rotate clockwise right and rotate counterclockwise left ar
364. llow the user to independently set the binning in the X and Y directions if this is not possible the second binning control Y Binning is grayed out and tracks the X Binning control The Options button DI displays a menu of additional commands The following commands always appear inet On Top e eish ne Cute Pisa Pocus w Po Rotator Anss map ar CA Aniss jasp AH O Fip Fesp Horizontal Fip Fers bei y Thiim Latency Masini Always On Top allows you to specify whether the MaxIm CCD window stays on top of all other windows Note that when On Top is enabled i e the menu entry is checked the MaxIm CCD window should never be placed in the middle of the MaxIm DL application window as it may otherwise hide any small dialog boxes produced by MaxIm DL If this happens you will not be able to see the message and MaxIm DL operation may mysteriously lock up until you hit the Enter or Esc key to dismiss the hidden dialog Auto dark Subframe Extraction modifies the Simple Auto dark calibration for subframes Instead of taking a new auto dark frame every time a subframe is selected resized or moved the appropriate piece will be extracted from the most recent full frame dark exposure If the full sized dark frame is not available then a new exposure will be taken For some camera models extracted subframes do not always accurately match real subframes in this case you should turn this option off Pause FocusAide is an option to disable focuser
365. lm DL User Manual 6 76 the Dark Frame is used to remove variations in dark current and the Flat Field Frame 1s used to remove differences in sensitivity across the CCD chip For all three types of calibration frames it is best to acquire multiple frames This reduces the effect of readout and thermal noise in the calibration frames themselves For more information on calibration please refer to the appropriate sections of the manual AAA zis FF Colts Bes A A AUTO Ad Go Farge kin Chew Al ecu Ore Perrier Fi haa Dak Fosa Esad TA n DAR LOA TERT TA LRG A A H A Gomme F e SL E dl E d Combina Typs del ER LO la nine LADY AO Ce 7 AL DCI LA A LO e Cap dd Flares ES Gisa Fle ia Die E agy Teel air eae Era Fobin ft Include abii y CE tm C Orei rd A Deneri k Feia Cabai MaxIm DL allows you to specify multiple groups of calibration images using the Set Calibration command During calibration MaxIm DL will select the three groups of calibration frames bias dark and flat that best match the currently active image MaxIm DL will select the flat field whose filter name matches that of the image to be calibrated If no flat field with a matching filter name exists then MaxIm DL will fall back to finding a flat field whose filter name is FLAT but whose other properties match those of the data image If the image to be calibrated is a subframe then MaxIm DL will perform calibra
366. looking This information is added to the FITS Header of acquired images If you are using a Barlow focal reducer or other optical device which changes the image scale of the instrument you must adjust the Focal Length accordingly For instance if you have an 8 F 10 SCT with a nominal focal length of 2000mm but you are using a focal reducer to operate at F 6 3 you would set Focal Length mm to 1260 Fields in the Guide Telescope frame are used to specify the Focal Length Aperture and percentage Obstruction of the telescope or other optical system through which your guiding camera is looking This information is added to the FITS Header of images acquired from the guider In many cases guiding is done with a pick off mirror from the same optical system used for primary imaging or with a dual chip CCD camera head In these cases you can check Same as main scope to use exactly the Main Telescope settings with guider exposures After changing any control on this tab you must click Apply or OK to cause the change to take effect 6 19 Maxlm DL User Manual Audible Alarms 6 20 The Audible Alarms tab is used to associate WAV files with various conditions and events On the occurrence of an event MaxIm DL will play the associated WAV file through your computer s sound card alerting you that it has occurred If you use a different sound for each event that you are concerned about you can determine what has happened without even loo
367. looking image It is best to use a light touch when enhancing color Smoothing Colors The human eye is far more sensitive to intensity variations than to color variations Since CCD cameras typically vary in their sensitivity across the spectrum it is not unusual to have excessive noise in one of the filter bands This results in color speckling Since the human eye effectively has less resolution in color than in luminance it is possible to mask the color variations The Color Smoothing command allows you to apply a filter to the color only It works by extracting the luminance information filtering the three color planes and then recombining the filtered color planes with the unfiltered luminance plane This is a handy method for quickly cleaning up an image with color noise Mosaics 3 44 MaxIm DL CCD includes a mosaic generation capability on the Sequence tab Using this feature it is possible to build up image mosaics covering a large area of the sky It ensures that the individual tiles are evenly spaced across the area of interest which greatly simplifies assembling the mosaic afterwards The mosaic should be captured with a certain amount of overlap between tiles This provides an area for feathering which gradually blends the output from one image to the next This prevents hard edges and other artifacts Starting out with a large blank document use the Mosaic command to add the individual tiles For images containin
368. lor Toolbar 6 58 10 13 Maxlm DL User Manual COM Automation 6 21 Coma 8 1 8 2 Combine 3 14 6 86 Combine Color 6 122 Combine Files 3 7 3 14 6 3 6 4 Combining 3 32 Comma Separated Value 8 1 Command Reference 6 1 Command Sequence 6 46 Commands Tab 6 59 Compress 6 15 Compression Type 6 10 6 12 Context Menu 1 12 Context Sensitive Help 1 12 Control Via 6 166 Convergence 3 50 6 118 Convert 6 11 Convert MX 6 132 Convert RGB 6 134 Convert to Mono 6 126 Convolution 3 22 3 24 8 2 Cookbook 4 2 4 14 Cooler 4 30 4 31 4 32 6 176 Copy 6 23 Correlation 8 2 CRI 6 122 CRI Micro Color 4 5 4 42 Crop 6 23 Crosshair 1 11 6 27 Cursor 6 39 Curves 3 36 6 99 Customize 6 58 CVI AB300 4 43 CVI AB 301 4 5 4 43 Dark Current 8 2 Dark Frame 3 2 3 29 8 2 Dead Pixel 6 103 8 2 Declination Compensation 3 10 Deconvolution 2 9 2 10 2 11 3 46 3 49 8 2 Deconvolve 6 112 6 117 10 14 Decrease Annulus 1 13 Decrease Aperture 1 13 Decrease Gap Width 1 13 Deep Sky 6 179 Default Zoom 6 16 Deinterlace 3 46 6 32 Delay 6 152 Desktop Universe 4 58 Detection Setup 6 65 DFM Engineering FW 82 4 5 4 43 Digital Development 6 109 Digital Development Processing 3 40 Digital Video 4 37 Dilation 6 103 Direct Parallel Port Connection 4 55 Direct Serial Port Connection 4 56 DirectShow 4 4 4 37 DirectX 4 37 Disk Space 1 1 Display Controls 2 2
369. lor dialog that allows you to specify the exact red green and blue values for the color If you select Text clicking on the image will automatically bring up the Shape Properties dialog box You can then enter the Text Caption and click OK The properties for new annotations can be set up using Properties The features available depend on the current drawing mode You can edit an individual annotation by right clicking on it and selecting Properties or delete it by selecting Remove on the right click menu Click and drag on the endpoints of lines or corners of boxes to resize them click and drag elsewhere on the annotation to move them You may wish to select the hand tool Alfirst while moving and resizing annotations can be done with any of the normal annotation drawing tools active selecting the hand prevents inadvertently adding an unwanted new annotation You can remove all annotations by clicking Remove All Clicking OK makes the annotations permanent they become part of the image and can no longer be edited 6 27 Maxlm DL User Manual 6 28 They can be still be removed with Undo until another processing command modifies the image further If you click Cancel you will be asked whether to make the annotations permanent or not hase proper a aE ana n Test Capi Fosa ET rec MS Al footie hh 3 Fiia Fapa Mia a 2 Tipim fime ii al Length Ipod TOO Deere E CE ma The Shape Properties dialog box allows y
370. lurring caused in realigning the images Although telescopes can be guided manually many observers are now using CCD autoguiders In some cases these are stand alone units that are interfaced directly to the telescope However some units can or must be controlled from software MaxIm CCD provides support for several different CCD autoguiders and can run them in parallel with the main camera Instructions for installation of the autoguider are included with the unit Generally speaking the autoguider connects electrically to the telescope s guide controller using a standard RJ 11 jack In some cases special connections are required Many GOTO mounts can be controlled using the Telescope Control window Optically the autoguider is connected either to a guide telescope attached mechanically to the main telescope or to an off axis guider The off axis guider includes a pick off mirror that diverts light from the telescope into the autoguider Normally the pick off mirror is positioned outside of the main camera s field of view Some cameras include two autoguider sensors either in the same package or not with both operating through the same interface Most SBIG camera models work this way as do some Starlight Xpress cameras If both sensors are looking through the same instrument this ensures that mechanical flexure is not an issue although limited field of view and losses due to filters can be a problem 3 7 Maxlm DL User Manual
371. ly accurate and can handle relative mode focusers i e those that use DC motors and cannot produce fully repeatable positioning Connecting FocusMax can be a little confusing It links to MaxIm DL s camera control interface automatically It needs to connect to an ASCOM focuser It optionally connects to an ASCOM telescope to provide special functions such as automatically moving to a nearby focusing star and then returning to the original coordinates MaxIm DL can also connect to the focuser at the same time by connecting to RoboFocus as the driver However it is simpler to use the POTH hub for both the focuser and telescope and connect FocusMax and MaxIm DL directly to POTH and POTH to the focuser and telescope Please see http focusmax org for more information Image Processing Plug ins 5 6 MaxIm DL has an open architecture that allows other programs to access its processing and imaging functions You can also build a plug in that appears on the menu Plug ins can use a mix of built in MaxIm DL functions plus their own code to produce new capabilities Both freeware and commercial plug ins are available from third parties A partial list is available at http cyanogen com products maxim_extras htm Working With Other Software Source code for a very simple example plug in is included with the MaxIm DL installation under the program folder Both Visual Basic and Visual C versions are included Also see the Script
372. ly calculated from the camera pixel dimensions and telescope focal length if these are available If neither type of information is present the small status field to the right of the FITS scale check box shows not available and the most recent pixel scales possibly from some other image are reused The Pixel Scale values can also be set up using the Set button This brings up the Pixel Scale Editor If the pixel scale is already in the FITS header just select Pixel Scale and click Load from FITS Alternatively you can also enter values manually in the X and Y fields in this mode The scale is in arc seconds per pixel Another method is to use the Calculator mode Enter the Pixel Size microns and Focal Length mm or click the Load from FITS button within the Calculator frame to 6 43 Maxlm DL User Manual extract the values directly from the FITS header Most cameras supported by the MaxIm CCD camera control window provide pixel dimensions automatically when an image is taken while the telescope focal length can be specified on the Site and Optics tab of the Settings dialog The required value can often be found in the manual for your telescope or can be determined by multiplying the aperture by the f ratio Click Calculate scale to compute and display the pixel scale Then click OK to close the window and return the values to the Information Window ca 3 Peel Sc iin fm H Ciya Poel Sem merca t pe 3 F Focallerghir
373. ly recommended Starlight Xpress HX5 USB For this driver choose SX HX5 USB on the Setup tab AI Tixi HEL Dea e E cn Led Esa Es es Cerca Lies late ZII The Starlight Xpress HX516 USB cameras connect to the PC via a USB port The appropriate Starlight Xpress USB drivers that come with the camera must be installed for the camera to work This driver does not work under Windows NT There are no settings for this camera The Starlight Xpress cameras use open loop cooling so the cooler controls are not enabled when this camera is in use Starlight Xpress HX9 USB 4 30 For this driver choose SX HX9 USB on the Setup tab A Hi OA Ce Cuca Sa ee ers Lora Piai EE The Starlight Xpress HX916 cameras connect to the PC via a USB port The appropriate Starlight Xpress USB drivers that come with the camera must be installed for the camera to work This driver does not work under Windows NT Equipment Setup There are no settings for this camera The Starlight Xpress cameras use open loop cooling so the cooler controls are not enabled when this camera is in use Starlight Xpress MX5 For this driver choose SX MXS5 on the Setup tab The Starlight Xpress MX512 MX516 and MX5 C cameras connect to the PC via a standard parallel printer port The Starlight Xpress MX512 MX516 and MX5 C single shot color cameras are identical from a control standpoint 115 kkh pe BOER A ia ie pra d Lie
374. mand Reference averaged You can edit the reference magnitude at any time by selecting the star in the Tagged objects list and typing the new value in Ref Mag You can continue to select additional stars including New Object for objects to be measured New Moving Object for a non stationary object such as an asteroid and New Check Star Check stars are usually included in measurements to monitor data quality and ensure that the selected reference stars are not themselves variable Bi heat nt Tagged sect 25010 1354 iT BAL Arr 257078 Tele F 1070 E A TL be mOFE 141 he Des ie Maura chch bags ar Panki Core of rage pate 0600 05 0 i MENA F e Moving objects must be manually tagged on at least two different images to enable the Photometry tool to calculate a track giving the probable location of the object at the time associated with every image in the set Therefore when a New Moving Object is initially tagged Act on all images is ignored After changing to a different image pick the identification assigned to the new moving object from Mouse click tags as and click on the object in the new image For best results you should usually tag moving objects in the first and last images of a data set If you want to remove a tag from a star select it in the Tagged Objects list and click Untag Act on all images controls whether the object is deleted from every image in which it appears or only the one named in
375. mand in the Options menu to create several different types of sequences including the tricolor RGB sequence of this example The Sequence Wizard performs the equivalent of steps 2 10 of the above Tutorials procedure Autoguiding Autoguiding appears at first to be a rather complex task However the autoguider controls in MaxIm CCD are actually quite easy to operate This tutorial demonstrates the operation with the simulator which behaves like a dual chip CCD camera autoguider The operation is the same when using two separate cameras for these functions It is also possible to configure the same single chip CCD camera to operate as both the main camera and autoguider in that case only one function expose or guide is available at a time Tip When using separate imaging and autoguiding cameras first start the guider running Once it is operating switch to the Expose tab and start the camera The guider keeps running until you stop it even if you are using a camera with a built in autoguider such as the SBIG ST 7 ST 8 ST 9 or ST 10 You can take as many exposures as you want you can even run a tricolor exposure sequence 1 Switch to the Guide tab i Maime Hal Espora Seling Sequence Pos eect Guede Ent Epon Danon Eepoayes Gaiaa fy H hi3 C Di i M pafa waiki Te e i TE Diora EJ Appr E 2 First we should set up a few things Click on the Options button E and make sure that Wa
376. me images and 3 for color images NAXIS1 corresponds to the X axis NAXIS2 corresponds to the Y axis NAXIS3 present only for color images value is always 3 red green blue color planes are present in that order Optional keywords defined by FITS standard and used in MaxIm DL OBJECT name or catalog number of object being imaged if available from Telescope Control window or specified by the user in Settings TELESCOP user entered information about the telescope used INSTRUME CCD camera information Either user entered or obtained from the camera driver OBSERVER user entered information the observer s name DATE OBS date of observation in the ISO standard 8601 format Y2K compliant FITS CCYY MM DDThh mm ss sss The Universal time at the start of the exposure is used Note the alternate format using DATE OBS and TIME OBS is not written but MaxIm DL will correctly interpret it when read BSCALE this value should be multiplied by the data array values when reading the FITS file MaxIm DL always writes a value of 1 for this keyword BZERO this value should be added to the data array values when reading the FITS file For 16 bit integer files MaxIm DL writes 32768 unless overridden by the Settings dialog HISTORY indicates the processing history of the image This keyword may be repeated as many times as necessary Non standard keywords used in MaxIm DL EXPTIME duration of exposure
377. mmand provides you with a great deal of control over the image You can boost the contrast in one brightness range by making the curve steeper while reducing contrast elsewhere by flattening it out Many astronomical images have a few extremely bright regions e g bright stars cores of galaxies some mid range features interesting but very faint details e g outer spiral arms and a large amount of background The trick is to boost the contrast of the interesting details while decreasing the contrast of brightness ranges which are of lesser interest or contain little detail In addition you wish to avoid burning out the very brightest details while doing this MaxIm DL s high bit depth capability makes this easier to do LS lll mA Cir Tepe C Faon raar tml iit au Fas Flare Using the Curves Tool Start out by adjusting the Screen Stretch so that the very brightest areas of the image are not saturated and the darkest areas are not clipped off When you run the Process menu Curves command your screen stretch values will appear as the Input Range Turn on the Auto Full Screen preview so you can see the effect of the changes as you make them Now increase the slope of the line where you want more contrast and decrease it where you need less contrast Usually you need to increase the slope at the low end left side to bring up the faint details To avoid blowing out the brightest details make sure the lin
378. mmon variety of context menu looks like this Introduction Inc Reet Apertas Te Ape thine Sa Apt A increas ap With Tora Gap Sith Ea Gap dh a borrar rra Darsma Anu Gat fer Tide t cr kremi Sed Zen i Zam Gut The first three groups of menu items are used to control the size of the circles in the circular cursor To adjust the inner circle use Increase Aperture Decrease Aperture or the Set Aperture Radius sub menu To adjust the gap width between the aperture and the outer background measurement annulus use Increase Gap Width Decrease Gap Width or the Set Gap Width sub menu Finally to adjust the outer background measurement annulus use Increase Annulus Decrease Annulus or the Set Annulus Thickness sub menu Crosshairs simply superimposes blue vertical and horizontal lines across the centre of the image window These can be useful when composing a CCD image They are never stored as part of the image and do not affect the data intensity measurements etc The Screen Stretch sub menu provides convenient access to the seven ER presets of the Screen Stretch Window Selecting one of these is completely v Medium equivalent to changing the stretch mode drop down combo box in the Screen 9 Moon Stretch Window You can use this sub menu without having the Screen Pee Stretch Window open even when working with commands that disable the Max Val ES toolbar button ETE Zoom In and Zoom Out are similar to the
379. n camera and autoguider If the camera is capable of simultaneously guiding and imaging for example a dual chip camera then the two halves of the camera will behave like two completely independent cameras If the camera is not capable of simultaneous guiding and imaging then you will only be able to use it for one function at a time If you want to select two different cameras of the same model for main camera and autoguider then simply choose the same camera model in both places do not select Same as main camera Each camera will have separate settings so you can configure them for different ports The Filter Wheel is set up the same way although the dialog box is different The filter wheel type is selected in Filter or Controlling Camera Model Select the filter wheel model if the wheel is connected directly to the PC If the filter wheel is controlled via a CCD camera select the appropriate camera model in the list In this case it has to match the selected CCD camera model There can be up to three filter wheel specific configuration parameters located on the right side under the OK and Cancel buttons See the Filter Wheel Setup section for 6 175 Maxlm DL User Manual 6 176 information on the parameters available for different filter wheels The user can assign names for each of the color filter slots under Filter Name If your filter wheel has fewer slots than allowed for by this driver simply leave the extra slots b
380. n SBIG CFW8 or CFW 6A filter wheel You must select the appropriate filter wheel Type The CFW8 setting can also be used for Homeyer Optec MaxFilter and True Technology Custom Wheels with the optional SBIG compatibility mode ys z Fite a Como JBG 516 Sand Creve Vernon 4 00 r kc ANN 4 Biarin Lire Caira H dal a a ae E i GT Pas Pier Fara Paca Dr Ma I Aaj j Jor en a 1 Ti J 4 Fler 4 i Fis Pitar ds i Aig 1 Filter SBIG CFW 6A filter wheels require a FILTER CFG file This file is produced by using the SBIG CCDOPS software to calibrate the filter wheel The file must be copied from the CCDOPS program installation directory to the MaxIm DL program installation directory The user can assign names for each of the color filter slots under Filter Name If your filter wheel has fewer slots than allowed for by this driver simply leave the Filter Name in the extra slots blank they will not appear in the drop list filter selectors If the filters vary in thickness a Focus Offset can be entered for each filter This causes the focus position to be offset appropriately every time an exposure is taken with a new filter position If this feature is used absolute positioning focusers are strongly recommended to ensure repeatability SBIG STV 4 52 For this driver select SBIG STV on the Setup tab The SBIG STV driver is used with an SBIG STV with an installed SBIG CFWS filter wheel When Type is set to RGB C
381. n a particular star or other recognizable feature in each image The images are aligned using shifting only no rotation is performed In order to speed up the alignment process turn on the Auto Next check box Every time the mouse is clicked on the image the next image will automatically be displayed When all of the images have been registered the computer will beep If Auto Next is not being used you can move through the images using the Next Image and Previous Image buttons If the reference point is a star or similar point source turn on the Use Centroid check box At each clicked location a centroid will automatically be calculated and used to refine the adjustment to the sub pixel level One of the images can be set as the reference image using the Set As Reference button The selected image will not be moved and all other images will be adjusted to align with it If any image in the sequence is of poor quality click the Reject Image button to remove it from the list You can restore it by clicking on the button again Any image that has not had a reference point clicked on cannot be registered and is therefore automatically 6 89 Maxlm DL User Manual 6 90 rejected To determine if the results are satisfactory click the Overlay All Images button to produce a preview Manual 2 stars This method is similar to the Manual 1 star method but performs both a shift and rotate using two registration points Each image is p
382. n cannot be changed A few commands simply cannot be recorded you are warned about this and asked if you want to execute the command anyway If you record an incorrect command by mistake select it in the Operations list and click the Delete button This will not reverse any effect it had on the image so you may need to Undo it as well if so don t forget to delete the Undo entry from the list too You can reposition a recorded command in the list by selecting it and then clicking the Move Up or Move Down buttons Sequence editing can also be performed after recording has been stopped Note that you cannot close the Command Sequence window while recording is in progress When you have completed the sequence either click Record a second time or click Stop ll You can resume recording at any later time by clicking Record again this does not erase previously recorded commands To play back a sequence on a single image select that image by clicking on it or its tab if shown then click on the Play EH button The status line displays the name of the image being processed and playback starts at the first command in the sequence and normally proceeds automatically to the end During playback the command currently being executed is highlighted in the Operations list When a Manual command is encountered playback pauses with that command s dialog open and waits to allow you to modify then command settings then resumes when you click OK If
383. n error message will be displayed at the end of the calibration cycle The algorithm can be confused if another star appears in the frame to minimize this risk it always uses the star with the brightness most similar to that measured in the first image If the star does not move far enough or moves too far i e the star leaves the field the duration of the calibration move commands can be adjusted by clicking the Settings command and changing the Cal Time fields measured in seconds A longer calibration time will increase the motion of the star a shorter time will decrease the motion Typical values range from five to ten seconds depending on the correction speed focal length and pixel size Using the Guide tab s Settings dialog you can also set a Backlash setting to run out any backlash caused by changing the direction of motion also entered in seconds See below for more information The Aggressiveness control on the Guide tab allows you to adjust how vigorously star motions are tracked out An Aggressiveness setting of 10 means that the autoguider attempts to track out 100 of the motion whereas a setting of 1 means that the autoguider only tracks out 10 of the motion Usually a setting of around 8 or 9 Guide to CCD Imaging provides the best tracking since it reduces overshoot and helps ignore random motions due to atmospheric seeing and wind loads You may have to reduce it further if for some reason your calibration is i
384. n if older software functions with your camera New drivers may be downloaded from http fli cam com You may need to run both FLIDriverInstall and the FLI Windows Update Utility 4 15 Maxlm DL User Manual AA T Z Frea Liki Tropie averia ra epi cE Coge j EAF ated D rican Ltd Es IFL OLD ler ha tiree 1 CL Cac Lara Hd rra Lake Cow Ta Thare bec Pap obs har ura CM E The driver will auto detect the camera upon startup You may select the camera from the drop list under Connect To The Shutter Mode option can select the shutter behavior for autoguiding operation When selected to Normal the shutter opens only during an exposure When set to Main w Guider the shutter is closed during download but it is opened between exposures to allow the autoguider to reacquire lock following download the shutter is located in front of the autoguider pick off port When set to Guider the shutter is held open continuously to prevent excessive wear the very slight blurring during readout does not affect guiding accuracy Pre exp Flushes allows you to configure how many flush cycles are run before the exposure starts Increase this to ensure that residual charge is completely flushed decrease it to reduce the delay at the start of the exposure Note some older parallel port interface cameras will not work with this driver You can use the Finger Lakes 1st Generation driver for these cameras Finger Lakes First Generation Fo
385. n of a particular image in the mosaic from its filename alone Although you can always inspect the OBJCTRA and OBJCTDEC FITS keywords it is often useful to be able to group tiles of the same area together more easily for example for purposes of combining them e Insert tile index xxyy the horizontal and vertical offsets of a particular tile from the starting tile of the mosaic tile 1 are inserted into the filename between the root name and the sequence index and separated from them by Command Reference underscores rootname_xxyy_nnn These offsets are always in the range of 0 to W 1 and 0 to H 1 If neither W nor H exceed 100 two digits are allotted to each otherwise three digits are used The horizontal tile offset is always specified first even if the primary scan direction is North South In this mode the sequence index is always reset to the original value when a new tile is started so that the nnn values are the same for every tile The exception to this is when a sequence is aborted as described above e Insert tile RA and Dec the RA and Declination of the tile center are each expressed as six digits concatenated together and inserted between the root name and the sequence index and separated from them by underscores rootname_hhmmss ddmmss_nnn As with the Insert tile index mode the sequence index number is always reset to the original value when a new tile is started Focus Tab The Focus tab provides a duplic
386. naccurate this could be caused by significant backlash You should experiment to determine the best setting for your particular telescope The calibration may also be adjusted manually using the Settings command The X Speed and Y Speed parameters allow you to enter the apparent speed of motion of the star during guide corrections in pixels per second For example if the star moves three pixels in one second the speed is 3 pixels per second The number can be negative if a positive correction causes a negative motion If the autoguider sensor is not aligned with the telescope axes the rotation angle is entered in Angle deg Backlash and Stiction Backlash can occur when the direction of motion on an axis is reversed The telescope may not immediately start moving in the reverse direction even though the motor is turning The usual cause is loose meshing of the gears in the drive train In the case of worm gears this can often be largely adjusted out unfortunately in some cases attempts to adjust the gears can result in too much friction resulting in motor stalls If the backlash is inside a gearbox it generally cannot be fixed without redesigning the drive system Generally backlash is only an issue on the Declination axis because the Right Ascension axis is always moving forwards due to sidereal tracking Backlash can be compensated for to a degree in software If the drive takes 1 2 seconds to turn around the software could au
387. nd differentiate them from non stars and to limit the number of image stars that will be used for solving Any object less than Brightness will be ignored The Standard Deviation multiplier is multiplied by the 6 65 Maxlm DL User Manual 6 66 standard deviation of the background noise and any object less than the resulting value is ignored If there are more than the Maximum Number of Stars Used to Solve only the brightest down to this number are taken This control is disabled if you are using an older version of PinPoint which does not support the Plate MaxSolveStars property There are also advanced parameters that are accessed using the Advanced button These parameters are described below The Image Parameters give PinPoint a starting point for its analysis It requires an approximate image scale and position on the sky PinPoint needs to be given a starting point on the sky The Right Ascension RA and Declination Dec can be entered manually but are more often obtained from the FITS header OBJCTRA and OBJCTDEC keys MaxIm CCD inserts these keys automatically when an image is acquired if the Telescope Control window is linked to a telescope The Pixel Scale arcsec pixel gives the scale of the image in each axis If FITS scale is checked these will be extracted from the FITS header keys CDELT1 and CDELT2 if they are available or in their absence calculated from the camera pixel size XPIXSZ and YPIXSZ and the telescope fo
388. ne Iana Usada Eas Aa lrag The Gain control can be used to boost the signal from the CCD chip prior to readout This is normally set to 1X but can be increased in situations where the image is extremely faint The Anti Blooming control allows you to control the camera s anti blooming gate Saturated pixels can produce streaks across the image the anti blooming reduces this problem Turning the anti blooming gate on allows more saturation before a streak will appear but decreases the sensitivity of the camera somewhat Important Note Please allow 30 seconds for the camera to initialize after power on before attempting to connect Once a link is established set up the cooler temperature and wait for the CCD temperature to appear before taking the first exposure Note on autoguiding The 216XT telescope control relays are not available under software control Autoguiding control is still possible via other means such as the Telescope Control Window Due to the readout speed we strongly recommend setting 2x2 binning when using this camera for autoguiding Meade Pictor 416XT 1616 XT Serial Mode For this driver choose Meade 416 1616 on the Setup tab SSS als ETA i Drenje DAA Aamen Ll Es A ere core Cancel Loma Hol EPS COU Pea Did Ma lrag Note Prior to using MaxIm CCD to control older Pictor 416XT and 1616XT cameras we recommend downloading the latest Pictor View software from the Meade web site http www meade
389. ne equivalent long exposure The image alignment feature allows you to remove the effect of telescope drift and the floating point representation used means that saturation can be avoided Many telescope worm gears have positions where there is some relatively rapid drift If some of the shorter images are unsuitable due to trailing they can be examined and removed from the sequence using the Combine command All of the images should be calibrated before combining them Color Imaging 3 14 A few cameras on the market are single shot color cameras Each image from the camera is encoded with color information This is achieved by placing microscopic filters over the individual pixels on the chip The Convert RGB and Convert MX commands can be used to transform these encoded images into color The conventional way to take color images with a CCD camera is to use a set of Red Guide to CCD Imaging Green and Blue filters Individual images are taken through these filters and combined in software MaxIm DL CCD has extensive features to support RGB color imaging LRGB Imaging In LRGB imaging a Luminance L frame is added to the standard RGB mix The Luminance fully or partially replaces the luminance information from the filtered images Often the Luminance image is taken with a longer exposure The RGB images are sometimes binned to allow shorter exposures Since the human eye has lower resolution in color than in luminance the differenc
390. ng as it is still active When a tracking alarm occurs the Acknowledge button is enabled Clicking this button disables the button again and also silences WAV file playback if it is sounding Click Close to close the Tracking Error Alarms window You can close the window even without acknowledging an active alarm but the audible warning will continue if enabled and no further alarms will be reported MaxIm CCD checks for tracking alarm conditions only after the previous alarm has been acknowledged Setup Tab 6 174 The Setup tab is used to initialize camera hardware and control temperature regulation Command Reference I asi Emma Seling Sequence Fran iasa Guide Esto Han OOD Esta a Seup Imai tain Eredua Setup for each component Main CCD Camera Autoguider and Filter Wheel works in much the same fashion Click the Setup button to select and configure the hardware For cameras and autoguiders the dialog box will list cameras and show options for those cameras Tal ECO bromita ain Teppi fx EEN AI Dik cian Lim Ex Sater cuir oe tot oe Sica E Screed Gik ricas Guia inge Gak Dedo GETI Paid You can change the camera selection using the Camera Model field Various options will appear depending on what model is selected When setting up the autoguider you have an additional choice Setting the Camera Model to Same as main camera will make the same camera work as both the mai
391. nge those if you want to proceed later Refer to Setup Mosaic for further information Astrometric Resynchronization is an automatic mechanism that corrects for drift e g poor polar alignment in the telescope mount when not using an autoguider In fact the command is not available when an autoguider is present and running When Astrometric Resynchronization is enabled MaxIm CCD automatically solves the first image in a sequence to obtain the precise center coordinates of the image It also solves every Nth image a number that you choose thereafter computes the slew necessary to recenter on the original position and commands the telescope to go there Image solving is done via the PinPoint Astrometry command whose settings you must first configure to be compatible with your telescope and camera pixel size image scale You must also specify the astrometry catalog you want to use and the brightness range of the stars you want to use and you may need to set other parameters controlling the star detection algorithm If a scheduled image cannot be solved Astrometric Resynchronization allows a scant 3 seconds for you to intervene by closing the dialog box reporting the error in which case you will be left in control of the Astrometry dialog and can try adjusting the parameters If you do not intervene the error dialog is dismissed automatically the current image remains unsolved and the next one in the sequence will be attempted instead This
392. ngineering FWeSZ ooooconccccccnonanncnonnnnonnnnnnnonnonnnnnnnnnnnnc nana cnc cnananccono 4 43 Finger Lakes Instrumentati0N ooooocnnncnnncnnnncnnanonnancnonncnnnnnnnncrnnnncnna cian 4 45 Finger Lakes First Generation oooooconnocnnoncnnonnnonnnnonnnncnnnncnnnnn cana conan nono nnoos 4 45 Manual Filter Wheel oooonnninccnninccicnnonccnnnnnannnonnnn nono conan cnn nnnnn cocoa nn nr canarios 4 46 Meade 216XT With OlO ooonoccnncccnocccnonnnnonnonnnnonnnnnnnnnanonnnnonannnnonancnnanonnnos 4 47 Meade 416XT 1616XT With OlO ooooonnccnincccinnncnnnncnonnnnannnonnnnncnannnonnnnonnnos 4 47 Meade SCST With 610 teta ines 4 48 OpteciE Wisin iaa 4 48 True Technology Custom Wheel ooooooonccninoccnonncnoanononnnnnnnnonannncnanncrnnancnnnos 4 49 Table of Contents SBIG Compatible Filter Wheels oonononnncnnnnccnnnconnancnnnncnnnnnonnn conan ccrnnacnnno 4 50 TELESCOPE SETUPS aren e see ute ecko 5k EOS ER a Da A Bees 4 57 Telescope Setup iriiri i 4 57 ASCOM ACP Telescope asierea eiieeii reei 4 58 Desktop Univers eninin aiene e aceae taka a a Ra aseina askaria ies 4 58 MaxPoint Telescope Hub oooooocncccnnuccnnanononncnonnnnnnnnonnnnonnn i ya 4 58 Telescope Simulator scccsecceseccessccesssecescecesceecesseessscecsseeceseecssaesesaeeesaes 4 59 TheSky Controlled Telescope scccscccssccesscessecessneseseecesecessseeseseeeesseeesaes 4 59 BOCUSER SETUP lA E 4 60 FOCUS SIMULA a iii 4 61 CHAPTER 5 WORKING WITH OTHER SOFTWARE o cccnmcccccccccon
393. nning allowed for cameras with a TC211 guide chip is 2x2 if a TC237 chip is used the maximum binning is 3x3 Check the Contin short for Continuous check box to enable constant imaging When this check box is checked and the Start button is pressed to acquire an image in Locate mode the camera will return images constantly until the Abort button is pressed If a suitable guide star cannot be located reposition the instrument turn on binning or increase the exposure Calibrate Drive Mode and Calibrate AO 7 Mode 6 192 Both the Calibrate Drive mode and Calibrate AO 7 mode operate identically except in the former case the motor drive is activated and in the latter case the AO mirror is tilted Before calibrating ensure that a star is near the center of the image by using the Locate mode adjust the telescope position if necessary Set the Exposure duration in seconds select the desired star with the Auto button or the Mouse and then click the Start button The AO 7 Control will then take a series of five exposures comprising a reference image and one image in each instance after moving the mirror or mount in the X X Y and Y directions A dark frame will also be taken if necessary Each time a new image appears a small cross will be superimposed on the selected guide star If for some reason the cross does not appear in the correct location for every exposure the calibration has failed Normally this would only happen if t
394. noise Use the Clean Up option only when the background around the PSF is very noisy as it can lead to donuts around stars When using Gaussian or Exponential point spread function models the PSF Radius i e the standard deviation of the distribution must be determined A point like object star can be extracted from the image to initialize the model The selected distribution is fitted to the object in order to calculate the best fit radius If no suitable object is available to extract you can estimate the required PSF Radius by inspecting the image Whether initializing either the Gaussian or Exponential modes or extracting a point like object to use directly as the PSF a means of extracting such an object from the image is required The Automatic Select button runs an algorithm which attempts to locate a point like object having a high signal to noise ratio and when found marks it with a red circle this is particularly suitable for astronomical images containing stars Alternatively the Select from Image button allows you to select a specific object When this button is pressed use the mouse to click on a suitable point source in the image and mark it as the source of the PSF Both methods display the coordinates in the X and Y field which you can change directly if desired The Select from Image button pops up automatically when you select a new PSF You can obtain the Point Spread Function from any open image although normally yo
395. nsufficient data in the interval of this duration immediately preceding it Command Reference Plot type Vertical Scale Time Span and RMS Window length can be adjusted at any time and the display is automatically updated The Peak Values submenu allows you to specify whether the extrema displayed in the status area at the bottom of the graph Reset Automatically as soon as the peak data point is no longer displayable i e is 15 or more minutes older than the most recent point or are Reset Manually on user command When in manual reset mode use the Reset Now command to reset the peak display to zero As new measurements are made the peak values will creep upwards Click Save Data to record the available measurements to a disk file This calls up a file selector dialog with which you navigate to the desired destination folder and specify a filename The file is written in the same format as the Tracking Log Click Load Data to load and display a previously saved graph or a Tracking Log Tracking Logs exceeding 15 minutes in duration are automatically clipped If necessary you can divide them into shorter segments with any text editor If you start the guider after loading a file old data will be automatically flushed as soon as the first measurement is made The Alarms display calls up the Tracking Error Alarms window This is an alternative to using the Tracking Error Alarms command in the Options menu of the Guide tab The Clear
396. ntion of the Screen Stretch window back to that image if you need to change its stretch settings Clicking on the command dialog reconnects the Screen Stretch window to the Preview image again Quick Stretch is also available for the Preview Image simply point the cursor at the preview image hold down the Shift key and drag the mouse up down for brightness 1 9 Maxlm DL User Manual and left right for contrast Whenever dialog settings are changed the image changes back to the original and the Preview button pops out However if the upper Auto button to the left of the Preview button is on the processing function is automatically applied to the preview image whenever the dialog settings are changed Note if you type in a number directly instead of using the up down spin controls you have to hit the Enter key to get the automatic preview This prevents the processing from starting while you are still typing Although the Preview button greys out when Auto mode is on when text is entered it is reactivated and you can click it instead of hitting Enter The Full Screen preview works exactly the same way except that the whole image is updated Note that you can pan zoom and stretch adjust brightness and contrast the image The Auto Full Screen button works exactly the same way as that for the Preview Image Note that processing large images may take quite a while for some functions such as FFT Filters for those functions using
397. o 290 for HX516 cameras set Width to 660 and Height to 500 When Starlight Xpress cameras are operated under MaxIm CCD the images are automatically stored in FITS format For FITS files if the keywords BZERO and BSCALE are present they will be taken into account when loading the data Some software packages store unsigned 16 bit integers in FITS files Although not sanctioned by the FITS standard this is common practice If negative numbers appear in an image file MaxIm DL will assume it is an unsigned integer file and adjust the image accordingly Note that the FITS file format is affected by controls on the General tab of the Settings command of the File menu Limitations on File Formats e Color SBIG files are not supported e BMP files must be uncompressed e To avoid patent infringement LZW compressed TIFF files are not supported use uncompressed Combine Files The Combine Files command adds the contents of multiple files together to reduce noise with optional realignment to remove any translation or rotation One common application of this command is to eliminate the need for accurate guiding during astronomical CCD image exposures Instead of a single long exposure a series of shorter exposures are taken They are then aligned and added together to simulate the effect of a single long exposure Select Images Two separate dialogs are used for this function The first is identical to the File Open dialog First select
398. o http cyanogen com products maxim_extras htm to download the plug in driver kit It requires Microsoft Visual C 5 0 or higher Note the plug in camera driver kit is supplied without warranty or support If you wish to purchase support for plug in driver development the cost is US 50 per incident ASCOM Hubs 4 6 In the past astronomical software all had built in custom drivers written especially for that application to talk to particular models of telescopes focusers etc If your equipment was not supported with a particular program you could not connect it Even worse if you wanted two or more programs to share the same telescope it could not be done With the advent of ASCOM all of this has changed The AStronomy Common Object Model ASCOM is a standardized interface for communicating with astronomical equipment Standardized interfaces allow applications to talk to hardware without having to be customized for the particular command set of each device As part of this effort a set of mostly open source drivers have been made available via the ASCOM Platform For more information on ASCOM and to download the latest version of the platform please visit http ascom standards org Applications may also communicate by ASCOM compliant interfaces although these are not standardized In certain cases however the existing driver interfaces can be used for inter program communication A simple example is multiple applications
399. objects such as asteroids and comets or to compensate for flexure in your system Click the Select File button under Offset Tracking to select the offset file Locate your file and open it then click OK The next time you start a tracking session the offset mode will be started The format of the offset file is flexible Times and positions can be specified either in relative or absolute coordinates The format for relative coordinates is as follows ss x x y y where ss Time delay from last movement Direction of movement i e either or required x x Amount of movement in X direction in pixels y y Amount of movement in Y direction in pixels An example of this might be 15 0 5 0 5 15 0 5 0 5 15 1 0 1 0 Fifteen seconds after guiding starts the guide point would be moved half a pixel to the right and half a pixel up The same thing would happen 30 seconds into the exposure and so on Avoid moving the guide point more than a small amount in each step If the guide star reaches the edge of the frame offset tracking will be disabled The format for absolute coordinates is as follows hh mm ss x x y y where hh mm ss UT time in hours minutes and seconds x x New X position in absolute coordinates y y New Y position in absolute coordinates 6 169 Maxlm DL User Manual An example of this might be 22 30 15 255 0 255 0 22 30 45 255 5 255 0 22 31 15 255 5 253 5 In this example at UT 22 30 1
400. obstructions vignetting and dust Flexible Image Transport System the standard file format used in astronomical applications Includes extensive support for header information to describe the image and the equipment and procedures used to produce it A measure of the size of a star or other image Half maximum means the distance from the center at which the brightness drops to one half of the center value Full width means the measurement is given as a diameter rather then a radius The FWHM of a point source in an image divided by two to get a radius can be used as an estimate for the radius of the point spread function model Gain for an amplifier is the ratio of output input In a CCD camera the gain determines the Photoelectrons per ADU i e how many photoelectrons it takes to make the A D converter output increase by one count The most common type of statistical distribution the bell curve distribution The shape is very common because a sum of a large number of random distributions always tends towards a Gaussian shape due to the so called central limit theorem The effects of atmospheric seeing tend to impose a Gaussian shape on star images for this reason Also known as the normal distribution The geometric mean is the square root of the product of the terms It is equivalent to taking the logarithm computing the average and then taking the exponent The Unsharp Mask command has a Geometric Mean Mask mode
401. occcccsssssocccccsesessssssoeeee 3 1 CEDISENSOR AE A EAER OE AEEA EE ATA A EE 3 1 HIGH PERFORMANCE CCD CAMERAS cccccccssseseccccceeccssseecccceeeeeeccccesseaaeseeececeeseaaaaees 3 1 DONES ISA odeestedstecsavecdugstededessunesgee 3 3 Polar Alignment innein ketari ei ukia E Eia 3 3 DOCUS n E ES A EEE 3 5 ALIN ii eeutdabveeuacedseutidebeesticetedetiasteeelies 3 6 AULO QUIER A Tene Beta e Nat Ee ee e ol 3 7 Image Scale ia aia 3 12 Using Multiple Exposures oooonooccnoncnnonnnonnnonnnnonnn conan nc non nc rana nan nc rana nrnnnncnnnos 3 14 Color TMG ging iii a da 3 14 Infrared Sensitivity cscccessccesscccssecesscecescecsseeceseecesaeeesseecsseeseseesesaeeesaes 3 15 Signal to Noise RAtIOn sscceesccceseeceseeesecesneceseeecescecssaecesaeecsaeesseeseneeees 3 16 Bit Depth A A baie kel A ta 3 17 IMAGE PROCESSING BASICS ccccccccssssseeccccecccsessecccceeeeseeccceescaunseeccccsessauaneeeceeesseaaanees 3 17 ALCAN A A Nett las suelo ts Ide 3 17 NN A A AA 3 21 RAW DATA QUALITY ooo encina ted ici aa 3 26 PRESERVING BIT DEPTH 2ss00 ccedesceceveceveccadncnsvessssencsvvescescetenenseessvesddereceedssvscetcceseses 3 26 RECOMMENDED PROCESSING SEQUENCE csssssseeccceeeceussecccceeecasseceessaaeeeeeceesesauaness 3 27 IMAGE CALIBRATION eseccsecadessoeessvecs Sends ovsv ees du ceuesssecte levees eseavccaee T ATE 3 28 Bias Frame Calibrationii cccccccccccccccccccccccccsssseeccccccccusscssssseecccssseeessseeecess 3 28 Dark Frame Calibra
402. ocus tab provides a separate set of exposure controls which allows you to switch rapidly back and forth between 3 5 Maxlm DL User Manual Aiming 3 6 focusing and normal imaging The Inspect tab allows you to view the quality of focus both graphically and numerically Of particular interest is the Half Flux Diameter and Full Width Half Maximum measurements which tell you the diameter of a star image The focus is simply adjusted for the minimum star size To speed up the focusing process it is helpful if the focus is approximately correct before you start A useful technique is to parfocalize an eyepiece with the CCD camera First carefully focus the camera using the standard techniques Next without changing the focus settings on the telescope remove the camera and replace it with an eyepiece Depending on the eyepiece it may be necessary to use an extension tube Without adjusting the focus setting slide the eyepiece in and out until focus is achieved Now mark the point of best focus on the eyepiece barrel The best way is to make a small metal ring with setscrews that can be locked in place The next time you need to focus use this special eyepiece first and visually adjust the focus to the approximately correct position Now only a small refinement is necessary In the past manual focusing was the most tedious and time consuming part of CCD imaging sessions However this has changed with the advent of reliable autofocus
403. of a breach of this warranty Diffraction Limited will at the discretion of Diffraction Limited either replace the defective media or accept the return of the Product accompanied by proof of purchase for a refund Diffraction License and Copyright Limited does not warrant that the software in this Product will be defect free or meet your requirements THIS WARRANTY IS EXCLUSIVE AND IN LIEU OF ALL OTHER WARRANTIES WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR USE AND NON INFRINGEMENT This warranty gives you specific rights You may have other rights that vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction DISCLAIMER IN NO EVENT SHALL DIFFRACTION LIMITED BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY SPECIAL CONSEQUENTIAL INDIRECT OR SIMILAR DAMAGES INCLUDING ANY LOST PROFITS OR LOST DATA ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THIS PRODUCT EVEN IF DIFFRACTION LIMITED HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE LIMITATION OR EXCLUSION OF LIABILITY FOR INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES SO THE ABOVE LIMITATION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU IN NO CASE SHALL DIFFRACTION LIMITED S LIABILITY EXCEED THE PURCHASE PRICE FOR THE PRODUCT MISCELLANEOUS Should you wish to contact Diffraction Limited you may do so at 100 Craig Henry Drive Unit 106 Ottawa Ontario K2G 5W3 Canada telephone 613 225 2732 fax 613 225 9688 http www cyanogen com CREDITS AND COPYRIGHT Ma
404. oise ratio SNR can be calculated by summing over all the pixels within an aperture as follows SVT SNR JS B D R jt where S signal in photoelectrons B sky background in photoelectrons D dark current in electrons R readout noise in electrons T total integration time in seconds t integration time per image in seconds A signal to noise ratio of three is usually considered the minimum for detection A higher SNR is required for photometric measurements This has several implications for CCD imaging 1 Best SNR performance is achieved by keeping the star size small subject to the Nyquist criterion at least 2 5 pixels across FWHM 2 On very short exposures or sequences of short exposures the readout noise performance may be the limiting factor 3 In most cases for long exposures the sky background is the limiting factor for performance even at dark sky sites 4 If properly calibrated dark current noise is usually only important for narrowband Guide to CCD Imaging imaging spectroscopy narrowband interference filters etc To improve performance in the read noise limited case consider increasing the exposure particularly if summing a sequence of exposures In all cases increasing telescope size camera quantum efficiency or exposure time will improve your limiting magnitude faintest detectable objects Bit Depth Most CCD cameras produce 16 bit images with pixel values ran
405. ommand which emulates photographic development to enhance an image ES Rank Filter invoke the Rank filter processing command which enhances structure in an image En Local Adaptive Filter invoke the Local Adaptive Filter command which enhances images by sharpening details only in areas of low contrast Rotational Gradient apply a Rotational Gradient filter which enhances radial structure in an image Deconvolve sharpen an image by applying either Maximum Entropy or Richardson Lucy deconvolution mathematical techniques which undo the effect of systematic aberrations on an image f Photons Wizard invoke a wizard to assist you in determining the gain of your CCD camera Flatten Background remove a background that varies in brightness across the image by subtracting a two dimensional polynomial fit to the background at user specified points Auto Flatten Background automatically remove a background that varies in brightness across the image by subtracting a two dimensional polynomial fit to the background at software determined points Auto Remove Gradient automatically remove any background gradient present in the image 6 57 Maxlm DL User Manual Color The commands on the Color toolbar are listed below click on the icon for more information Gs Color Combine invoke the Color Combine command which combines RGB LRGB CMY LCMY or two color image sets into a color image Color Combine
406. ommended Starlight Xpress MX5 USB For this driver choose SX MX5 USB on the Setup tab Tizi k 5 i pe bree ire ce C He rei oe Cs Cones la The Starlight Xpress MX512 USB MX516 USB and MX5 C USB cameras connect to the PC via a USB port The appropriate Starlight Xpress USB drivers that come with the camera must be installed for the camera to work This driver does not work under Windows NT There are no settings for this camera The Starlight Xpress cameras use open loop cooling so the cooler controls are not enabled when this camera is in use Starlight Xpress MX5 USB STAR2000 4 32 For this driver choose STAR2K MXS on the Setup tab si Cul a lever gree 1 Tipe je t Dhein Listed DE Sarat a cor toa Lora ld This driver supports STAR2000 operation for the Starlight Xpress MX512 USB MX516 USB and MX5 C USB cameras The appropriate Starlight Xpress USB drivers that come with the camera must be installed for the camera to work If you have connected a STAR2000 dongle and wish to use it for outputting autoguider commands select the appropriate COM Port otherwise set it to None Select the appropriate output mode either ST4 for autoguider pulses or LX200 for serial port If you wish to use a Starlight Xpress Autoguider Interface box non STAR2000 set COM Equipment Setup Port to None and go to the Guide tab Settings and change Control Via to SX COM The Starlight Xpress cameras use open lo
407. on The latter is used with fork mounted Schmidt Cassegrain and similar telescopes where there is insufficient clearance between the base of the fork and the back of the optical tube to accommodate a CCD camera when the instrument is pointed near the pole You can enable either both or neither limit with the associated check boxes If a limit is in effect and a commanded slew e g the Go To button on either the Telescope or Catalog tabs would take the telescope beyond that limit an error message is displayed and the request is ignored sew Lies xj FF Hmn ihok i deg f Herma ladna dep CEJ e Display Alt Az controls whether the Altitude and Azimuth of the telescope are computed and displayed in the status fields on the Telescope and Catalog tabs in addition to the Right Ascension and Declination as reported by the telescope and the name of the current target object if known In order to compute telescope Altitude and Azimuth the geographical coordinates of your observing site must be entered in the Site and Optics tab of the MaxIm DL Settings page or the option to read latitude and longitude from a GPS equipped telescope must be enabled If any required information is unavailable the status display will show Alt N A Az N A The Park and Unpark commands are only enabled if your telescope s ASCOM driver supports them Parking a telescope positions it in a manufacturer recommended orientation and may also involve automat
408. on Note that ranges of images can be selected using SHIFT click and individual images can be picked using CTRL click The Add All button adds all of the Available Images into the Selected Images list and the Remove All button clears the Selected Images list Click OK to start the alignment process At least two images must be selected before you can proceed Ha ENE Fired a ee Align Images When the Align Images dialog box appears a special Align image buffer also appears This image buffer is used to display the contents of the current image while aligning 6 81 Maxim DL User Manual Two interpolation modes are available Bicubic Resample uses a higher order resample algorithm that produces a crisper result but requires more processing time When CA e oo a Tap 461 0014 mit Hore Fedate pan hol oa Sat der eegitoed Oo J Nees aimma BES biri de Hara Cima Pct FP Une Corben fe Auto eed ust wz Ht nae Predios E my C aese Kipata gt mas On Cancel turned off a simple bilinear interpolation is used The first step is to select the Align Mode The modes available are e None e Auto correlation e Auto star matching e Manual 1 star shift only e Manual 2 stars e Astrometric e Planetary e Overlay The auto correlation auto star matching astrometric and planetary modes require no further operator input just click the OK button The other
409. on as the mouse cursor If the source image is smaller than the destination and the mouse coordinates would be off the source image no action occurs You can copy continuously by dragging the mouse while holding down the left button To avoid skipping regions be careful not to drag the mouse too quickly The second Source region coordinates option Offset from mouse cursor enables copying from one set of coordinates to a different one After selecting this mode the Set button is enabled and automatically pushed to remind you that you need to set a source location This also happens whenever you change to a different Source Image in this mode Click the mouse on the location in the source image that you want to copy from an orange circle the size of the aperture is drawn there and the Set button pops up Now change back to the destination image and click at the location that you want the data copied to Once the spatial relationship between source and destination regions is established the orange source region marker tracks mouse cursor movements in the destination window showing you where regions will be copied from at all times Drag the mouse to copy regions larger than a single aperture as before To change the relationship between source and destination regions click the Set button again and pick a new starting point Alternatively right click at the starting point and pick the command specific Set source region item at the head of the c
410. on each step except near focus If it is moving in larger steps than this increase the Focuser Step Size If it is moving in smaller steps decrease the number If the focuser passes through focus and keeps on going forever check that the Target Half Flux is at least two pixels higher than the minimum value seen in the log If this is not the case the software will never detect that it has passed best focus We strongly recommend that you follow the step by step procedure in the Autofocus Tutorial This will help you set up the parameters correctly Chapter 10 Index About 6 140 About MaxIm DL 6 140 Accessing Images 1 7 ACE SmartFilter 4 5 4 40 ACP 4 58 ACP Observatory Control 5 5 ActiveX 6 21 Add 6 103 Add Noise 6 93 Add Offset To Make Positive 6 16 Adjust Saturation 6 130 Administrator Privileges 1 5 ADU 8 1 Advanced PinPoint Parameters 6 67 Aggressiveness 6 162 Aiming 2 16 3 6 Airy Disk 8 1 Alarms 6 20 Aliasing 3 46 6 131 6 133 6 135 8 1 Align 6 80 Align Images 6 63 Alternative Operating Systems 1 1 Always On Top 6 143 Analyze Menu 6 65 Analyze Toolbar 6 56 Animate 6 62 6 64 Annotate 6 26 Annulus 1 13 6 39 8 1 Anti Blooming 4 24 4 25 4 26 AO 7 4 23 6 188 6 190 AO 7 Drive Tab 6 195 AO 7 Locate Tab 6 191 AO 7 Setup Tab 6 196 AO 7 Track Tab 6 193 Aperture 1 13 6 19 6 39 Apogee 4 2 4 5 4 10 4 41 9 4 Apogee Alta 4 11 4 42 Apogee Instruments
411. on modes Off means that a single video frame is grabbed each time Expose is clicked Frame Int provides a frame integration feature whereby multiple frames are summed To integrate 10 frames set the Exposure time to 10 seconds When Expose is clicked ten frames will be grabbed and added together automatically Typically this will happen in significantly less than 10 seconds Webcam 378 selects a modified parallel port controlled integrating webcam on the parallel port address of 378 usually LPT1 Similarly the addresses 278 and 3BC are available When this is selected a frame transfer control pulse is output on the selected parallel port during the exposure This allows for on chip integration with a modified webcam We recommend lowering the frame rate to 5 frames per second when using this mode 4 37 Maxlm DL User Manual Source chooses the video source to use The selections available depend on what video hardware is installed in your computer You may have multiple selections available if there are several video sources The drop down will be empty if no video sources are available Several Live Setup features are also available For the main camera click the Camera Setup menu item on the popup menu display by the Options button on the Settings tab For the autoguider use the CCD button on the Guide tab Settings dialog When the button is clicked a pop up menu appears with various options which options appear depends on t
412. on of your calibration star before you calibrate Then reset the Declination value whenever you change guide stars If this is done you should never need to recalibrate in fact if you always insert the autoguider into the telescope in the same orientation you won t even have to bother recalibrating each night If you have a GOTO telescope you can configure the MaxIm DL to update the Declination value automatically by setting Use Scope Dec in the Options menu see the Telescope Control Tutorial for details on connecting to your telescope If you have a large amount of backlash in your mount you might want to adjust the Backlash settings Be careful not to set them too high or it will make things worse instead of better Shutdown Procedure It is a good idea to properly warm up the CCD cooler before closing MaxIm DL CCD unless you plan to restart the software 2 23 Maxlm DL User Manual To avoid thermal shock many camera controllers have a means to gradually ramp up the CCD chip to the ambient temperature This can be done using the Warm Up button on the Setup tab The period of time required for the warm up depends on the particular camera model some cameras switch off quickly while others gently raise the temperature over an extended period of time Most camera models allow you to force the cooler to switch off rapidly by clicking Cooler Off Telescope Control Tutorials Basic Control 1 The first step is to set up a tele
413. on the chip You can also manually select a different star by clicking on it The autoguider needs to be calibrated every time the telescope is repositioned unless the Declination field is in use see below 6 160 Command Reference Before calibrating ensure that the selected star is near the center of the display Select Calibrate mode and click the Start button MaxIm CCD exposes a single image and then activates the X relay for a specified time It then takes a second image and then reverses the motion of the telescope This procedure is repeated for the Y axis A total of five exposures are taken in all As each exposure is acquired the position of the star is displayed in the status window and a red line showing the history of the guide star motion is added to the current Autoguider Image window When the sequence is complete you can see the results for all five images The guide star path should be L shaped with each arm traced twice The L can be oriented at any angle but the two arms must be perpendicular to each other and should be roughly the same length the precise relationship depends on the relative speeds of two axes and their calibration times If a rectangle or other shape is drawn instead your guider cabling is probably incorrect You must rectify this before MaxIm CCD can successfully guide exposures If your mount is only capable of corrections in one axis you can disable the other axis from the Guider Settings di
414. onnncccccccnnons 5 1 FITS FILE HEADER DEFINITIONS 0 cccccccccesseeeeccccecccseseeeeceeueeseccceceseaaneecccceeseuaneees 5 1 PLANETARIUM SOFTWARE cccccccccssssssecccceccausssecccceeusssecccesseauunseeccceeeseuuneeeccceseseuaanees 5 4 ACP OBSERVATORY CONTROL SOFTWARE sssscccccececssseeccceeeccuseececcseaaesecccceeseaaanees 5 5 ASCOM DOME CONTROL PANEL sssccccceeesssseecccceeeceaseeeececeuueeseccceeessaaneeececeeseaaanees 5 5 HO CUSMIAX eii 5 6 IMAGE PROCESSING PLUG INS ccccsssssecccccecccsseeeccccceeceaeecceeesauanesecccesessaaneeeecceeeseaanaees 5 6 IMAXPOINT ws issccdiycesseasscescudetovenedenedi cedos sucenceadudoniveccdevods sddoveceecdendvousdeneds vedavaesovcenecencdees 5 7 PINPOINT FULL VERSION 00sssescucctesseessseesteeotersevescevsosessccacdeeaversdecseteedsesesssdessneeosers 5 7 CHAPTER 6 COMMAND REFERENCE cccccsssssssssscsssssssssssssssccesssssees 6 1 FICE MENU cutis 6 1 NeW e ds 6 1 ODEN iii is ridad 6 1 Combine FULES Li a At a ata 6 3 Cl A Mee e NA A A te dN AL E 6 9 AVE A A ed A deen Lea o ta te 6 9 NN TT 6 10 SAVE ALL A o a 6 11 Batch Save and Convert iccccccccccccssssecccccccccsssseccccccceeeccccsssscusseecccssseeuaessss 6 11 VAU A E tt deta 6 13 Pape Setup ani iia cia 6 13 PINES TAE AI AE ETA E IE A 6 14 DOUE ii AA AO tie 6 14 Rum SCP eee ae AAA AN e e dd 6 21 Most Recently Used File List ccccescccscccessccessecenscssnecesneecsseeceseeeesaseseeenes 6 22 XID octet ble
415. onsecutively followed by all green followed by all blue If Group by Slot is not checked MaxIm CCD will take one exposure of each color and then repeat the cycle 14 Click OK to return to the Sequence tab 15 Make sure none of Dither Images via Guider Dither Images via Mount Capture Mosaic Continue Mosaic or Astrometric Resynchronization is checked in the Options menu These are advanced features described in the reference section for the Sequence Tab 16 Turn on Overwrite Files in the Options menu This makes sure that your exposure sequence doesn t stop if you hit a pre existing file Note when operating in the field turn this off if you want to make sure you don t overwrite anything turn it on if you want to be sure your exposure sequence never stalls 17 Warning Incorrect use of the Overwrite Files setting could result in lost data 18 Select Full Frame in the Options menu If you wanted to use the subframe defined on the Settings tab you would select Subframe from Settings tab instead 19 Enter 1 in the Start at field The images will be saved as Test Image001 R fit Test Image001G fit Test Image001B fit Test Image002R fit etc 20 Now click the Start button The camera will start taking exposures You can monitor the progress on either the Sequence or Expose tab When the image sequence is complete check that all the files you expected to see were actually created Tip You can use the Sequence Wizard com
416. ontext menu The third Source region coordinates option None copy disabled prevents image cloning It is provided in case you need to inspect image statistics in the Information Window particularly when using Area mode which requires you to click and drag out the rectangle of interest Whichever cloning mode is in effect the size of the region copied is that of the aperture 6 31 Maxlm DL User Manual the innermost circle of the mouse cursor You can change this in the usual way that is by right clicking the mouse and picking an aperture adjustment from the context menu The orange source region indicator is resized simultaneously if shown Undo and Redo buttons are provided both for all copy operations and the last copy operation Each mouse click or drag on the destination image constitutes an operation Clicks on all other images are ignored except when setting the source point for offset mode Bin 2x2 The Bin 2x2 command decreases the size of an image by a factor of two in each dimension It does this by subdividing the original image into two by two blocks of pixels and computing the average of each block of four pixels the average becomes a single pixel in the new image This operation corresponds to two by two binning in a CCD camera except that a camera integrates adds the charge from each contributing pixel instead of averaging it To achieve this result use Pixel Math afterwards to scale the image up by a fact
417. ontrols set them to zero e Make sure the guide rate on the mount is between 0 1X and 1X e During calibration make sure the guide star moves in an L pattern and moves at least 10 pixels preferably 20 or more on each leg e Make sure that your mount is balanced so it is slightly heavier on the East side This may require rebalancing when you flip a German Equatorial mount over the pier e Some mounts have significant stiction on the Declination axis Stiction causes the mount to continue to move forwards briefly when you reverse directions A common solution is to disable declination corrections in one direction only You should disable the direction that pushes in the same 3 11 Maxlm DL User Manual direction as the average drift You can disable one direction using the Guide Tab Settings More Some observers even deliberately offset their polar alignment slightly to ensure a very slow drift e You can adjust the mount response in RA and Dec separately by tweaking the manual calibration parameters The number displayed is the rate of star movement during tracking in pixels per second If the axis is overcorrecting increase the number if it is undercorrecting decrease the number e Try adjusting the rate at which updates are sent to the mount Some mounts work best with multiple updates per second while others work better with a slower update rate For example LX200 mounts generally work best with a 3 second updat
418. onvolution It is a mathematical means of sharpening images which is used to restore the original appearance of an image before it was blurred by convolution Since convolution is equivalent to multiplication in the frequency domain deconvolution is equivalent to division in the frequency domain Deconvolution is more difficult to perform in practice due to the possibility of dividing by zero and the problem of noise amplification See statistical distribution A Dynamic Link Library or DLL is a Microsoft Windows file that contains executable code but cannot run on its own it can only run when loaded by another program Many Windows programs including MaxIm DL are comprised of an EXE executable program and a set of DLL components that plug into it For imaging dynamic range is the range from brightest to darkest pixel value For example a 16 bit CCD camera has a dynamic range of 0 65535 Entropy Exponential Fast Fourier Transform FFT File Formats Filter Flat Field Frame FITS Full Width Half Maximum FWHM Gain Gaussian Geometric Mean Glossary In information theory a measurement of the amount of information in a signal or image If P is the probability of a pixel value then calculate P log2 P The entropy of the image is the sum of this value for all pixels A statistical distribution Taking a Fourier Transform of an image simply converts the image into a new representation This repres
419. op cooling so the cooler controls are not enabled when this camera is in use Note When configuring this driver in the Setup tab set Main CCD Camera to STAR2K MXS and the Autoguider to Same as main camera Starlight Xpress MX7 MX7C MX9 For this driver choose SX MX7 9 on the Setup tab The Starlight Xpress MX7C MX716 and MX916 cameras connect to the PC via a standard parallel printer port These cameras are identical from a control standpoint The computer s parallel port address must be selected in Port Set Interface to Fast Parallel if the fast parallel interface option is being used otherwise select Direct The Speed Adjust is normally set to 100 but can be used to adjust the download speed of the camera Many users adjust this to the highest setting which does not corrupt the image to provide the highest download speed Note that when using the Fast Parallel Interface the adjustment inside the interface box has a greater effect on the download speed Tix D kaigh A AC METH oor AA irer Yia AU J Capai ESS O Misco Lied Es os e Caral Pai iiics Epid dd jm Miaiar biais Interrupts can be set to Disable to prevent other programs from running during the program download if other programs are interfering with the download and causing spurious noise When using this mode it is recommended to include a 1 second delay between exposures when doing rapid focus frames otherwise it may be difficult to stop the e
420. or of four If each image dimension is not an exact multiple of two the row and or column of the input image are ignored Binning is very fast but a slightly smoother result can be obtained using the Half Size command Bin 3x3 The Bin 3x3 command decreases the size of an image by a factor of three in each dimension It does this by subdividing the original image into three by three blocks of pixels and computing the average of each block of nine pixels the average becomes a single pixel in the new image This operation corresponds to three by three binning in a CCD camera except that a camera integrates adds the charge from each contributing pixel instead of averaging it To achieve this result use Pixel Math afterwards to scale the image up by a factor of nine If each image dimension is not an exact multiple of three the last one or two rows and or columns of the input image are ignored Deinterlace The Deinterlace command is intended for use on images captured from an interlaced video camera It separates the image into two frames one consisting of the even 6 32 Command Reference numbered rows and the other of the odd numbered ones The rows that were omitted from each image that is odd numbered rows from the even image and even numbered rows from the odd one are replaced by interpolating vertically from the adjoining rows In cases where the first or last line has to be replaced the second or second last line is
421. ore the exposure will begin When a sequence of images is taken this delay is added before each exposure in the sequence When the autoguider is running a minimum delay of five seconds is automatically added to allow time for the autoguider to settle before each exposure if necessary you can increase this time by setting Delay to a value greater than 5 The type of exposure can be set using the Type radio buttons Note this function is disabled if Simple Auto Dark is enabled on the Settings tab Normal exposures are usually taken using the Light setting the exposures may be automatically calibrated as determined by the Settings tab The remaining exposure types are used for taking calibration frames as such these images are not automatically calibrated The Bias frame is a minimum duration dark frame shutter closed The Dark frame is a normal exposure with the shutter closed The Flat exposure setting is used for taking flat field frames it differs from the Normal setting in that automatic calibration will not occur If the camera does not have a shutter you will be prompted to cover and uncover the aperture as required The Pause button will pause the exposure temporarily by closing the shutter and suspending the exposure timer The button will only appear if the camera supports this 6 141 Maxlm DL User Manual feature The New Buffer control forces MaxIm DL to create a new image buffer for each CCD image When this control is off
422. org for more information Equipment Setup Focus Simulator This driver simulates a focuser without one actually being present It is useful when testing scripts but can also be used when learning how to operate the MaxIm DL user interface 4 61 Maxlm DL User Manual 4 62 Chapter 5 Working With Other Software MaxIm DL is able to interoperate with other software through several means It uses standardized file formats for storing images and associated data It has an open interface architecture that allows other programs to exercise its functions and access its data It also has standardized ASCOM compliant interfaces for connecting to external equipment these can also be used to interconnect with other software FITS File Header Definitions The native file format for MaxIm DL images is FITS Flexible Image Transport System a standard widely used in the astronomical community This is an excellent choice for all types of CCD images since the format supports 16 bit and floating point data and it includes a flexible and highly extensible header Various standard and widely used non standard keywords can transfer information about the image between applications In addition public domain C source code for reading and writing FITS files is available on the web One shortcoming of the FITS standard is that the 16 bit number format is signed producing a range of 32768 to 32767 The range of data from many CCD cameras is 0
423. oroughly empties all residual charge from the sensor but takes longer Sensor Type can be set to KAF 400 or KAF 1600 to match the size of sensor in the camera No special settings are required for different versions of the sensor e g blue plus sensors The Shutter Logic control can be used to invert the polarity of the shutter driver output These cameras use open loop cooling so the cooler controls are not enabled when this camera is in use Cookbook CB245 For this driver choose CB245 on the Setup tab A al l LESS k A pd 0 Cert e 2000 2004 D Phos ad Ex A oe Cac Lora iaei E Das Maniar Dirrolap irg LOCA Pai AAA ES E lA e O ie 1 Co The parallel port address must be entered in Port The Base Resolution determines the binning used on the horizontal axis when 1x1 binning is selected The options are 252 378 and 756 The vertical axis is always at 242 Each of these modes can also be binned 4 14 Equipment Setup 2x2 via the Focus or Settings tab On chip Binning controls whether the binning is performed on chip analog or off chip digital When in analog mode as much of the binning operation as possible is performed on chip however depending on the Base Resolution and binning settings some part of the binning operation may be done off chip This is due to restrictions caused by the CCD sensor s readout structure Unlike the DOS Cookbook software off chip binning is not rescaled and
424. ost noise you may want to restrict the range operated on by the filter Usually bright areas have higher signal to noise ratios so you may want to restrict the filter so it only operates on the midrange or brighter parts of the image Digital Development Processing This process is intended to simulate the photographic development process on digitally recorded images The algorithm simultaneously applies a combination unsharp mask and a gamma correction to the image producing two important effects an edge emphasis and a non linear stretch The resulting image has a more natural appearance similar to what is achieved with conventional film or what can be perceived visually This function works very well on many types of astronomical images such as galaxies Special Purpose Filters 3 40 The Rotational Gradient filter is intended for use on objects which are mostly circularly symmetrical to extract detail from non symmetric features A typical application is highlighting jets from the core of a galaxy or a comet nucleus By changing the angle of the filter you can emphasize details with differing angular size The Local Adaptive filter sharpens fine details in areas of the image that have low contrast It is particularly good at extracting subtle detail in planetary images however it can also cause excessive noise amplification so it should be used with care Median filtering can strongly remove outlier pixels such as hot pixels H
425. othing COONS nae e E E E E E EE EEE ER ae 3 44 MOSAICOS vd 3 44 A O A A OE 3 45 BLOOM REMOVAL ce ea 3 45 DEINTERLACE A ot a AA AS A See Chase a 3 46 BINNING AND RESIZING 000ccccccccccsssseeccccecccaeseeecccauueseecccceeseuueeeccccsessauaseececessesauaness 3 46 DECONVOLUTION ooo a A aa aida 3 46 BAS EE RE des daaecaouigivedacsasdassccaveagsuagavaeeisauedavensddssasaaads 3 47 Point Spread FUnctions ccccccccessccsesceseseeseseecesseceseneessseeceseecesaeeesneeesaeees 3 47 NOISE Models A A 3 49 CONVET SENG Oise rl O OE E as 3 50 Stopping Criteria cita ide 3 50 General Recommendati0NS oooocccnccnnnonananinnnnnonanananaconononnnnncoccnnnannnanicinnns 3 50 ASTROMETR Yair ii 3 51 Telescope Control BenefitS oooooonnnconooninonancnnanononnnnonnn conan conan nc ranccrananinnnos 3 52 PHOTOMETRY eii 3 52 EXPORTING IMAGES soci AEE A ESERE 3 53 TIPS FOR PUBLIC PRESENTATION occcccnnnooocccnnnnnnnnnonocccnnnnnnnnnnncnnnnnnnnoccnnnnnnnnnnnncccnnnnnnnnnns 3 53 CHAPTER 4 EQUIPMENT SETUP csssssssssccccsssscsssscccsssssssssssscssesssses 4 1 DRIVER INSTALLATION AND SETUP marere erret aisant ens nana e a AE E E E EE 4 1 Telescopes Focusers and Domes nsssssoosssesssseesssseesseeesssersssssseressseresseee 4 1 CCD Cameras and Autoguiders oooooonnocinnoccnonnnnananonnn conan conan nc conan nora ncnnnnoo 4 1 PUTER Ml iio ave 4 4 PLUG IN CAMERA AND FILTER WHEEL DRIVERS oocccccccnononoocccnnnnnnnnnonoccnnnnnnonoconnnnnnnnnns 4 6 A
426. ottom of the submenu under Set Tracking Log This is for information only and clicking on this menu entry has no effect Guider Settings 6 164 This section describes the first of the two pages comprising the Guider Settings tabbed dialog which is activated from the Options button menu of the Guide tab Command Reference The X Axis and Y Axis fields work identically Normally X Axis refers to the Right Ascension drive and Y Axis refers to the Declination axis however this depends on the exact wiring between the autoguider and telescope controller Note that the direction of the X and Y axis on the screen may not correlate with these directions depending on the orientation of the camera Cal Time is used to set up calibration The value entered here indicates the time in seconds that the motors are actuated during calibration The calibration sequence actuates the motors for this period of time measures the displacement of the star image then reverses the motors for the same period of time This must be set large enough for the guide star to move a sufficient distance during calibration 10 20 pixels is recommended but not so far that it leaves the guide window The Backlash control is used to run out backlash in the drive motors Enter the time in seconds to actuate the relay to run out the backlash Whenever the motor direction reverses this time is added to the correction This is usually not necessary on the telescope
427. ou cannot change the size of the processing rectangle to change its size first re initialize by clicking Undo 6 117 Maxlm DL User Manual whereupon Status will show the iteration count as zero To start deconvolving enter the Number of Iterations to perform and click Go The progress bar will start moving and the Status display will report on the progress If an image subset is being processed the framing rectangle is redrawn in green to indicate it is no longer draggable this is necessary since a given series of iterations must work on a consistent part of the image Deconvolution is interruptible only at the end of each iteration If you want to stop click the Stop button and wait until the current iteration completes Once stopped you can reset to the initial conditions by clicking Undo or resume the interrupted run by clicking Go again perhaps after modifying the desired Number of Iterations Once you are satisfied with the results of a preliminary run click Undo to return to the original image and reset the iteration count which will allow you to change to Full Image mode When only a subset of an image has been deconvolved a Cancel button appears warning you that closing the dialog will automatically restore the original image If you really want an image of which only a part has been deconvolved click the Save permitted checkbox to show the OK button in place of Cancel Clicking this will terninate the deconvolution dialog w
428. ou do not require Visual Basic to create or run scripts VBScript code is run by the Windows Scripting Host which is included in Windows 98 ME NT 4 0 and 2000 and later versions of Windows 95 Similarly JScript looks like Java code JScript is run by the very same Windows Scripting Host that runs VBScript Deciding which version to use is simply a matter of user preference VBScript and JScript allow you to write simple scripts using only the Notepad text editor and run by double clicking them in the Explorer or using MaxIm DL s Run Script command Full documentation on the scripting languages is available for download please see http www msdn microsoft com scripting Sample Scripts In VBScript you can take a picture as follows Dim cam The Camera object Set cam CreateObject MaxIm CCDCamera 7 1 Maxlm DL User Manual cam LinkEnabled True if Not cam LinkEnabled Then Console PrintLine Failed to start camera Quit End If wscript echo Camera is ready Exposing cam Expose 1 1 O Do While Not cam ImageReady Loop cam Savelmage Script fit wscript echo Exposure is done Image saved as Script fit If you want to try this just copy the above code into a text file named test vbs You can edit the file with Notepad Double click on the file to run it An improved version would use the ASCOM utility object Util WaitForMilliseconds to add a slight time delay inside the wait loop This would
429. ou to select the Line Width Text Caption for text annotations and rulers the Font and Font size for text annotations and rulers and the Ruler Properties To add a new ruler click the arrow button Pl and select Add This brings up the Ruler Properties dialog box You can set the Ruler Name which will appear in the drop list You also need to set a Caption which can be different from the name a Length pixels and the number of Divisions tics on the ruler To delete a ruler select it with the drop list click the arrow button and select Delete To edit an existing ruler select it with the drop list click the arrow button and select Edit Command Reference Flip The Flip command reverses the image top to bottom Mirror The Mirror command reverses the image left to right Rotate Left The Rotate Left command rotates the image 90 degrees to the left counter clockwise Rotate Right The Rotate Left command rotates the image 90 degrees to the right clockwise Rotate 180 The Rotate 180 command rotates the image 180 degrees This is exactly equivalent to two Rotate Left commands two Rotate Right commands or a Flip followed by a Mirror Rotate The Rotate command allows you to rotate an image by an arbitrary Angle clockwise CW or counter clockwise CCW The image must be resampled unless the angle is a multiple of 90 degrees this can either be done as a bilinear resample or a Bicubic resample Bicubic tak
430. ound level pixels Pixels close to the center of energy are replaced according to a model of the star s line profile averaged in several different directions If the center of energy was not correctly located the result can be a slightly bloated star The example image of NGC6888 shown above illustrates a poor central energy position In addition its bounding box is arguably a couple of pixels too wide The Resize command allows you to change the size and or aspect ratio of an image When No Constraint is selected the image can be enlarged or shrunk by typing in new values Width and Height Upon pressing the Enter key or clicking Update the new physical dimensions of the pixels will be displayed nominally the pixel dimensions are measured in microns Alternatively new pixel dimensions can be entered and the Width and Height will be updated This allows you to directly change the aspect ratio of the image Command Reference If an image has non square pixel dimensions selecting Make Pixels Square will force the pixel dimensions to square By default one image axis will be enlarged and the other will be left as is You can simultaneously scale the image by modifying the Width or Height and pressing Enter the other dimension will update to reflect the change 17 gos Piaski Espa F Pu pad Fado FT Fin Cosdrt forced Cursar imaga Soe aeri Pos mann id BEE H ME Hegi lind Y Mw Hew beso Sre few Peet Deer we hig E Pha Ha
431. ounded by background The images are shifted so as to bring the centroids of their disks into coincidence No rotation or scaling is performed The Reject and Set As Reference buttons are available in planetary mode and work as previously described To determine if the results are satisfactory click the Overlay All Images button to produce a preview Overlay This mode is useful when no clear registration points are visible such as planetary images with indistinct features You must first set one of the images as the reference image Look through the images using the Next Image and Previous Image buttons Pick an image and click the Set As Reference button in many cases the first image can be used Next move to another image using the Next Image or Previous Image button This image will be overlaid on the reference image with the reference in magenta and the new image in green The Overlay Controls can now be used to adjust the position of the image to match the reference There are four shift buttons with up down left and right arrows There are also two rotation buttons with rotate clockwise right and rotate counterclockwise left arrows Each time you click a button the image moves The distance moved is controlled by the Nudge Size pixels control With these controls you can position an overlaid image to a fraction of a pixel In order to use the rotation buttons you must first pick a rotation point This is the point that
432. ow is a helpful tool in this regard ual Moar Teorey mei es HE 3 ton T pa tan 15 00 3 pm TE Mavis wx Sah 00 Dpi Esta Hah 5 math bE T dienai decia Hasc Paser M pms D Duas iea on 5 Conds ji em 3 oc pps The Mosaic Geometry is defined as a rectangle of W tiles wide by H tiles high with the tiles separated by Spacing arc min The spacings across and down the mosaic are independently specified in order to accommodate cameras with a significantly non square aspect ratio Do not set the Spacing values to the actual horizontal and vertical field of view of the camera on your telescope you must allow sufficient overlap to permit you to accurately align the tiles with each other later on using star patterns or other features in the area of mutual coverage For cameras with non square CCDs the horizontal and vertical spacings must take into account the camera s orientation with respect to the grid of RA and declination camera rotation You can specify the pattern in which the mosaic rectangle is built up during image acquisition using the eight possible settings for Direction in conjunction with the Alternating directions check box Direction always indicates a pair of directions the first giving the primary or fastest moving axis as well as its preferred sense the second the secondary For example in the figure above East to West North to South means that successive tiles will be to the west of the
433. owever it also has a strong low pass effect and is a non linear filter severe artifacts can result if used improperly such as using it with Pixel Math to do an unsharp mask A better approach for outlier pixels is to repair just those pixels There are several approaches One is to use the Kernel Filter hot dead pixel removal filters which detect Guide to CCD Imaging and replace bad pixels with the average of the surrounding pixels They are very effective and only affect pixels that exceed the threshold so their overall effect is much better than a median filter A similar effect is achieved using the Remove Bad Pixels command which does the replacement using a map of known bad pixels The best method is to take a series of exposures and dither the camera position slightly between each exposure MaxIm DL can automatically dither using the autoguider telescope control or AO 7 control You then combine the images using median Sigma Clip or SD Mask combine This very effectively suppresses hot pixels without artificially substituting pixels Color Processing All image processing functions work on both monochrome and color images This section describes some additional processing commands for color images and some special considerations that apply when working with color images Creating Color Images Color images may be created from filtered black and white images using the Combine Color command The simplest and b
434. p tilt mirror Remove the AO 7 camera combination from the telescope and look at the tip tilt mirror When this function is activated the mirror will repeatedly move between the four extreme positions The X Axis and or the Y Axis can be tested independently and the time spent while stationary in milliseconds at each extreme can be varied with the Speed setting All these settings can be changed while the AO 7 is exercising 6 197 Chapter 7 Scripting MaxIm DL provides an ActiveX Automation interface for scripting and externally controlling the CCD camera operations Some simple sample scripts are included on the distribution disk ActiveX is a platform independent method for linking different applications together ActiveX can be accessed from just about any standard scripting or programming language including VBScript JScript Java Perl Visual Basic Visual C etc Using ActiveX you can even control MaxIm DL from Excel spreadsheet macros MaxIm DL is compliant with ASCOM scripting This allows it to operate with a wide variety of astronomical software products such as planetarium programs telescope control software and dome control systems Sample scripts are available for downloading from the ASCOM web page http ascom standards org Scripting Languages The most commonly used scripting languages on the Windows platform are VBScript and JScript VBScript looks like a simplified version of Visual Basic thus the name but y
435. pixel may be much brighter than the surrounding pixels even after dark frame subtraction This can occur at random because of the extra noise produced in the pixel by the high dark current The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers IEEE has many different standards for electronics and computers One of these is a standard for the format of floating point numbers numbers with decimal fractions stored on computers Most modern computers use IEEE floating point format Images in MaxIm DL are stored in Image Buffers which are displayed on the screen in image windows A kernel filter works by applying a kernel matrix to every pixel in the image The kernel contains multiplication factors to be applied to the pixel and its neighbors Once all the values have been multiplied the pixel is replaced with the sum of the products By choosing different kernels different types of filtering can be applied To reduce the file size on disk images are often compressed Lossless compression algorithms reduce the size without throwing out any information Lossy compression algorithms throw away some data in order to make the files even smaller JPEG compression is lossy whereas MaxIm DL s proprietary FITS compression is lossless A basic mathematical operation A base 10 logarithm function converts 100 to 3 10 to 2 and to 1 The stellar magnitude scale uses a logarithm of base 0 4 A statistical distribution based on the logar
436. please go to www cyanogen com support If you do not have web access then you can submit by fax at 613 225 9688 Upgrades are available free of charge from our web site for a period of one year from the date of purchase Manual Conventions In the text Menus commands keys and controls will be highlighted in bold Click the mouse always means left click unless otherwise stated SHIFT click means press and hold the Shift key while clicking the mouse CTRL click means press and hold the CTRL key while clicking the mouse Drag the mouse means click the mouse and move it while holding the button depressed Release the mouse button when the desired effect has been achieved brightness adjustment rectangle drawing etc When describing keyboard operations CTRL key always means press and hold the CTRL key while pressing the designated key Chapter 2 Tutorials We strongly recommend that the user read through the tutorials They provide a basic introduction to MaxIm DL operations including things that may not be entirely obvious to a new user at first glance The sample images used are available in C Program Files Diffraction Limited MaxIm DL V4 Samples assuming default installation folder Image Processing Tutorials These tutorials provide a basic introduction to image processing including opening an image file adjusting brightness and contrast filtering stretching histogram specification and saving The Adju
437. ppia PEI Dkn Lied ANDES Cer oe Canc Coney cd P iniia 5 7 5 IA a F a Laa Coat Ta Ep Chon Gade Ch fees 7 Jun reo This driver supports the Santa Barbara Instrument Group ST 7 ST 8 ST 9E ST 10E and ST 2000 cameras For parallel port cameras select the parallel port address in Connect To For USB cameras select USB For Ethernet connection select Ethernet and enter the correct IP Address for the camera The IP Address is ignored when connecting to a parallel port or USB camera Swap Chips when activated reverses the main sensor and autoguider sensor The Guide Chip setting only affects the ST L camera It is used to select whether the built in guide chip is used for guiding or the separate guider head that comes with the ST L Other cameras which only have the built in chip ignore it Important Note Some cameras use a TC 237 guide sensor instead of the original TC 211 guide sensor These sensors have much smaller pixels it is strongly recommended to operate these sensors at 2x2 binning When using the integrated autoguider set the autoguider to Same as main camera A set of Advanced settings are also available for the camera These settings can be changed using the camera setup dialog before connecting or changed while connected using the Options button on the Settings tab of the CCD Control Window Guider ABG affects the anti blooming control for the autoguider CCD only Anti blooming for the main C
438. print a topic and select options Help on individual dialog fields can also be obtained using the button within the dialog This brings up so called What s This help Check For Updates Selecting this command will open your web browser to a special page on the Diffraction Limited website Opening this page will check and see what version of MaxIm DL is currently installed and whether or not an upgrade is available If an upgrade is available you will be given the option of downloading and installing it Enter License The Enter License command opens the User Registration dialog allowing you to enter your licensing information When you purchase a copy of MaxIm DL you will receive an email containing the user name and email address that you provided to us the expiration date of your software and the serial number that will activate your copy of Maxim DL Entering this information will update your MaxIm DL license changing the expiration date and potentially the license type When Maxim DL is first installed this dialog is displayed and you must enter a valid license before proceeding However the license entered can be a temporary or a demo license both types of licenses are for evaluation of the software before purchasing as well as a permanent license If you decide to purchase MaxIm DL the User Registration dialog is used to enter the permanent license received at the time of sale The dialog is also used to renew permanen
439. pty Specify the Exposure time in seconds and the image Binning factor sequenced exposures are taken with equal X and Y binnings even if the camera permits them to be different Set the Repeat count to the number of exposures of this slot to be acquired during a sequence When a mosaic is being imaged this count applies to each position tile in the mosaic The Script field displays the name of a Windows Script Host script typically written in VBScript or JavaScript that will be executed every time the exposure specified by the slot completes To set this field click the corresponding button to its right and browse to the desired folder and script When the script is executed it is passed the filename of the image that has just been acquired including the full path as a parameter In addition you can set Delay first the number of seconds to delay before starting the exposure sequence This is useful if you need to do something manually after starting the sequence before the shutter opens e g move to manual guiding eyepiece You can also set Delay between to enforce a delay between each exposure in the sequence Note that a minimum delay of five seconds is automatically inserted if the autoguider is running MaxIm CCD computes the estimated time for the entire sequence from the exposure times and repeat counts and these two delays and displays it in Duration s However this is just a lower bound as it does not include the time to c
440. py of the selected image to be created All image parameters will be identical except that no file will be associated with the new image Annotate 6 26 Images can be annotated with Lines Points Boxes Circles Ellipses Crosshairs Text and Rulers Select the appropriate type of annotation and draw on the image using the mouse Command Reference Select the annotation s shape by clicking one of the eight push buttons The available shapes are Line Point Circle Ellipse Crosshair Text and Ruler The shape associated with each push button is given below Point Line SI Box 2 Circle al Ellipse AN Crosshair AlText Ruler If the image is monochrome then the Colorize button E will be enabled Clicking this button will transform the current image buffer from a monochrome image to a color image The resulting color image will appear the same as the monochrome image with all three color channels set the same values as the input image Once the image is changed to color the button is disabled The Color button H5 l is enabled for both monochrome and color images Clicking it displays a color palette that allows you 3 to select the color of the next shape to be placed into the image If the image is monochrome the palette contains a series of shades of grey if it is color the palette contains a selection of colors The Custom selection is only available for color images Clicking it will display a standard Windows co
441. r a description of these values please see the previous section discussing the Aperture mode Command Reference Area This mode displays statistics for a rectangular region of the image The default is to show data for the entire image but an area can be selected by holding the left mouse button down while dragging on the image This will draw a rectangle on the image the statistics data now applies to the region inside the rectangle Note that the rectangular region can be moved and resized with the mouse Grab it with the mouse in the middle of a side to reposition it or at a corner to resize it Licda ae xj rais 2 17 H 170 304 D g Wa hubs Pek un Hee Geen His Hear me rh Hoes Seen SEE ee F MAR Fadler 110 1207 AE The displayed values include Maximum and Minimum pixel values Average pixel value and standard deviation Std Dev The Diagonal size of the box in pixels is shown which allows you to measure distances on the frame and the total Number of Pixels included in the box is also displayed When Display in Arcsec is checked the Diagonal Size is displayed in arc seconds instead of pixels The Calibrate section below describes how to set up the arc seconds display Astrometric The Astrometric mode uses the included PinPoint LE light edition Engine or the full edition if installed This powerful analysis tool can be used for extremely precise measurements of star positions in the sky Astrometric analysis works b
442. r this driver choose FLI 1 Gen on the Setup tab SS Tx go Lobes tid pr air era B areae bas EE AOBA FIA aad D Picar Liai Ez mi Yer Lb m Correa cae Fu tia gt CU Pod Paai Peat Coda Coane x on 7 T s r x Older Finger Lakes Instrumentation parallel port CCD cameras are supported by this driver including Dream Machine and MaxCam series Some older parallel port cameras may require you to use this driver instead of the newer standard ones Please note that you may need to update your FLI driver installation in order for this interface to work even if older software functions with your camera New drivers may be downloaded from http fli cam com You may need to run both FLIDriverInstall and Equipment Setup the FLI Windows Update Utility Very old cameras may require both a COM Port and a Parallel Port Normally just a parallel port is required in this case set COM Port to None Be sure to select the correct Parallel Port address Select Guider Control to Yes if the camera will be used as an autoguider In this mode the shutter is held open and the guider relay outputs are enabled Note USB and Ethernet cameras use the standard Finger Lakes Instruments driver HiSIS 22 For this driver choose HiSIS 22 on the Setup tab SS si Lo Piyari The HiSIS 22 camera requires only the selection of a parallel port address The camera does not have temperature regulated cooler control the cooler power leve
443. r use Same As Main Camera if you wish to use the Guide or Focus tab functions with the guide sensor when the AO 7 is not running For parallel port cameras select the parallel port address in Connect To For USB cameras select USB For Ethernet connection select Ethernet and enter the correct IP Address for the camera The IP Address is ignored when connecting to a parallel port or USB camera The download Priority can be adjusted Very High will ensure that no lines appear in the image due to readout delays but may make it difficult to operate the mouse 4 23 Maxlm DL User Manual Guider ABG turns on off the anti blooming gate for the autoguider sensor turning it on reduces blooming if the sensor saturates but decreases sensitivity slightly Normally it is left off Setting Binning Mode to Off chip is useful when a non anti blooming CCD chip is installed When enabled it causes any binning to be performed after the CCD chip has been read normally binning is done inside the CCD chip before readout Selecting this option results in slightly higher readout noise but greatly reduces blooming This control has no effect for anti blooming CCD chips and has no effect for 1 1 binning You can also set Binning Mode to Spectroscopy In this mode the main sensor can be binned Nx1 to Nx3 where N ranges from 1 to 255 Important Note Some cameras use a TC 237 guide sensor instead of the original TC 211 guide sensor These sensors have much
444. r window on and off also found on the View toolbar SL Zoom In zooms in by factors of 2 limit of 1600 also found on the View toolbar 6 53 Maxlm DL User Manual File Edit 6 54 L Zoom Out zooms out by factors of 2 limit of 25 also found on the View toolbar E Zoom set any arbitrary zoom level from 6 25 to 1600 ail Help activates context sensitive help Note that help on individual dialog controls is obtained using the 2 button within the dialog The commands on the File toolbar are listed below click on the icon for more information New create a new file al Open open a file E Combine Files combine multiple files with optional automatic or manual image alignment Close close the currently selected window Close All close all image windows ll Save save a file activates Save As dialog if the file does not yet exist EE Save As save an image to disk always requesting the filename of the destination EX Save All save all images that have been modified requesting filenames when necessary Batch Save and Convert save selected images and or convert existing files to a new format Revert reload the last saved version of the currently selected window amp Page Setup select paper size page orientation and margins for printed output E Print print the currently selected image Cy Settings configure program look and feel data format
445. rall noise level A median calculation produces an RMS noise level about 25 higher than that when averaging but combining more calibration frames can compensate for this Flat field frames are normalized prior to the median calculation so as to compensate for any change in overall illumination levels The Sigma Clip and SD Mask settings attempt to provide the benefits of both Median and Average but require more intensive calculations These algorithms require additional settings which are discussed below The Dark Frame Scaling mode allows you to select one of several dark frame scaling 6 77 Maxlm DL User Manual 6 78 modes The available modes are Auto Scale applicable to FITS and SBIG format files only Auto Optimize Manual and None The Scale Factor is entered as a multiplication factor to be applied to the dark frame Auto Optimize is particularly useful for non temperature regulated cameras If Apply To All is checked then any change to the group settings excluding the addition or removal of files will be propagated to all of the groups Normally these settings affect only the currently selected group Instead of creating the groups and adding files to them manually the Set Calibration command provides the ability to automatically divide a set of images into appropriate groups by clicking the Auto Generate button The Source Folder will be scanned and any FITS images present will be divided into groups containing images wit
446. ram Version 3 from DC 3 Dreams http ACP3 dc3 com integrates with MaxIm DL to provide completely automated observing The optional built in web server supports browser based Internet astronomy ACP3 exposes a telescope object that MaxIm DL can link to This allows MaxIm DL to control the telescope through ACP retrieve RA Dec information for the FITS header etc This option only appears if ACP3 is installed Desktop Universe This option is available if Desktop Universe planetarium software is installed on your system Desktop Universe is the first planetarium program to show the entire sky as actual images instead of as a plotted chart When using this driver first connect Desktop Universe to the telescope then connect MaxIm DL CCD to Desktop Universe The user may then control and monitor the telescope from either package This allows the simultaneous use of MaxIm DL CCD features such as Auto Center with the extensive catalog lookup features of Desktop Universe MaxPoint Telescope Hub MaxPoint is a tool for modeling telescope mount errors and correcting them It connects between MaxIm DL CCD or other ASCOM compliant software and the telescope As commands are sent to the telescope MaxPoint corrects the position to account for errors in polar alignment optical tube alignment non perpendicular axes flexure etc ml 15 door Dr E Ge Ta Link Tiaras Tala Local GT Cera kita ised Ha be e ioe A A AS E A Re ea Meal u HT TAE
447. rast is to use the Quick Stretch control This method gives instant updates as the mouse is dragged and is particularly 2 3 Maxlm DL User Manual 2 4 fast for monochrome images The Quick Stretch control is the shaded box at the upper right of the Screen Stretch dialog box Point the mouse at the Quick Stretch box and press and hold the left mouse button down The mouse cursor changes to a four arrows shape You can now adjust the image contrast and brightness as follows e Move the mouse upwards to increase brightness e Move the mouse downwards to decrease brightness e Move the mouse right to increase contrast e Move the mouse left to decrease contrast Al k Aja a hierar Marea m i This function is also available without using the Screen Stretch window Simply point the mouse at any image window Hold down the shift key then press and hold the left mouse button down You can now make the same adjustments described above Manual Controls Adjustments can also be made by adjusting the position of the pointers along the bottom of the histogram Click and drag the Green caret pointer under the histogram image This controls the brightness level that corresponds to full white on the screen i e the maximum output level Drag it right or left when it is dropped the image will update with the new settings The Maximum field also updates to show you the corresponding brightness level in the image The Red car
448. rate any matching exposure taken with the same camera Exposure compensation can also be used if an exact match is not available use Auto Scale which adjusts the scaling based on exposure time If you enter multiple sets of calibration frames into MaxIm DL it will automatically choose the frames that best match the exposure conditions Some users just take a single set of long dark frame exposures and use the exposure compensation feature for shorter light exposures Most CCD cameras are highly linear so this technique can work very well Flat Field Frame Calibration 3 30 Each pixel in the CCD camera has a slightly different sensitivity to light These sensitivity differences add another noise component to the image known as flat fielding error unless steps are taken to compensate While flat fielding correction is important for achieving good quality images it is absolutely essential for accurate photometric measurements With a bright sky background any pixel to pixel variations in sensitivity are imprinted Guide to CCD Imaging into the image the more sensitive pixels show up as brighter dots Unless you have a space telescope you will always have sky glow natural atmospheric emissions ensure some sky glow even at prime observing sites When long exposures are used to detect extremely faint objects much fainter than the sky glow the ultimate sensitivity limit is determined by how precisely the flat fielding error can be remove
449. re is sufficient for all filter positions Blue filters are often problematic since they tend to have the lowest transmission and this is further compounded by those cameras that are not very blue sensitive The Tracking Error Graph is a resizable window that shows the recent history of the guiding errors in one or both axes and is described in its own section The Tracking Error Alarms command displays a dialog that lets you set up an alarm to warn you if the guiding error becomes larger than a limit you set or if the guide star fades out e g due to clouds It is described in its own section w Disabled Enabled Get Tracking Lag Track lo gt A Tracking Log is an ASCII text file containing a record of the times measurements and corrections made during tacking To output a tracking log select the Enabled command from the Tracking Log submenu Select the folder and filename for the log file by clicking on Set Tracking Log navigating to the desired folder entering a name in the File Name and clicking Open The first time you start guiding in a new session of MaxIm DL the log file will be cleared Each time you start the guider again new data is appended onto the end of the file The file is only open while writing You can turn off logging by clicking Disabled If you reenable logging during the same 6 163 Maxlm DL User Manual MaxIm DL session without selecting a new log file data will be appended to the old one You
450. re of only 10 seconds 4 Use the telescope hand paddle or a software control panel to move the image If you insert the camera so that North is at the top you can orient the paddle to match Calibrate yourself by seeing how far a count of five will move the image You can then position the object just by holding down a button and counting Note that RA and Dec will generally have different rates 5 Once you re aimed switch over to the Expose tab and take pictures Note that some cameras have an optional high speed mode which takes less time to download but produces a lower quality image Depending on the camera this can be enabled in the camera s Setup dialog box If enabled fast readout will occur automatically in Focus mode but not in Expose mode You will also want to look at the Telescope Control window If you have a Go To telescope mount this control can make centering objects quick and painless Taking Exposures Basic Now that we have the target object focused and in our camera s field of view it is time to take some images CCD cameras can collect a usable image in only 30 or 60 seconds but the best results are always obtained by taking longer exposures 1 First check your settings Bring up the Settings tab A Ha Espora Deleg Segane Fran iipaci Guede Setup Sii Lan Top iateth Hsghi pa ap a fa la Y Bra OS si E a E Maa Oar b ee Botr cda 2 Click the Reset button to make sure the
451. re reversing then we can try the backlash adjustment in MaxIm DL Don t worry about RA backlash the sidereal tracking eliminates that Only Dec matters the Y direction if your guider cable is wired normally Watch the star in the eyepiece and time with a stopwatch if possible how long it takes for the star to reverse Enter that value in seconds less 1 2 second for safety into the backlash setting If you put in too high a number guiding will utterly fail it is way better to use zero than too much If you find that the guider works properly in one part of the sky but poorly elsewhere check that your balance isn t causing you trouble Also consider using the Declination compensation feature instead of recalibrating the guider for every exposure be sure to set Pier Flip if you flip the mount to the opposite 9 9 Maxlm DL User Manual side from which it was calibrated 22 If you are finding the guiding inaccurate try adjusting the Aggressiveness If this does not work try increasing or decreasing the guider update rate easiest method is to adjust exposure time Some mounts work best with multiple updates per second while others work better with a slower update rate Losmandy mounts like fast updates whereas LX200 Classic mounts tend to prefer a 3 second cycle time Filter Wheel Troubleshooting Problems with filter wheels are relatively rare Most filter wheels connect via a serial port or a particular manufacturer
452. reated by a perfect point source such as a star The spot size can be calculated with the following formula assuming a wavelength of 550 nm spot size microns 1 38 f ratio If you adjust the focal ratio so that the spot size is at least twice the pixel size you will have adequate sampling Matching Large Optics The effects of seeing the random star motion caused by atmospheric turbulence increases the practical spot size for larger instruments In this case the seeing disk in arc seconds and the focal length are the important parameters You can calculate the size of a pixel in arc seconds using the following formula pixel size arc seconds 206 pixel size microns focal length mm The result can be quickly estimated by rounding off the constant in the equation to 200 For example suppose a camera with a Kodak KAFO0401 sensor which has a pixel size of 9 microns is attached to a telescope with a focal length of 2000 mm The pixel size is 9 200 2000 0 9 arc seconds For long exposure astronomical imaging at most sites the seeing disk is often up to 3 4 arc seconds across Typically an image scale of 1 2 arc seconds per pixel is optimal At superior sites you can use 0 5 arc seconds per pixel however imaging at this level requires excellent optical quality and a very stable mounting or a high speed tip tilt 3 13 Maxlm DL User Manual guider such as the SBIG AO 7 Planetary Imaging The short exposure
453. rectly to a particular image The name of the object will appear in Current Image this is retrieved from the OBJECT keyword in the FITS header Several options are available Flip New Images and or Mirror New Images can be set to reorient new images to match the other side of the pair If the two images are at the same scale Auto Blink will cause them to be auto aligned and blinked You must close the Blink dialog box manually before using any other controls on the search control esperare serch mi e plies Elie A A E F ae Mes inge Bere 0 Mi Ci iaa a lyk ae AA PGCE PA Get POSS will launch Internet Explorer and command it to retrieve the Palomar Optical Sky Survey image for the selected object The object name must appear in Current Image for this to work The control sets the fields in the web page and starts the retrieval process automatically In similar fashion Recent SN will launch a web page showing all recent supernova discoveries and Minor Planets will launch another web site to search for nearby minor planets that might be masquerading as supernovae Re shoot will save the After image in the Reshoots directory for follow up Flip After and Mirror After provide a quick way to manually flip images if they are in the wrong orientation Blink will auto align the images and start the Animate tool operating you must manually close the Animate tool before continuing CO aj Bink Inderal ns PES Format fa PO
454. red a very simple and effective technique for polar alignment Using a planetarium program create a chart of the area around the pole north or 3 4 Guide to CCD Imaging south Make sure that the proper pole location is labeled on the chart Next do a rough polar alignment and then take a 60 second CCD image of the pole Halfway through the exposure rotate the telescope about the RA axis as far as it will go Move it just fast enough to complete the arc in 30 seconds You will create an image with the stars clearly visible plus a set of near circular arcs centered on the position of the telescope s pole You can now easily see the difference in position between the telescope s polar axis and the correct pole location In fact you can measure this distance in X and Y using the Information window and get a very accurate number Now adjust the mount by that distance tip set a rapid binned exposure mode and watch the stars move as you adjust After one or two iterations you have an extremely accurate polar alignment PolarAlignMax This is a new method from Larry Weber and Steve Brady the inventors of the Half Flux Diameter focus measurement technique and the free FocusMax utility It uses several images taken across a region of the sky The rotation of the fields is measured using the PinPoint astrometric engine From there calculations are performed to determine the location of the telescope s axis compared to the proper pole loc
455. region for background measurements is also fully adjustable This allows you to include the total light from a star and pick the best region for use for the background measurement A detailed explanation of photometry is beyond the scope of this manual A good place to start for further research is the American Association of Variable Star Observers http www aavso org Exporting Images If you wish to display your images on a web site you will need to export to an image such as JPEG which has limited dynamic range In such a case it is necessary to stretch the image so that it will appear correctly when output in that format and later loaded into another application The Process menu Stretch command allows you to perform such a stretch by defining the desired output range For most formats the 8 bit setting is appropriate Normally the Input Range is set to Screen Stretch the Output Range is set to 8 bit 0 255 and the Permanent Stretch Type is set to Linear Only Setting the Input Range to Screen Stretch tells MaxIm DL to use the values from the Screen Stretch window for the stretch When OK is clicked the image buffer will look exactly the same but the pixel values will now range from 0 to 255 The image can now be saved as a TIFF JPEG BMP or PNG image and it will be stretched properly when loaded into another application Tips for Public Presentation With the widespread availability of computer video projectors public pre
456. res no actual hardware It generates an image of five stars and includes the ability to add random noise to the image It can simulate the behavior of an autoguider including simulating periodic error random drift and guiding corrections It also simulates the operation of a color filter wheel The CCD camera simulator emulates a dual chip camera similar to the SBIG ST 7 series The operation is identical if you are using separate CCD cameras for the main imager and autoguider You can also configure the same single chip CCD camera to be both the autoguider and main camera however only one of the functions expose or autoguide is available at a time This can be handy when focusing the autoguider Basic Setup 1 Start MaxIm DL and open the camera control window by clicking on the toolbar button 2 12 Tutorials Ha Epia Got Segre Fonsi migas Gude Esto On ji Filas wal Esa fio Fates Te a 2 Move the MaxIm CCD camera control window to a convenient location on the screen To do this point the mouse at the title bar click and hold the left mouse button and drag 3 The Setup tab should appear first if it is not displayed click on the Setup tab near the upper right corner of the window 4 Select Simulator for the Main CCD camera by clicking on the associated Setup button and picking Simulator for the Camera Model Also set Noise to Off Guide Errors to Both FWHM to Default 5 and Guide
457. resented in turn the user simply clicks on a particular star or other recognizable feature in each image In order to speed up the process turn on the Auto Next check box Every time the mouse is clicked on the image the next image will automatically be displayed When the first registration point has been set on each image the computer will beep and the first image will be displayed again Move to a second star and repeat the process until the computer beeps a second time The Star 1 and Star 2 buttons will toggle to show you which point is being set If Auto Next is not being used or you want to change a single registration point use the Star 1 or Star 2 button to control which reference point is being changed You can move through the images using the Next Image and Previous Image buttons One of the images can be set as the reference image using the Set As Reference button The selected image will not be moved and all other images will be adjusted to align with it If the reference point is a star or similar point source turn on the Use Centroid check box At each clicked location a centroid will automatically be calculated and used to refine the adjustment to the sub pixel level If any image in the sequence is of poor quality click the Reject Image button to remove it from the list You can restore it by clicking on the button again Any image that has not had two reference points clicked on cannot be registered and is therefore
458. results in values above 12 bits This is normal it is preferable to keep the scaling constant so that Photons per ADU setting is not changed in different binning modes LDC amp Shutter allows you to select two options You can enable the Low Dark Current LDC option and or the Shutter option Both of these options require special modifications to the camera If shutter mode is not selected the user is prompted for dark frames The driver includes support for the optional shutter No user settings are required to activate the shutter When the camera is started up a small window appears to display the Reset and Reference levels This is to facilitate adjustment of the camera If you do not wish to view the display click the close button at upper right To redisplay the window disconnect the link and restart it These cameras use open loop cooling so the cooler controls are not enabled when this camera is in use Important Note In Windows NT 2000 XP MaxIm DL must be installed from an Administrator level account in order for this driver to be properly installed Finger Lakes Instruments For this driver choose Finger Lakes on the Setup tab All Finger Lakes Instrumentation CCD cameras are supported by this driver including Dream Machine and MaxCam series It supports parallel port USB and Ethernet interfaces Please note that you may need to update your FLI driver installation in order for this interface to work eve
459. review Image is useful for determining when the images have been properly registered You can zoom in on a particular object in the image to make a more precise adjustment The image planes can be adjusted to a fraction of a pixel the command uses a bilinear interpolation algorithm The X and Y shifts for all three image planes can be entered manually in units of pixels 6 127 Maxlm DL User Manual or they can be adjusted using the sliders The Reset buttons restore a zero shift condition This command only operates on color images Color Balance The Color Balance command only works on color images The color balance of an image can be adjusted in two ways A simple scaling can be performed on each of the planes or a background level can be subtracted from each image plane ober Cohort Hal arahia CRA On Red fom F sunrise Geen fono A area fe on Y Prawa image Rene iosa Escher Levent im jn Geen fe e fam naj _ suis a dete Futon Color images from CCD cameras typically require a background level adjustment This is accomplished by bringing the background level or bias in each color plane down to 6 128 Command Reference zero Each of the Background Level values is subtracted from every image pixel in its color plane Any pixel values that become negative are forced to zero The Reset button resets the background level subtraction to zero on all planes The Auto button automatically determines
460. rned off a simple bilinear interpolation is used The next step is to select the Align Mode The methods available are None Auto correlation Auto star matching Manual 1 star shift only 6 5 Maxlm DL User Manual 6 6 Manual 2 stars Astrometric Planetary Overlay The auto modes require no further operator input just click the OK button Even in the automatic modes you can remove bad images by stepping through using the Next Image and Previous Image buttons and turn on off the Reject Image button Hal cnhi A ee pe as MED GO ie ae E ae Ries r oF Conce Manual modes allow for image alignment using a variety of techniques Each alignment method is described below None In this mode no change is made to the alignment of the images The images are summed averaged or median combined without any other adjustments Auto correlation A cross correlation is performed between each image to determine the relative offset If point sources stars are available in the image they are used to refine the alignment to sub pixel accuracy The images are only shifted horizontally and vertically no rotation is performed This function only works properly if the offset between images is relatively small To determine if it will work satisfactorily click the Overlay All Images button to Command Reference produce a preview Auto star matching In this mode the images are matched up
461. rned on when Command Reference the X axis of the autoguider image corresponds to the Y deflection axis of the tip tilt mirror The Track Box determines the size of the tracking image displayed on the Track tab while autoguiding A smaller Track Box will increase the update rate but will also increase the chances that the guide star is lost due to a large instantaneous deviation In most cases an 8x8 Track Box is a good compromise Enabling the Dither Exposures option causes the AO 7 tracking position to change by a small amount after each main chip exposure This is used to produce a sequence of images centered on a particular location but with each one offset by a small random amount The maximum number of pixels that the tracking position will be offset is minimum of the Amplitude setting and one half of the size of the Track Box For instance if an 8x8 track box is used and the Amplitude is set to 5 then dithering will offset each exposure by up to 4 pixels The Test Mode option allows you to evaluate the performance of the AO 7 During a test mode exposure the AO 7 mirror will be periodically deflected from its tracking orientation to 0 x 0 full deflection in both axes and held for five seconds then will return to normal guiding for five seconds This produces an image with two sets of stars one of which was corrected by the AO 7 and the other uncorrected The Exercising controls allow for visually checking the operation of the ti
462. roid and 5 7 Maxlm DL User Manual supernova discovery and batch processing of images It can automatically detect asteroids in image sets and generate MPC reports for the observations For more information see http pinpoint dc3 com 5 8 Chapter 6 Command Reference This section describes all of the commands available in MaxIm DL For information on the equipment control features provided with MaxIm CCD please refer to the separate MaxIm CCD section at the back of this manual R All of this information is available from the context sensitive Help Click the Toolbar Help button and then either double click on the menu item or click on the dialog itself Help on individual dialog controls can also be obtained by clicking the e help button on the dialog title bar then clicking on the control File Menu New Open The New command can be used to create a blank image document This is most commonly used before executing the Mosaic command Edit menu image rero E E e Newt oe A ci A kmag Cee Typa 2 Ureda C Colo The desired image Width and Height and Color Type must be selected Width and height are measured in pixels Upon clicking OK a blank image of the appropriate size will be created All pixels in the image will be zero The image contents can be modified using any of the image editing or processing commands This command is useful for generating new image buffers to be used in generating mosaics The
463. rows Each time you click a button the image moves The distance moved is controlled by the Nudge Size pixels control With these controls you can position an overlaid image to a fraction of a pixel In order to use the rotation buttons you must first pick a rotation point This is the point that the image will pivot about as it is rotated The best procedure is to align a feature that appears on both of the overlaid images then click on the feature Look at another point in the image some distance away and adjust the rotation to line up the second point To determine if the results are satisfactory click the Overlay All Images button to produce a preview For information on individual dialog controls close this help window and use the 2 button in the dialog s title bar This command closes the currently selected window If the image has not been saved the user is asked whether to save the image Yes discard it No or cancel the Close operation If the image has not previously been associated with a file the Save As dialog will be initiated when Yes is selected The Save command will save the file in the current file format If the image has not yet 6 9 Maxlm DL User Manual been associated with a file then the Save As dialog will be automatically initiated Save As 6 10 The Save As command can be used to save an existing file to a new name or format or to determine the name and format to use for a new image The S
464. rrupted it You can move an alarm up and down in the list thus changing its relative priority by clicking on it to select it then clicking the up or down arrows in the upper right corner of the list control When a new alarm is added to the list control its Repeat checkbox is initially unchecked This means that it is a one shot alarm when the associated condition Command Reference occurs the sound will play through just once again provided a higher priority alarm is not already occurring nor is triggered while the sound is playing If you check Repeat for a particular alarm the occurrence of that condition will cause the sound to play repeatedly until you click the Mute button For your convenience the Settings dialog automatically opens to the Audible Alarms tab when a repeating alarm is triggered Unlike one shot alarms unacknowledged repeating alarms are restarted when a higher priority alarm finishes sounding To delete an alarm and return it to the Disabled Alarms droplist select it by clicking on it in the list control then click on the red X icon near the upper right of the list control To change the sound associated with an alarm without deleting and reentering it select it in the list control then click once on the filename The file selector box will open to the directory containing the WAV file currently associated with the alarm You can pick another file navigate to another directory and pick a file or cl
465. rs in the image it is possible that MaxIm DL will pick the wrong point To set the Rotation Center manually click the Set button then click the mouse on desired center point in the image not the thumbnail The coordinates of this point will be transferred to the X and Y fields If Use Centroid is checked recommended the centroid of the current rotation center pixel will be used and displayed instead irrespective of whether it was specified automatically or manually 3 Fim Epa Fieve eae Tapia Subhacton 7 Larrea rege Agon tee lS M fait Ape Potton Cesto Eal F Ueda H kar Y pie Set the Angle field in degrees to the amount by which the image is to be rotated Typically this is will be in the range from 1 5 degrees though values of up to 90 can be used for special purposes Two modes are available with which to perform pixel interpolation during the rotation Bicubic Resample uses a higher order resample algorithm which requires more processing time than the bilinear method used when this control is not checked Deconvolve 6 112 This command performs either Maximum Entropy or Lucy Richardson deconvolution of an image Deconvolution is an advanced image restoration technique which can remove the effects of blurring in an image This technique first pioneered for radio astronomy became very important for visible light astronomers when the problems with the Hubble Space Telescope were discovered Even after the inst
466. rs which use similar on detector filter matrices can cause color aliasing which manifests itself as colored fringing particularly around bright stars This can be fixed using the Color Smoothing command Using this command on images that are not RGB encoded will produce gibberish For information on individual dialog controls close this help window and use the 2 button in the dialog s title bar Plug in Menu The Plug in menu allows users to add their own image processing functions into MaxIm DL As the functions are added they will appear in the menu list Sample code for Visual Basic and Visual C are included in subdirectories to the MaxIm DL program directory These sample plug ins merely allow you to add a constant to the image they are intended for demonstration purposes only It should be noted that plug ins can use both algorithms developed by the user and those built in to MaxIm DL itself via MaxIm DL s COM ActiveX scripting interface For more information refer to the source code for the sample plug ins Add Remove Plug in Plug ins can be added to the menu using this command Click Manually Add Plug In and browse to the DLL file and select it It will automatically be added to the menu 6 135 Maxlm DL User Manual To remove an existing plug in select it using the Remove Plug in drop list The menu name will be displayed below When you are certain you wish to remove this plug in click the Remove button
467. rt the AO 7 Command Reference autoguider and then switch back to the MaxIm CCD control window to start the exposure MaxIm CCD can take sequences of exposures while the autoguider is running During download the shutter is closed and the guider cannot operate The AO 7 Control window will automatically reacquire the guide star after each exposure If a tricolor sequence is in progress the software waits for the filter wheel to finish rotating before reacquiring the guide star However before starting a tricolor sequence it is a good idea to make sure that the guide star is bright enough when the filter wheel switches to blue When taking exposure sequences at least a five second delay should be inserted between exposures to allow time for the autoguider to settle use the Delay field in the Expose tab This is necessary because the guider cannot operate during camera download and the telescope may drift The software is designed to automatically reacquire the star even if it has drifted out of the track box During reacquisition the AO 7 will take two exposures using the settings on the Locate tab then start tracking using the settings on the Track tab This procedure allows it to reacquire the guide star even if it has drifted out of the track box Sufficient delay time must be allowed for this process to occur before the next exposure starts Typically a five second delay is sufficient but this may not be enough if longer tracking exposur
468. ructions Meade 208XT for Pictor 208XT Meade 216XT for Pictor 216XT Meade 416 1616 for Pictor 416XT and Pictor 1616XT in serial port mode Meade SCSI for Pictor 416XT and Pictor 1616XT in SCSI mode Roper Princeton and Photometrics models Simulator Starlight Xpress Roper cameras are supported using the Roper PVCam software provided with the camera This software must be installed and configured before you can link to the camera SBIG provides drivers for all cameras that are currently in production except the STV The SBIGDriverChecker supplied with the camera is used to install and update the drivers It includes a built in download facility If you do not have this installed you can fetch it from ftp ftp sbig com pub SetupDriverChecker exe For the STV and several obsolete cameras ST 4 ST 5 without C suffix ST 6 only a serial interface is required and SBIG does not provide drivers The drivers for these cameras are built into MaxIm DL Useful for testing purposes this selection emulates the operation of a camera No drivers are required Parallel port cameras do not require any additional drivers For USB cameras you must install the software that is supplied with the camera We strongly recommend that you download the latest version of this software from http www starlight xpress co uk software htm For most drivers the C version of the camera is supported using the same driver a
469. s This means that the dark frame and light frame must have the same exposure time in order for calibration to work They must also be taken at exactly the same temperature because the rate of dark current accumulation varies strongly with temperature Many CCD cameras include coolers with high precision temperature regulation this greatly simplifies management of the dark frames Of course some cameras do not have temperature regulation If the temperature changes the dark frame will no longer work It is common in astronomical applications for the temperature to drop as the night progresses Taking dark frames throughout the night minimizes the differences but this can lead to situations where a dark frame is not available to properly calibrate an image So what can you do if you do not have a calibration frame that matches the exposure duration and or temperature of an image Exposure compensation is the answer Use a dark frame whose temperature and exposure duration are as close to correct as possible and select Auto Optimize in the Set Calibration command MaxIm DL will automatically compensate for the differences and produce an image that is properly calibrated Using a bias frame is strongly recommended in this situation bias is constant and does not scale with exposure time If you do have a temperature regulated camera you can take a set of master frames at various temperature settings and exposures These can be used to calib
470. s and turn on off the Reject Image button arrive images Bo Soh ES Fie cf bet Oo bed paint Hot p lain pani hol oot Cal ir esta AS Th Hirual Cova Arms rg E ion Certo fe Auda tied Siw Sls 2 an 6 88 Command Reference Manual modes allow for image alignment using a variety of techniques Each alignment method is described below None In this mode no change is made to the alignment of the images The images are summed averaged or median combined without any other adjustments Auto correlation A cross correlation is performed between each image to determine the relative offset If point sources stars are available in the image they are used to refine the alignment to sub pixel accuracy The images are only shifted horizontally and vertically no rotation is performed This function only works properly if the offset between images is relatively small To determine if it will work satisfactorily click the Overlay All Images button to produce a preview Auto star matching In this mode the images are matched up by comparing star patterns If the match is successful the images are automatically aligned to sub pixel accuracy using both shifting and rotation To determine if the results are satisfactory click the Overlay All Images button to produce a preview Manual star shift only This is the fastest manual adjustment method Each image is presented in turn the user simply clicks o
471. s spiral check box Then if a solution fails because the image stars cannot be matched against those in the catalog at that location MaxIm DL will try to solve it using a sequence central image positions that spirals outward from the original assumed position Command Reference Once everything is set up click the Process button to start the analysis The progress will be shown as the search proceeds If the analysis is successful this will be indicated and you can close the dialog box Otherwise you may wish to adjust some settings and try again You can abort an analysis with the Stop button Once you have analyzed an image World Coordinate System WCS information is added to the FITS header You can now inspect the image using the Information window s Astrometric mode For users with the full retail PinPoint version additional catalog and image star information is available in the Information window display This extra information is retained only as long as the image is open When using MaxIm CCD s Telescope Control window the solved image can also be used to synchronize the telescope position A typical use is to resynchronize the telescope after a long slew if the polar alignment is not sufficiently good the image may be completely off target To fix this quickly and easily run an astrometric analysis with the Search outward spiral option enabled When the analysis is complete click the Sync button on the Telescope Control win
472. s are remembered and restored if you turn Same Repeat Count for All off Similarly you can select Same Script Name for All to force all slots scripts to the same one Although the sequence definition is saved when you click OK to close the Setup Sequence dialog it is also possible to save sequences separately allowing you to build up a library of the types of sequences you use most Select Load Sequence to call up a file selector dialog allowing you to navigate to and pick a seq file containing a previously saved sequence To save a sequence as a seq file select Save Sequence or Save Sequence As the distinction is that the former updates the sequence file that was last loaded without prompting for a filename while the latter displays a file selector dialog and permits you to change the filename Note that Save Sequence is disabled until you have actually loaded a sequence and thereby established the default sequence filename Load Save Enabled Slots Only affects whether the content of disabled slots those for which the Enable box is not checked is restored from or saved to the seq file Deselect this option if you are including both primary and secondary exposures in a sequence that is you want to define a group of slots which are always used and some which you may or may not use depending on your needs at the time By contrast if Load Save Enabled Slots Only is checked then save will record only those slots that have Enabl
473. s available from the context sensitive Help Click the Toolbar Help button and then click on the window or dialog Different help is available for each tab Help on individual dialog controls can also be obtained by clicking the e help button on the MaxIm CCD window title bar then clicking on the control Expose Tab The Expose tab is used to control CCD exposures in conjunction with the Settings The 6 140 Command Reference functions of this dialog are only active if a CCD camera has been activated using the Setup tab oa thd Enpa Setiren Sequence Fear impact Guido Setup Ta Miradas Senay Credos hl a EI E Ls T f F p E Li The Expose button starts an exposure or exposure sequence During an exposure the Expose button is disabled and the Stop button is enabled The Stop button allows you to terminate the current exposure or exposure sequence Note that some camera drivers lock up the computer during camera readout to prevent other programs from interfering with the readout process Therefore it may not be possible to abort an exposure during readout The exposure duration is determined by Minutes plus Seconds You can enter an exposure from 0 001 seconds up to the maximum allowed by the particular camera If the exposure is set lower than the particular camera allows the minimum permitted exposure will be used The Delay field allows you to specify a delay time after the Expose button is pressed bef
474. s be deferred until after deconvolution The success of deconvolution depends critically on the Point Spread Function and Noise models which must be initialized before you can perform the processing itself If the selected noise model is Poisson or when using the Lucy Richardson method the correct Photoelectrons per ADU setting must be entered this can be done within the Deconvolve dialog or separately using the Photons Wizard Images acquired by MaxIm DL CCD already include this parameter in the FITS header for many camera plug ins Settings of all these parameters persist within a particular MaxIm DL session but you must be careful to avoid processing a mix of images from different cameras or telescopes without resetting them for each different configuration Since experimentation is sometimes required to determine the settings which will produce the best results a mechanism is provided to allow quick evaluation by operating on a subset of the image The Deconvolve command is implemented as a tabbed dialog box with tabs for each of the three steps in the process e Specifying the Noise Model e Specifying the PSF Model e Deconvolving the image Noise Model The Noise Model tab is used to initialize the noise model utilized used by deconvolution This is used to determine how strongly to deconvolve different parts of the image Areas that are mostly noise are not deconvolved as strongly so as to prevent 6 113 Maxlm DL User Manual
475. s brand of CCD camera SBIG cameras use a pulse protocol to communicate with their filter wheels This was developed because the original CFW 6A used the pulses to control a servo motor Modern filter wheel models use stepper motors and a microcontroller to interpret the pulses Several brands of filter wheels have emulated this protocol to support direct connection to an SBIG camera PC s are not very good at real time tasks like generating accurate timing waveforms The SBIG Parallel driver attempts to emulate the SBIG camera to drive the filter wheel In Windows 98 ME this is done with a special calibrated timing loop it works on most machines but some computers do not appear to handle this very well The timing under Windows NT 2000 XP is far more accurate since it uses a kernel level driver to generate the pulses Therefore these operating systems are preferred for use with this driver After powering up Meade cameras you should wait until the filter wheel has fully reset no more motor noise before trying to link to the camera If the camera is connected by SCSI interface do not even power up the computer until the filter wheel is reset Telescope Troubleshooting 9 10 For most telescopes everything will work properly if you can establish a link In the event of problems check the cabling first cables are usually the first things to get damaged The serial port on some telescope mounts can be damaged by static electricit
476. s for the monochrome camera The only exception is the MX7C when connected via USB separate drivers are used to ensure proper color data recovery not required for parallel port driver Equipment Setup SBIG Universal for all parallel port USB and Ethernet cameras including ST and STL series SBIG w AO 7 when using the AO 7 tip tilt guider option For all dual chip cameras set the autoguider to Same as main camera SBIG STV for the STV guider A special STV remote control panel is available for controlling the built in autoguider capabilities SBIG ST 4 SBIG ST 5 SBIG ST 6 for obsolete serial port camera models Simulator SX HXS5 for HX516 parallel port SX HX5 USB for HX516 USB port SX HX9 USB for HX916 USB port SX MXS5 for all MXS series with parallel port SX MXS5 USB for all MX5 series with USB port SX MX7 9 for all MX7 and MXO series cameras with parallel port including color camera SX MX7 9 USB for MX716 4 3 Maxlm DL User Manual and MX916 cameras with USB port Note extra Camera Type selector SX MX7C USB for MX716 cameras on USB port SXV H9 H9C for SXV H9 and SXV H9C cameras For optional secondary guide head set the autoguider selection to Same as main camera Starlight Xpress Supported only for USB cameras STAR2K MXS for all with STAR2000 cameras in MXS series autoguiding STAR2K MX7 9 for MX716 and MX916 STAR2K MX7C for MX7C color camera Video DirectShow
477. s spread around the sky and the process has to be repeated from scratch every time an adjustment is made to the system Although this procedure can be a little time consuming it does work very well if a sufficient number of measurement points are used Drift Alignment A technique known as Drift Alignment has been used for many years and can achieve an extremely accurate polar alignment Unfortunately it is very time consuming since the drift of a star over time must be observed This can be greatly speeded up using a CCD camera since sub pixel centroid measurements can easily be made Here is a suggested procedure 1 Mount your CCD camera with north at the top 2 Connect MaxIm DL CCD to the camera configured as an autoguider 3 If you have an autoguider connection to the mount remove or disable it This 3 3 Maxlm DL User Manual 10 11 12 13 14 Polar Imaging can be done by disconnecting the cable or by going to the Guide tab Settings and turning off Enable X and Enable Y Point to a star at the meridian near the equator Start the guider in Track mode and watch the error reading in Declination only It is okay to enable guiding in Right Ascension if needed for instance if the star drifts rapidly out of the field of view Due to the sub pixel measurement capability of the autoguider function you will be able to see any error quite quickly Note which way it is moving and how quickly For extremely
478. s the band is a difficult proposition Also atmospheric dispersion effects will be worse with the wider filters As a result although MaxIm DL supports CMY imaging it is not recommended in practice Infrared Sensitivity CCD cameras are very sensitive to near infrared light This can lead to an unexpected problem with reflections inside the optical instrument Generally optical systems have flat black inside surfaces and baffles to absorb stray reflections Usually metal parts are 3 15 Maxlm DL User Manual anodized black unfortunately most types of anodizing are highly reflective in the infrared The result is that the camera can see the reflections but the human eye cannot This type of reflection can be most troublesome when trying to perform flat field calibration generating a hot spot in the center of the image The simple solution to this problem is to paint the anodized surfaces flat black This is particularly important for tubular structures just in front of the camera A baffle can also be added just in front of the camera to block stray light but care must be taken to avoid vignetting When taking tricolor images using a CCD camera it is important to note that most blue filters strongly leak infrared light Therefore an infrared blocking filter is essential Some modern filters include a built in infrared blocking layer Signal to Noise Ratio 3 16 A CCD camera is essentially a photon counting device Signal to n
479. s used during planetary imaging can freeze the seeing and allow full resolution imaging even with very large instruments assuming good optics For planetary imaging with short exposures start with an image scale of 0 25 arc seconds per pixel use trial and error to determine the best image scale for your equipment conditions and the planet being imaged Since seeing is highly variable it is recommended to take many exposures and keep only the best Using Multiple Exposures The simplest way to take a long exposure is to simply open the shutter for the desired duration Taking a single exposure certainly minimizes the contribution of camera readout noise in the image However for astronomical imaging two difficulties are often encountered First of all the telescope must remain aligned with the sky to a fraction of an arc second throughout the exposure This is extremely difficult expensive to achieve mechanically so in most cases some form of guiding is required Secondly bright stars within the frame will rapidly saturate and bloom This affects not just the saturated pixels but also adjacent ones as the excess electrons become trapped and spread along the column during readout Both these problems can be greatly reduced by taking a series of shorter exposures then combining them together afterwards MaxIm DL provides support for this in the form of the Combine command This command allows you to combine a number of images into o
480. s vary in color according to their spectral class but the Sun is considered to be white Therefore any star of the same G2V spectral class or Guide to CCD Imaging close to it should also be white The following table ref Berry et al Sky amp Telescope Magazine December 1998 lists a number of these solar analog stars RA Dec Mag Class Name 00h 18m 40s 08d 03m 04s 6 467 G3 SAO128690 00h 22m 52s 12d 12m 34s 6 39 G2 5 9 Cet SAO147237 01h 41m 47s 42d 36m 48s 4 961 G1 5 SAO37434 01h 53m 18s 00d 22m 25s 9 734 G5 SAO110202 03h 19m 02s 02d 50m 36s 7 052 G1 5 SAO130415 04h 26m 40s 16d 44m 49s 8 10 G2 Hyades vB 64 SAO93936 06h 24m 44s 28d 46m 48s 6 374 G2 SAO171711 08h 54m 18s 05d 26m 04s 6 008 G2 SAO136389 10h 01m 01s 31d 55m 25s 5 374 G3 20 LMi SAO61808 11h 18m 11s 31d 31m 45s 4 85 G2 Xi UMa B SAO62484 13h 38m 42s 01d 14m 14s 9 975 G5 105 56 SAO139464 15h 37m 18s 00d 09m 50s 8 433 G3 107 684 SAO121093 15h 44m 02s 02d 30m 54s 5 868 G2 5 23 psi Ser SAO121152 15h 53m 12s 13d 11m 48s 6 084 Gl 39 Ser SAO101792 16h 07m 04s 14d 04m 16s 6 314 G2 SAO159706 16h 15m 37s 08d 22m 10s 5 494 G2 18 Sco SAO141066 19h 41m 49s 50d 31m 31s 5 976 G1 5 16 Cyg A SAO31898 19h 41m 52s 50d 31m 03s 6 237 G3 16 Cyg B SAO31899 20h 43m 12s 00d 26m 15s 9 977 G2 SAO126133 21h 42m 27s 00d 26m 20s 9 074 G5 SAO127005 23h 12m 39s
481. sage appears The Extra Delay setting is available to prevent this Increase the delay by the smallest amount which prevents the error from occurring usually 0 5 seconds is sufficient Note that running other software during camera operation may cause image downloads to fail Important Note Meade Pictor cameras are SCSI I devices but the modern Adaptec 32 bit drivers assume SCSI II This has led to a limitation on which SCSI adapters can be used with the Pictor cameras Meade recommends the following adapters only 4 20 Equipment Setup Computer Type Adapter Laptop PCMCIA Adaptec 1480A B or C Unfortunately most other SCSI adapters do not work with the Pictor cameras and the modern 32 bit SCSI II drivers If the incorrect adapter is used a CCD Camera Error 4 will always occur during image download Please see http www meade com catalog pictor pview7 00 pvsa pdf for complete details on SCSI compatibility Important Note You must power up the camera and allow it to initialize beep beep before powering up the computer Once the computer has powered up the camera display should show Connect SCSI if the camera has been located by the operating system The camera should also appear in the Control Panel System Device Manager list if it does not MaxIm DL CCD will not be able to locate it Upon starting MaxIm DL CCD open the camera control window and select Meade SCSI for the camera Also selec
482. scope For this tutorial we will use the Telescope Simulator Activate the Telescope Control window using the toolbar button or Telescope Control Window from the View menu tizi Teirtcope Cataiog Corie Focus Autoleun Setup Teo Foara haces O P p oe ipe Donien Corr Ee 2 On the Setup tab select Telescope Simulator from the Telescope drop list Click Connect 3 The Scope Simulator display may appear Move this to a convenient place on the screen 4 Click the Options button in the Telescope frame and click on the Slew Limits command Ensure that neither Minimum Altitude nor Maximum Declination are checked 5 Switch to the Telescope tab 2 24 6 Tutorials Click a Nudge button to move the telescope in one of the eight available directions You will see the telescope position change You can set the distance moved with each nudge Peisos Conir l id E Polecopa Catalog Cerin Forums Autoocun Soup E Tea Lois Hoge wee mi 31 meno Br mi pl 3 El wj Pi EEE se 5 0 ete def os Gag Fe After a nudge or move if the Take image check box is on the MaxIm CCD camera control window will also be activated to take a picture of the region of the sky If the camera simulator is selected you will get the test pattern You can set up exposure settings for these images using the Exposure button Usually this is just set to a quick binned exposure so you can tell whether the
483. se Ratio 3 16 Simple Auto Dark 6 143 Simulator 4 3 4 28 Simultaneous RA And Dec Correction 6 168 Site 6 18 Site and Optics 6 18 Size 6 68 Size Format 6 3 6 10 6 12 Skin 6 15 Skip Save 6 13 Sky Flats 3 33 Slide Film 3 54 Smoothing Colors 3 44 Snap 6 25 SNR 6 39 Solar Analog Stars 3 43 Solar System 6 179 Spatial Calibration 6 43 Spatial Filtering 3 21 Spatial Frequency 8 6 Speed Control 6 64 Spiral Search 6 66 Spline 6 99 Split Tricolor 6 126 ST 2000XM Color 6 134 Standard Deviation 3 49 6 39 6 51 6 65 8 6 10 20 Standard Deviation Mask 6 4 6 87 Standard Toolbar 6 53 STAR2000 4 4 4 32 4 34 4 35 Starlight Xpress 4 3 4 29 4 30 4 31 4 32 4 33 4 34 4 35 4 36 9 6 Starlight Xpress SX V H9C 6 134 Start Focus 6 157 Status Bar 6 62 Stopping Criteria 3 50 Stretch 3 17 6 11 6 98 8 5 8 6 Stretching 2 6 3 17 3 18 3 34 STV Guider Control Panel 4 27 Subframe 6 142 6 158 8 7 Subframe Extraction 6 143 Subsecond FITS Exposure Time 6 145 Subtract 6 103 Sum 6 86 Supernova Search 6 136 SXV H9C 6 134 Sync Telescope 6 178 System Requirements 1 1 Tagged Objects 6 71 Taking Exposures 2 17 2 18 Technical Support 1 14 4 9 TELESCOP 6 16 Telescope 6 19 6 185 Telescope Control 3 52 Telescope Control Tutorials 2 24 Telescope Control Window 6 34 6 177 Telescope Setup 4 57 Telescope Simulator 4 59 Telescope Ta
484. se amplification 8 7 Maxlm DL User Manual 8 8 Chapter 9 Troubleshooting Camera Specific Error Codes Some MaxIm CCD error messages have an extra code from the camera driver appended These error codes may indicate a problem with the camera hardware or interface driver For models not specifically listed please see the Plug in Camera Drivers list at the bottom of the table Equipment Generic codes for all drivers Generic Error unknown cause Out of Memory 3 Illegal Input check settings Link Fail Filter wheel connection requires compatible camera Internal driver error Port not available ual chip mode could not find main camera Autoguider shutter conflict Configuration file for filter wheel is missin ju a 5 Apogee Generic error unknown cause No configuration IND file specified INI file missing required data oopback test failed camera not found lemory allocation failed System error NT I O Driver not present Generic error unknown cause ot supported nvalid parameter nvalid COM port OM port error Finger Lakes 1 Generation OM timeout Bad data No calibrate Device not configured OM write nvalid device Function not supported Bad bounds Grab timeout To data LB CP not ready CP read timeout HB CP read timeout LB CP read timeout o CP reverse timeout CP write timeout HB CP write timeout LB CP write timeout N m A les fesi feel feed fesi lest les fes 3 Q ajz Z
485. sed and ready to go 2 26 Tutorials 2 Select the Center tab Select the Calibration Type to Auto Set the Auto Slew Distance to 8 arc minutes note if your camera has a smaller field than this reduce the number it should be set to about of the field size ux Tetercupe Caral Cente Focus Astoin Seu Cook Cerda on liao THa LITE masea Set Disr stica de an is Mirra Shit F Jamm r eec 00 Locate a reasonably bright isolated star and roughly center it in the camera This can be done using the Catalog tab to find the star and the Telescope tab Nudge controls Set the Exposure settings to reasonable values Click Calibrate The software will take an image and measure the current star position It will then slew east and take a second image The difference in position between these two images will be used to calibrate the Image Scale and Orientation The telescope will be returned to the original position and a third image will be taken to confirm this Once the function is calibrated you do not need to repeat the operation unless you rotate the camera or change equipment Removing and replacing the camera will very likely change the angle so you should recalibrate Now you can center any object on the image Simply right click on it and select Point Telescope Here from the right click menu The telescope will slew a short distance If Acquire new image after centering is checked recommended a qu
486. selected In addition if Flash this dialog box is checked the caption bar will be flashed in Windows traditional way of drawing attention If Audible alarm is enabled the WAV file named in the associated edit box is played Click the browse button just to its right to call up a standard file dialog box for navigating to and picking the sound file If Repeat is checked the sound will loop continuously until the alarm is acknowledged otherwise it will play only once Execute script can be used for more elaborate alarm actions through the agency of a Windows Script Host script which you supply and whose actions you define You specify this script with the file selector dialog activated through the browse button on this line What can a script do It might for example capture a new full frame autoguider exposure and examine it for potential guide stars or simply abort any main camera exposure or sequence in progress If the system is running unattended it might be appropriate to send an email message reporting the problem Refer to the description of Scripting to learn about the capabilities MaxIm DL CCD extends to scripts and the kinds of things that are possible An alarm script is executed by the command shell based script host cscript exe If you do not want the command window to pop up in front of MaxIm DL you can specify that it should run Minimized the script window will still appear on the Windows Task bar and can be restored as lo
487. sentation of CCD images is easier than ever However these displays have limited dynamic range and are often set up poorly often the contrast settings are excessive This can have a severe impact on the appearance of astronomical images with faint details If you can access the video projector s controls prior to your presentation then try 3 53 Maxlm DL User Manual 3 54 projecting a grayscale strip or at least an image with large dynamic range A grayscale strip is built into Desktop Universe software various others are available on the Internet Most importantly for astronomical images adjust the contrast and brightness so that you can see the difference in shades of black at the dark end Also try to make sure that you can discern brightness levels at the top end to avoid excessively saturating bright parts of the images If you cannot adjust the projector prior to the show then consider displaying the images using MaxIm DL The Quick Stretch feature will allow you to quickly adjust the images for best display If this is not possible because you are using PowerPoint then it may be advisable to pre adjust the images for lower contrast and brighter background just to be sure the fainter details will be visible In the event that a video projector is not available there are a number of options available for transferring images to slide film or overheads However most of these methods are expensive or have a long turn around tim
488. sharp already and the filter just increases the noise making the image grainy Now select Low Pass More The Preview Image will appear smoother Click on Average The image will be smoothed slightly more In this mode the Kernel Size function is available Select 7 x 7 the strongest filter and the preview image will become much blurrier J J fan Fo a CAT Switch back to High Pass More and click OK After a few seconds the entire image will update E3 If you don t like this result you can undo this change by pressing the Undo button on the Toolbar Be sure to try the various other filters mentioned above Stretching 2 6 Although the Screen Stretch window allows you to adjust the brightness and contrast of the image on the screen sometimes you want to change the data in the image buffer For example you might want to adjust an image so it will fit in the 8 bit range of a JPEG file You might also want to try a non linear stretch to compress the dynamic range of the image These operations are performed with the Stretch command if you have not already done so open the DG_HaleBopp fits file in the Samples directory For help on opening files see the Open a File Tutorial Tutorials El Press the Stretch button on the Toolbar to bring up the Stretch dialog Set Permanent Stretch Type to Log Input Range to Max Pixel and Output Range to 16 bit 0 64K Turn on Auto Preview As you can see in the Preview Im
489. shed by bringing the background level or bias in each color plane down to zero Each of the Background Level values is subtracted from every image pixel in its color plane Any pixel values that become negative are forced to zero The Reset button resets the background subtraction to zero on all planes The Auto button automatically determines the settings necessary to equalize the image background in all three color planes Command Reference Scaling adjustment percent allows you to compensate for differing sensitivity between the color planes Values of 100 result in no change The scaling adjustments can be typed in or adjusted using the spin controls The Preview Image is particularly helpful in monitoring the results when using the sliders The Reset Scaling button resets to 100 on all three planes Tip For ST 2000XM Color cameras set Red scaling to 77 the other two channels to 100 and be sure to click the Auto Background button The X Offset and Y Offset selections are used to correct for any misalignment of the color mask in the CCD camera Normally these are turned off If the converted images exhibit an obvious color imbalance try selecting different combinations of these two options In most situations clicking the Auto background level button and then clicking OK can obtain accurate colors Further adjustments to the color balance can be made using the Color Balance command The color pixel grids in these cameras and othe
490. should jump to the correct position If it did not either the initial placement was too far off or the star patterns in the area of intersection were insufficient or ambiguous When mosaicing images taken under different conditions e g with different exposure times or sky brightness levels you may need to adjust the background level of a loose tile as you blend it Three Background Equalization modes are available from the drop list Auto calculates the background levels of pre existing data and the new tile within the area of overlap and adds their difference to the new tile as it is blended This difference is automatically displayed in the Bgd Offset edit field In Manual equalization mode you must set Bgd Offset to the amount to add when blending the tile You can initialize this to the background offset which Auto would apply by right clicking on the mosaic document within the confines of the newly placed tile and selecting Compute Equalization from the head of the resulting context menu Equalization mode None does not adjust the tile data for differences in background during blending If the images were taken under widely varying conditions it may be necessary to balance the backgrounds and dynamic range gain of each individually prior to building a mosaic This requires measuring the levels of the background and the brightest stars in the overlapping areas using the Information window Then use Pixel Math to add subtract values to ma
491. signed to the output Otherwise the output is the mean of the inputs The idea is to use the mean where possible because it does a better job of suppressing gaussian noise and to use the median only when there is reason to expect that the input data contain outliers 210 Mire Selina xj Hamba of pariar r E LE f 5 3 Horasan Lirmess Calibration only operates on monochrome images Settings are saved between sessions If you calibrate an image without first running the Set Calibrate command the previous calibration files will be loaded You can access the master calibration images created with this command using the Create Master Frames command You must create the master frames immediately after using Set Calibration and before calibrating any images 6 79 Maxlm DL User Manual Calibration Wizard The Calibration Wizard command takes you through the calibration setup process in a step by step fashion The Wizard fills in the appropriate settings for the Set Calibration dialog based upon your input then will calibrate the selected image If you wish to apply the same calibration to a second image simply invoke the Calibrate command using the Process menu or the Toolbar This command only operates on monochrome images LS al Cabo u ud bo veras age patrona caused bp the cra has rara A paies rae Each pool has adinari bar pma porij dab camen pala of thee rom pman ar scr da i he baa dano can be nerd by bici e car
492. simply replicated On completion of the command the original image window contains the even frame and a new image window is created to contain the odd frame Normally the titles of both windows are set to the original image name with the words Even and Odd suffixed If however the image name already contains Even or Odd the original is left unchanged and the new window is simply called Copy of View Menu Zoom command The Zoom level can be controlled in several different ways e View menu Zoom command invokes Zoom dialog e View Menu Zoom In command zooms in 2 X e View Menu Zoom Out command zooms out 2 X e Right click menu zooms around mouse cursor e Toolbar buttons described below The Zoom In command can be invoked by the toolbar button or the PgUp key The Zoom Out command can be invoked by the toolbar button or the PgDn key f The toolbar zoom combo box can apply arbitrary zoom factors from 6 25 to 1600 You can select a predefined zoom level or type in your own value The Zoom dialog allows direct selection of several different zoom levels as well as entering a Custom zoom level in the same manner as the toolbar combo box 6 33 Maxlm DL User Manual Note that the zoom level automatically rounds itself off to an even binary number Full Screen The Full Screen command temporarily suppresses the display of all menus status bar toolbar windows and other applications The selected
493. smaller pixels it is strongly recommended to operate these sensors at 2x2 binning Please see SBIG AO 7 Control for full details on operating the AO 7 SBIG ST 4 4 24 For this driver please select SBIG ST 4 on the Setup tab Tx SRM ET Seem leaves Mer d 10 Teppa jej AD Dikanka Linked C Sa eee ee Laca Ls a f COU Pea Dai Mie Gai E rd end Dicey imn x EPE im Tis y The Santa Barbara Instrument Group ST 4 cameras connect to the PC via a standard serial port The communications port to which the camera is connected must be selected in the COM Port field The Baud Rate field is used to control the communications speed higher speeds provide faster image downloads but slower speeds may be more reliable if communications are marginal The Gain Expansion control allows you to adjust the sensitivity of the camera The 4X Gain setting provides the highest sensitivity but the image will be more noisy and the camera will saturate on bright objects Use the lowest setting that provides good sensitivity for your equipment configuration The Anti Blooming Gate control allows you to control the camera s anti blooming gate Saturated pixels can produce streaks across the image the anti blooming reduces this problem Turning the anti blooming gate on allows more saturation before a streak will Equipment Setup appear but decreases the sensitivity of the camera somewhat This camera has no shutter When operat
494. splayed in the status box to the left 4 27 Maxlm DL User Manual To start guiding click the Guide button The guider offset will be displayed in the status box during guiding If you need to stop guiding or need to abort the calibration cycle click Abort Simulator For this driver choose Simulator on the Setup tab The CCD Camera Simulator is a learning and testing tool It can simulate the behavior of a dual chip CCD camera with autoguiding capability and integrated filter wheel No external hardware is required It is also very handy for testing scripts For more information please see the MaxIm CCD Tutorial section When an exposure is taken the simulator will produce a pattern of five stars of different intensities If the Noise option is turned on a small amount of random noise is added to each image this also increases the download time SS Tixi AA AA Cypa j 100 2007 O feck Lied ret SEL Ed a Senden fhid Gaku Pali Guida ngs Gak Deio Fasa For simulating autoguider operation you can select a variety of Guide Errors Sinusoidal will produce a back and forth motion in the X axis with a period of four minutes just like a real if poor telescope drive Random will produce erratic X and Y motions Selecting Both will superimpose both types of guider errors The five simulated star images will actually move around the frame over time You can calibrate the autoguider we recommend 10 second
495. ss in an image Each bar in the graph represents a range of brightness the first bar represents the dimmest pixels and the last bar is for the brightest pixels The height of the bar is the total number of pixels in that brightness range in the image Every image has a different histogram depending on how much of the image is bright or dark Number of Pixels Brightness Typical Histogram A typical histogram will have a peak that shows the most common brightness in the image For astronomical images this is often the sky background A part of the histogram where there is a dip reveals that few pixels have brightness in that range When stretching we do not want to emphasize those areas because they contain little information Any stretching operation can be viewed as reshaping the histogram Some functions do this in a fixed manner others actually force the histogram to have a particular shape Both types of techniques will be described below Nonlinear Stretching When we do a stretch we can do much fancier things than just subtracting and multiplying numbers A popular method is called log rescale All pixels in the image are put through a logarithm function This may seem like an arbitrary choice but there are reasons for choosing it The astronomical magnitude scale is logarithmic so that it 3 19 Maxlm DL User Manual can encompass a wide range of brightness The human eye itself responds to light in a fashion that is clos
496. st Brightness and Contrast tutorial is particularly important Since MaxIm DL handles high bit depth images that your computer screen is incapable of displaying fully knowing how to adjust the image appearance is critical to using the software effectively Open a File The first and most basic step is to open and display an image file amp Click on the Open button on the Toolbar to bring up the Open dialog MM ia Fiar ire rl Cancel e Foral Sint Pisa ps IN A TT imapis Pad do Epia WEA i Heese a D Der Fide Peal Sore Fie Dhan x D Y raja ih TE eaha T7 2 1 Maxlm DL User Manual Set File Filter to All Files and turn Interpolate Pixels to Square off Use the Look In control to select the Samples folder under the MaxIm DL program directory If you used the default installation directory this directory will be located at C Program Files Diffraction Limited MaxIm DL V4 Samples Click once on the file named DG_HaleBopp fits This is a CCD image of Comet Hale Bopp taken while it was still far from the sun The File Details box should now display information on the file size pixel width and height and file format Click Open to open the file SJ If the image does not fit within the screen area click the Zoom Out button on the Toolbar The image will appear as follows A _Halalls pp lla Adjust Brightness and Contrast 2 2 Sif you have not already done so open the DG_HaleBopp fi
497. stem WCS values in the FITS header of the image This WCS header information is standardized so it is compatible with many other software applications Once the WCS information is available MaxIm DL can provide precise measurements of the position of any object in the image using the Information window Under typical observing conditions the measurements are often accurate and repeatable to a fraction of an arc second Telescope Control Benefits The astrometric information can be used for more than scientific measurements PinPoint can be used as a digital finderscope During telescope operations the information from PinPoint can be used to synchronize the telescope position with the sky After a long slew a quick astrometric reduction will allow you to accurately resynchronize the telescope position without having to manually align the target With the spiral search option it will determine the telescope position even if you missed the target field entirely After the sync the user can click the Go To button again and the object will be perfectly centered Photometry 3 52 Photometry is the measurement of the amount of light from an object Accurate photometric measurement is a fundamental and important means for understanding the physics behind astronomical objects and events Prior to CCD cameras photometric measurements were made visually photographically or using photomultiplier tubes The former two methods su
498. stem colors to red other applications will be affected The brightness of the individual colors is selected based upon the brightness of the colors in the current desktop scheme Therefore changing the desktop scheme prior to initiating Night Vision mode has an effect on the brightness of the various screen elements Night vision mode is automatically switched off when MaxIm DL is shut down Please note that the use of a red filter over the screen is recommended as superior to using night vision mode on the computer screen Most displays especially LCD displays still produce a substantial amount of light outside of the deep red area of the spectrum Toolbars 6 52 MaxIm DL has eight customizable toolbars rectangular arrays of buttons providing quick access to nearly every command in the MaxIm DL application menus Each toolbar can be positioned to float anywhere convenient on the screen or docked against any of the four edges of the main application window Toolbars can be independently hidden or displayed There are seven toolbars associated with the normal application menus File Edit View Analyze Process Filter and Color There is also a Standard toolbar that contains commonly accessed functions of the software All buttons on the Standard toolbar are also found on one of the other seven but it groups the commonest and most Windows generic functions together for legacy reasons It also provides a convenient zoom combo box which is
499. t Meade SCSI for the filter wheel if you have a Meade 616 filter wheel attached Roper Princeton Photometrics For this driver choose Roper on the Setup tab SSS Tix Pura hrerira Da k pes s Cira de br eed E Dira Mor d 0 Lepra e 200 ieee Led Conca Lor ll n gt Cra Fara Ha Ti Epad Tibi Gan m rg Fraa j gt r j j Princeton and Photometrics brand cameras from Roper that use the PVCAM interface are supported PVCAM supplies information on each installed camera when the MaxIm CCD control window is first opened The list of available cameras is displayed in Camera Name The user should indicate whether the camera has a built in shutter for dark frames in HasShutter Cameras with interline or frame transfer sensors may be electronically shuttered which means they cannot take dark frames automatically Select Yes for full frame sensors which have mechanical shutters otherwise select No 4 21 Maxlm DL User Manual Options for Speed Table and Gain Setting are filled in depending on the capabilities of the camera These control the various readout modes of the camera Consult the camera documentation for more information on these settings Important Note The Roper driver will not appear in the Camera Model drop list unless the Roper PVCAM software is installed SBIG Universal 4 22 For this driver choose SBIG Universal on the Setup tab tuo BELG Lines areal T mi REN Levert al or pers d Pd Co
500. t can be used to eliminate localized defects such as satellite tracks by replacing them with sky background Another important application is the removal of the donuts that can occur around bright stars embedded in nebulosity processed by the Deconvolution command In this case the image is often esthetically more pleasing if the original region around these stars is restored As with most MaxIm DL commands activate the image you want to modify before starting the Clone Tool This image will be selected as the default Source Image from which regions are copied but you can pick any other open image which has the same color type as the destination In addition you can set the Source Image State to specify Command Reference whether you want to copy from image in its present condition Current Image or that prior to the most recently executed command that changed it Pre Command Name The previous state is subject to both availability of the undo buffer and its color compatibility with the destination image TE Ha Bic ire Esa image Slade ST A Aide repon 00m dae Utt Proa reos coca Se ire ll 2 Set the Source region coordinates dropdown to indicate the the relation between the source and destination coordinates for the region to be cloned Same as destination means that when you click on the destination image pixels will be copied from the source image in the region at exactly the same X Y locati
501. t licenses for instance if you decide to purchase a second year of support after the first runs out 6 139 Maxlm DL User Manual Lhes Boge Ree E 1 Paasa arda pau kanni oTi each at rad Lock lt o Cal E Eee Yew 00 ni Te an O Mode Fit pasna hores E mary arcade fie diene pon ahoh ater Meee ae ed ee he rikhasa rl cor odo tie a daa bad pu vel ot bra abia lo upprada Por terse ara deme kara lha cobra pal choc cd an che Sate Register Online This option is only available when running an unregistered retail license When you purchase MaxIm DL from a dealer a temporary license is supplied that works for 30 days During that time you must register your software so you can receive your permanent license The permanent license is not locked to any particular machine Simply click this menu item to bring up Internet Explorer and navigate to the registration page Fill in the required information and you will be automatically registered If you prefer you may register by telephone Call 613 225 2732 Monday to Friday except holidays between 10 00 am and 5 00 pm About Maxim DL This command displays the program icon copyright notices authors and version information Click OK to close the window Camera Control Window This section describes all of the controls in MaxIm CCD All controls are located in the MaxIm CCD control window which takes the form of a tabbed dialog box Led All of this information i
502. t o a Selecting Preserve Aspect Ratio will cause the current aspect ratio to be maintained If one of the dimensions is changed pressing Enter will cause the other dimension to update appropriately so as to maintain the aspect ratio Clicking Reset will cause the image dimensions to be reset to the current values Once the desired dimensions have been entered clicking OK will cause the image to be resized A bilinear interpolation algorithm is used Double Size This command will double the size of the selected image This command uses a more sophisticated interpolation algorithm than the Resize command Half Size This command will reduce the size of the selected image by a factor of two in each dimension This command uses a more sophisticated interpolation algorithm than does either of the Resize or Bin 2x2 commands Make Pixels Square This command provides a one step adjustment of the image aspect ratio It uses the pixel aspect ratio determined by the file header and interpolates the image to make the aspect ratio 1 1 The pixel aspect ratio can be viewed and modified using the FITS Header 6 97 Maxlm DL User Manual Stretch 6 98 viewer editor The appropriate keywords are XPIXSZ pixel width in microns and YPIXSZ pixel height in microns The Stretch command modifies the brightness and contrast and optionally the range maximum and minimum pixel values of an image Unlike the screen stretch settings in the Screen
503. t the procedure until you are satisfied with the results Noise Models Every image has noise This noise is unavoidable and greatly complicates the deconvolution process To provide the optimum deconvolution MaxIm DL needs to know something about the noise and background level in the image When these parameters are set properly the algorithm converges more strongly towards the correct solution Two predominant noise sources are usually encountered The first is photon shot noise random variations in light itself The Poisson noise model approximates this MaxIm DL automatically calculates the noise level in each pixel based upon the number of photoelectrons detected in that pixel In order to do this it needs to know the gain of the camera a value known as Photoelectrons per ADU or simply Gain this can be determined using the Photons Wizard The estimated amount of noise in a pixel simply corresponds to the square root of the number of photons detected Another noise source is the electronic read noise On average the same amount is present in every pixel so it is usually modeled using a Uniform noise model To obtain a measure of the uniform noise level i e the standard deviation of the distribution the variance in pixel values can be measured in some part of the image that contains no foreground data Often it is best to average the results from several locations If the image has no background due to high light levels then
504. t the result meets the Nyquist Sampling Criterion This means that small point sources like stars can all but disappear The correct way to resize an image is to first low pass filter it so that no spatial frequencies exceed one half the new sample interval This prevents the addition of aliasing distortion into the image The Half Size command includes such a Nyquist filter Deconvolution 3 46 Maximum Entropy and Lucy Richardson Deconvolution are advanced image restoration algorithms that can remove the effects of blurring in an image These algorithms first pioneered for radio astronomy became very important for visible light astronomers when the problems with the Hubble Space Telescope were discovered Outside of astronomical applications the same image technique can be applied to just about any image from microscope pictures to security camera video frames The only essential requirement is that the image be blurry Note that images taken with very short focal length cameras may have limited resolution yet they may have too few pixels to properly sample the blur that is in the image If the pixels in the camera do not resolve the blur then no image processing algorithm can improve the resolution deconvolution will not improve the image Two things are required for deconvolution to work The first is a model of the blur known as the Point Spread Function PSF The PSF tells the deconvolution algorithm Guide to CCD Imaging
505. tShow For this driver choose Video DS on the Setup tab This option provides video capture facilities through the Microsoft DirectX system It is strongly recommended that the latest version of DirectX be downloaded from the Microsoft web site and installed prior to using this driver Also any drivers required by the video source must be installed we recommend downloading the latest driver version from the manufacturer s web site Supported devices include most frame grabber and video input cards including VIVO video in video out display cards FireWire IEEE 1394 Digital Video DV cameras and webcams SS auu tsi ieee hara Vero Cages eo Vesa SE Copag z 2000 2007 0 Packen Lind Es Tera ee Caa bh Ea When the driver is connected a preview window will appear on screen The window can be resized using the mouse although this does not change the intrinsic video resolution this can be done via live setup see below The window can also be minimized if needed When the Expose button is pressed the driver copies the current video frame into an image buffer in MaxIm DL In most cases no exposure duration control is possible but special integration modes are available Binning can be set to 1x1 or 2x2 and subframes are supported Autoguiding is possible if an ASCOM PulseGuide compatible telescope mount guider motor relay control box or similar independent output device is used Integration controls different integrati
506. taneous corrections and make sure Delay After Correction is at least 0 1 seconds Returning to the Guide tab set the Aggressiveness to 7 Decreasing this number slows the guider response but makes it more stable increasing it does the opposite Make sure you have the telescopes mount s guide rate set between 1X and 0 1X if it is adjustable Check whether the mount has excessive backlash Try to rock the axes back and forth with the brakes on If it goes click click back and forth with a noticeable amount of movement then you need to adjust your worm gear engagement Check both RA and Dec axes for this The gears should be tight enough that there isn t excessive movement yet not so tight that the motors bind If the mount has anti backlash correction turn it off If set wrong it can completely mess up guiding If set correctly and the delay is large enough it will cause a severe phase lag that will make guiding unstable If you need backlash compensation you should only do it in MaxIm DL Check your balance The balance should be set so the gears are pushing a little 9 7 Maxlm DL User Manual 9 8 10 11 12 13 14 not just allowing the weight to fall For German Equatorial mounts this means when the telescope is on the East side it is coming up that the counterweight should be adjusted so the telescope end is a little heavier On the West side the counterweight end should be a little heavier If it isn
507. tch Star and Auto Dark are checked This will cause MaxIm CCD to display autoguider exposures during tracking so we can monitor the star Set an exposure of say 0 5 second Select the Expose guider mode radio button and set the Declination to zero Select the Guider Settings command from the Options menu 3 Click the Defaults button and click Yes to confirm that you want to set all fields to their recommended initial values The Manual Calibration and Exposure Settings controls are excluded Among these are 4 The Cal Time controls specify how long MaxIm CCD will hold the button down i e actuate the telescope guiding motors during guider calibration before measuring how far the star has moved Calibration is an essential step to determine how fast the guiding motors move the telescope and thus how much correction to apply for a particular measured position error Note if there is a speed control it 2 21 Maxlm DL User Manual 2 22 should be set to 0 5X or 1X for guiding purposes Cal Time is measured in seconds and can be specified independently for each axis o Tiaj bet Tia Famin Posies raira ig j Ca P Mia a a hah a Peon z ree ees E opa Cal le has Ca Tr cid ah F ripi Far al Era Mice Cad c mipi AA a aoe blew Denier Saab Ez al Derim Mae Pent F bs Eana G igi breg i Im die Hapi tak a 2a es The six check boxes in the Guider Enables group are all turned on enabling guiding in
508. te minimum and maximum pixel range values to silently prevent a filter from having any effect at all User Filter Definition The user can specify one of three Kernel Sizes for each of twelve kernels Once a kernel is defined it is automatically stored for future use A user supplied name can be applied to each kernel to allow quick selection The kernel is automatically normalized to unity by the filtering algorithm i e the weights are adjusted so that their sum is one 1 6 105 Maxlm DL User Manual 33 EE E a ru ms a mu mu Esti H FFT Filters FFT Filters provide precisely controlled low and high pass filtering smoothing and sharpening respectively using a Butterworth characteristic The image is converted into spatial frequencies using a Fast Fourier Transform the appropriate filter is applied and the image is converted back using an inverse FFT Ate famm By selecting High Pass or Low Pass you can perform sharpening or smoothing The Filter Hardness selector enters pre defined values into the Cutoff and Weight fields The Cutoff is entered as a percentage of the image dimensions For a Low Pass filter spatial frequencies shorter than the radius are suppressed a small radius yields a stronger effect for a High Pass filter spatial frequencies longer than the radius are suppressed a large radius yields a stronger effect 6 106 Command Reference Pixel Range Restriction T
509. techniques The SharpStar autofocus capability of MaxIm DL CCD can reliably focus as well as or better than manual focusing It does require a digitally controlled focuser Some less expensive motorized focusers can also be used for autofocus by using the FocusMax add on This free program is highly recommended and can be downloaded from http FocusMax org Aiming a CCD camera can be difficult since there is no facility to look through the camera The Focus tab can be a very useful tool for aiming Once the camera is focused set up the Focus tab to take a very short duration binned image You can then switch quickly back and forth between the Focus tab and the Expose tab which is usually set up to take a long high resolution exposure Although the focus frame will be a very short exposure the use of binning will boost the signal to noise ratio and make it possible to see faint objects This will allow you to easily take a quick snapshot to help with aiming If you have a GOTO telescope several helpful features are available You can use PinPoint Astrometry as a digital finderscope If you slew to an object but it does not appear on the chip perform a PinPoint reduction using the Spiral Search option Once PinPoint has found the solution switch to the Telescope Control window and press Sync You will be asked if you want to sync to the PinPoint solution Click OK to align the telescope s controller to the accurate PinPoint measurem
510. tely slew to the object or Close to close this dialog You can also slew to an object by double clicking on the Catalog Identification Center Tab 6 180 The Center tab is used to adjust the position of the telescope in order to center any object visible in the most recent image Once this auto center function has been calibrated you can instantly center any object in an image Calibration is described below To center an object first take an image of it Right click on the point in the image that you want to be at the center of the camera field of view then select Point telescope here from the context menu The telescope will automatically slew the distance required to center the object If Acquire new image after centering is on an exposure will automatically be taken using the settings in the Exposure button s Post Slew Exposure Settings dialog see the Command Reference Telescope tab for an explanation of the exposure settings This allows you to quickly see whether the object has been satisfactorily centered You can also center an object by clicking the Select New Center Point button and then clicking on the image It is usually more convenient to use the right click menu Calibration is very simple and need only be done once unless you remove or rotate the camera or change equipment tix Telorcopa Catalog Cente Focus Antoin Sm Caren Cerdas on Mirage O fu Feleot tine fornghtcich CA E SEM Cordes
511. tern is only noticeable in monochromatic light unfortunately emission lines are present in the sky background from both natural and artificial sources Since the sky background is dominant in deep exposures fringing can be a significant problem Due to variations in manufacturing fringes may be more objectionable in some sensors than others Sky flats work well because they exactly represent the sky illumination including the emission lines This technique is essentially the same as for twilight flats where the twilight sky is used as the light source except that it is done with the sky background itself 3 33 Maxlm DL User Manual The first step is to set up the camera and focus You should avoid repositioning the camera once the flat field frames are taken Next take a large number gt 30 of images of the night sky in a sparse part of the sky using a different field for each exposure Often the clock drive is turned off to allow the stars to trail this reduces the peak level of the stars and ensures that different fields are used for each exposure Ideally for flat fields the overall illumination should be at 30 of the full well capacity but this may require too long an exposure for night sky flats You should also take a similar number of bias and dark frames Enter all of these calibration frames using the Set Calibration command Make sure that Median SD Mask or Sigma Clipping is used for the flat fields You are now ready to
512. ters vary in thickness a Focus Offset can be entered for each filter This causes the focus position to be offset appropriately every time an exposure is taken with a new filter position If this feature is used absolute positioning focusers are strongly recommended to ensure repeatability SBIG ST 5 With CFW8 For this driver select SBIG ST 5 on the Setup tab The SBIG ST 5 can control an SBIG CFW 8 filter wheel No settings are required The camera can also be used with Homeyer Optec MaxFilter and True Technology Custom Wheels with the optional SBIG compatibility mode Hal z ite Ce 36168 515 Sema Drem Vernon 4 00 r Coppeght jel EEH Didon Limited Tara h eed upper charmer paren i 5574 Pas Pibes Haren Pocas i I 3 The user can assign names for each of the color filter slots under Filter Name If your filter wheel has fewer slots than allowed for by this driver simply leave the Filter Name in the extra slots blank they will not appear in the drop list filter selectors If the filters vary in thickness a Focus Offset can be entered for each filter This causes the focus position to be offset appropriately every time an exposure is taken with a new filter position If this feature is used absolute positioning focusers are strongly recommended to ensure repeatability 4 51 Maxlm DL User Manual SBIG ST 6 With CFW8 CFW6 A Filter Wheel For this driver select SBIG ST 6 on the Setup tab The SBIG ST 6 can control a
513. tes On Direct Serial Port Connection Note a special adapter circuit is required for non Homeyer wheels SBIG Universal Filter Wheel 4 50 For this driver select SBIG Universal on the Setup tab The SBIG Universal filter wheel setup is used with all SBIG that use the SBIG Universal or SBIG w AO 7 camera driver This does not include serial port interface cameras Hai TRE Ur Alter Cerin 3616 Urea veren 4 00 r r Copgeght jel 128 00 Diaci Lied Carma Hl eee Auppart proa rn od sam kira LA Pas Piter Fiare Poca Offa oct Aaj i Sandara an 1 Eha 1 4 Fiy i i Fis i Pimi The Model of filter wheel can be selected to Standard CFW8 or CFW 6A In CFW8 mode it also supports Homeyer Optec MaxFilter and True Technology Custom Wheels with the optional SBIG compatibility mode The Standard mode is used when Equipment Setup controlling the integrated filter wheel for the STL ST 5C or ST 237 SBIG CFW 6A filter wheels require a FILTER CFG file This file is produced by using the SBIG CCDOPS software to calibrate the filter wheel The file must be copied from the CCDOPS program installation directory to the MaxIm DL program installation directory The user can assign names for each of the color filter slots under Filter Name If your filter wheel has fewer slots than allowed for by this driver simply leave the Filter Name in the extra slots blank they will not appear in the drop list filter selectors If the fil
514. test pixel exceeds the maximum allowed value a warning message will appear If the image is saved while this warning message is present any pixels above the maximum allowable value will be saturated In Command Reference some cases this may badly affect the image To avoid exceeding the available file format range the Stretch dialog may be initiated directly by clicking the Stretch button This will allow you to rescale the memory buffer to values compatible with the file format The Auto Stretch feature may be activated to automatically stretch images before they are saved When enabled images that contain pixels exceeding the maximum allowed value for the selected file format will be automatically stretched before they are saved The screen stretch settings will be used to determine the zero and maximum pixel values used Images that do not exceed the file format maximum pixel value will not be affected by Auto Stretch Note that the FITS file format is affected by the File menu Settings command The FITS standard does not support unsigned integers which limits the maximum pixel value to 32767 To provide a full 16 bit data range MaxIm DL will by default use BZERO and BSCALE keywords to offset the data range Some software packages use non standard unsigned integers instead MaxIm DL can be set to save images in this fashion using the General tab of the Settings command on the File menu Save All This command saves all currentl
515. th order Now click the mouse on different background areas in the image window Avoid areas of nebulosity and try not to include stars in the aperture of the mouse innermost circle of the rings cursor You can change the size of the aperture over which the average measurement is made by right clicking and picking Increase Aperture Decrease Aperture or Set Aperture Radius in the standard image context menu If you right clicked on a green circle marking an existing sample region you will recompute that one sample with the new radius as well as setting the size of subsequent samples You cannot place a sample circle so that it intersects a previously placed sample You can drag the green circle for a previously placed sample area to a different location or remove it entirely by right clicking on it and picking Discard background sample from the head of the context menu Command Reference You must place at least four samples before background flattening can occur With fewer samples attempts to update the Preview Image and or the Full Screen preview are ignored and clicking OK displays the error message You must select at least 4 background points For Simple bilinear mode locations near the corners of the image are recommended In Complex 8th order mode you will typically need eight or more points more or less uniformly distributed Good results can often be obtained by operating with Auto Full Screen preview enabled and adding new samp
516. the image within the queue and the total number of images being processed as well as the name of the current image To erase a sequence click Clear Typically you use this before recording a new sequence To save a sequence to disk for future use click Save enter a filename in the Select Command Sequence dialog and click OK Similarly to load a sequence from disk click Load and pick the desired file The file selector remembers the last directory you used for command sequence files but you can navigate to another if desired Line Profile The Line Profile window can display graphical data derived from an image The window works as a floating window or toolbox When it is open all other program functions are available and you can switch between images just by clicking on them Also the line profile window can be resized by dragging the raised border with the mouse Within limits you can make the graph as large or as small as you wish Note when using Line Profile in certain modes the usual box drawing functions of the mouse cursor are changed You may wish to turn off the Line Profile command when using other functions The region on the screen to be viewed can be selected using the mouse Point at the start position then press and hold the left mouse button Drag the mouse to the end position and release it as noted below some modes just require a single click Depending on the mode a line or rectangle will be display
517. the entered Value is different from the existing one Set is also disabled if the contents of the Value field cannot be translated into the correct type for example if the entered value for an Integer key contains non digits Use the same procedure to edit an existing entry In this case you can start by simply picking its name from the droplist or clicking on it in the Keyword column of the list box To remove a user defined keyword from the list select it as if you were going to edit it then click Unset The five predefined FITS keywords cannot be deleted and MaxIm DL always makes entries for them You can however set them to empty strings Two of the predefined entries OBJECT and INSTRUME have associated checkboxes that enable automatic updating of the FITS Header 1 MaxIm DL will automatically fill in the FITS OBJECT keyword with the same 6 17 Maxlm DL User Manual object identification it displays in the Slewing to or Positioned on messages in the Telescope status area if the following conditions are all met e Set OBJECT from Telescope Control s catalog ID if available is checked e you have connected to the telescope and e you used the Telescope Catalog tab to position the telescope on the object When this control is checked any entry shown for OBJECT in the Keyword Value list box is used only when the Telescope Control does not report an object i e the object is not in the catalog you didn t us
518. the files to be combined This is done in the standard Windows fashion by holding the Shift key down and selecting a set of files with the mouse or by holding the CTRL key down and selecting the files individually All of the files have to be of the same type file format You can include all the files in a sequence even if some of them are known to be of poor quality since the second dialog allows you to reject poor images 6 3 Maxlm DL User Manual Once you have selected the desired files click the Combine button A second Combine Files dialog is presented PAS Se Seal MISA HA pH MIO h MEA PHS 0 jM FHIAR J A PAP aH A MARA Combine Files 6 4 When the Combine Files dialog box appears a special Align image buffer also appears The first step is to select the Output mode This determines how the images are combined The options are Sum which adds up the pixels in all the images Average which sums all the pixels and divides by the number of images and Median which takes the median or middle value from all of the images The Sum mode provides the best performance in most conditions e g when Gaussian noise is present The Median mode is useful when some pixels are extremely bright or dark hot dark pixels cosmic ray hits If Median mode is used a Normalize option is available Normalize will remove differences in the image scaling which could interfere with the median processing The Sigma Clip and SD Mask combina
519. the filter The Cutoff radius is 6 109 Maxlm DL User Manual entered as a percentage of the image dimensions Entering a smaller value produces a stronger filter A strong filter is useful for removing large scale brightness variations while a weak filter is useful for emphasizing fine detail There are two other parameters that need to be set Background should be set to the average background level in the image This can be calculated automatically by selecting the associated Auto check box Normally this is sufficient however the level can also be set manually or by using the mouse Turn off the Auto check box to edit manually To use the mouse turn off Auto and turn on Mouse Point the mouse at a background area in the image not the preview and click the left mouse button The Mid level setting is more critical It controls the break point in the transfer curve and should be set to a middle level in the image It can be calculated automatically but using the Mouse input method is recommended The best procedure is to activate Auto Preview mode and click the mouse in various foreground areas of the image buffer not the preview until you are satisfied with the preview image Note that the Mid level setting must be higher than the Background setting Rank Filter The Rank Filter amplifies faint detail by replacing each pixel by its position or rank within the sorted list of the values of its neighbors within a specified Radius Th
520. the root mean square error as well as the instantaneous error The RMS error is a moving average based on the measurements made over an adjustable interval called the RMS Window discussed below RMS Trends are not available when X and Y Errors are plotted on the same graph They are shown in a lighter color than the raw measurements The graph can be plotted with symbols at each sample small triangles for raw error measurements and plus signs for RMS averages Alternatively you can request that Lines joining points of the same type instead which is easier to see if the graph window is not very big Intervals when guiding is inactive or the guide star was lost are indicated by breaks in the line The Vertical Scale submenu allows you to select the Y axis range The available scales are 0 5 1 2 and 5 pixels You cannot display tracking error plots in arc seconds The Time Span submenu allows you to select how much data is plotted in the graph based on a time range ending at or near the time of the most recent measurement The available choices are 1 3 6 10 and 15 minutes Data is not lost when the selected Time Span is shortened only when the data point ages beyond the maximum limit of 15 minutes The RMS Window submenu allows you to specify the length of time over which data is averaged when computing the RMS error You can choose between 30 seconds 1 2 3 or 4 minutes RMS information is not plotted for a measurement if there is i
521. the serial port to levels acceptable to the filter wheel These parts are readily available from suppliers such as http www digikey com Voltage Limiting Circuit Warning Use this circuit at your own risk Incorrect connection could damage the filter wheel Damage to the wheel may also occur if the ground connection to the circuit below is unconnected Assembly by qualified personnel is highly recommended Telescope Setup Telescope Setup Telescope drivers used by MaxIm DL CCD comply with the ASCOM Standard These drivers may be supplied by third party equipment manufacturers or included as part of the ASCOM Platform The ASCOM Platform is a collection of drivers most of which are open source These drivers have been contributed by interested individuals as well as astronomical product companies including Diffraction Limited The ASCOM Platform is free and can be downloaded from the ASCOM web site A copy is also included on the distribution CD ROM although the on line version may be newer as drivers are added and updated on a regular basis Please see http ascom standards org for more information Additional information on specific drivers is available below Many other ASCOM drivers are available from the ASCOM website from equipment manufacturers or from other third parties Documentation for such must be obtained from the creator of the driver 4 57 Maxlm DL User Manual ASCOM ACP Telescope Astronomer s Control Prog
522. the small Preview Image is often better Histogram Specification on the other hand is fast and it is very helpful to use the Auto Full Screen mode with that command Experience will tell you which method to use with which command Note that the two Auto modes are mutually exclusive you cannot use both at once Note in some cases performing a Full Screen preview causes the undo buffer associated with the image to be discarded If so you can still Cancel the current command and see the unmodified image but you will not be able to Undo the previous operation applied to this image Simple Mouse Tricks MaxIm DL has a number of handy features that are accessible with the mouse as follows Introduction Ooo CO ee ee CTRL click on the image and hold while dragging the image Zoom and re center Right click on the image and select Zoom In or Zoom Out The image will zoom and pan so that the spot you clicked on is now the center SHIFT click on the image and hold while dragging up down left right Select a region of the image Click and drag the mouse on the image to select a rectangle The rectangle can be adjusted by gripping and edge move or a corner resize Turn on Crosshairs Right click on the image and select Crosshairs Adjust Information window Right click on the image to aperture select the aperture gap or background annulus size Center the telescope on an Right click on the point you object in an
523. the telescope motion quickly hit the Abort button You can nudge the telescope in eight cardinal directions using the appropriate Nudge buttons The distance moved is determined by the settings below the buttons This is handy for centering objects however the Auto Center function is much quicker See the Center tab for more information If you need to synchronize the telescope s position you can click the Syne button whereupon the Sync Telescope dialog pops up If a PinPoint astrometric solution has been calculated for the current image you can synchronize the telescope to that Otherwise you can synchronize on the currently entered position Click OK to confirm the new synchronization Ux Sprchearara baleacopaa vath F Speciied phin Pa Ah Cl 2a De 117 ar Se E Sheed perio Fia 20h Des Ba eee 186 ae If Take image is checked then an exposure will automatically be taken after every slew operation Click the Exposure button to provide settings for these automated exposures whereupon the Post Slew Exposure Settings will pop up Jen shem sopera Sein Hal Dia sites E ler jul i same Tiree ad 1 You can enter the Delay after Slew s which provides for some delay time before starting the exposure This may be necessary to allow time for the clock drive to settle before taking the picture Exposure Time s is usually set fairly low 1 10 seconds to grab a quick exposure so you can tell where you are pointing Binning is b
524. the up down spin control arrow buttons to rapidly dial from 0 001 second 0 01 seconds for some cameras to thousands of seconds Set the Delay to 0 seconds If a delay is set there will be a brief pause between exposures For some cameras the controls are locked out during download to prevent pattern noise in this case a slight delay may make it easier to operate the controls particularly in Continuous mode 6 Click Start Focus to take an exposure After a few seconds a simulated CCD image 2 15 Maxlm DL User Manual appears 7 Most cameras are too slow for easy full frame focusing To speed up the focus download select a subframe To do this point the mouse just to the top left of a star hold down the left mouse button and drag to create a rectangle around the star as shown above The subframe settings will be automatically entered You can also automatically select a small subframe by clicking the Auto button To restore full frame imaging click Reset 8 Click Start Focus Only the selected part of the image will be downloaded Most cameras will operate much faster if a subframe is selected 9 Click on the Inspect tab tx Espora Saingi Sequence Fea bret Gute Estar 10 The Inspect tab will show a three dimensional representation of the star image The narrower the star the sharper the focus The X Y position of the selected star is also shown along with the Full Width Half Maximum FWHM hori
525. ther by focus problems fundamental limitations or errors in the optics motion blur or the effects of air currents in the atmosphere All of these blurring effects can be modeled by a single Point Spread Function PSF Mathematically speaking the PSF is convolved with the original perfect image to produce the blurred picture at the detector Let s assume you took a photograph of something that you know is a perfect point of light An example of this would be a star image aside from the Sun stars are much too far from the Earth to be resolved by conventional optical systems The actual image on the photograph would not be a perfect point like the real star because of various blurring effects The intensity profile of the blur in the picture is actually itself an accurate measurement of the PSF which blurred the image If the image contained many stars each would be blurred by the same PSF In some cases the PSF actually varies across the frame In this case the image may have to be processed in segments Ideally the PSF should be noise free Of course any measurement taken from the image itself will be subject to noise The first criterion should be to take the star image with the greatest signal to noise ratio for a linear CCD detector this is usually the brightest non saturated star in the image In some cases this should be cleaned up further Curdled left and Correctly Sharpened right MaxIm DL provides two different
526. tically eliminated using the Clone tool Astrometry Astrometry is the precise measurement of the position of celestial objects such as stars minor planets asteroids supernovae and comets In the case of new discoveries this can be extremely important for orbit determination and for planning follow up observations The determination of an accurate orbit for a new object requires multiple precise positions over a period of time Until the advent of CCD cameras and analysis software this was a time consuming and difficult procedure Now highly accurate measurements can be made quickly and easily For performing astrometric measurements MaxIm DL includes the PinPoint LE Astrometric Engine from DC3 Dreams SP http acp dc3 com which integrates seamlessly with MaxIm DL Additional capabilities are available with the full version of PinPoint which is also compatible with MaxIm DL Once PinPoint is set up for the star catalog and the general characteristics of your images rough image scale etc the analysis is fully automatic When using the MaxIm CCD camera control and Telescope Control windows a rough position is added to the FITS header for each image PinPoint uses this as a starting point It finds all the stars in the image matches against catalog positions for stars in that vicinity and then 3 51 Maxlm DL User Manual calculates a mapping between the catalog and the image This mapping is stored as World Coordinate Sy
527. tion Limited Open MaxIm DL Select 4 0 SPS DO LON ES G0 SND Using the Security menu Permissions click Add and include the class of users you want to have access to this key Make sure they have at least read access Write access is required to install the software and enter the license 10 Click OK Poor Image Display If color images do not display properly but monochrome images do you are in the 256 color video mode which is not fully supported by MaxIm DL It is strongly recommended that High Color 16 bit or a higher video mode be used To change video modes 1 Click on the Start button select Settings and choose Control Panel 1 5 Maxlm DL User Manual 2 Double click on the Display icon 3 Under Color Palette change the setting to High Color 16 bit 4 Click OK Depending on your video card you may have to restart your computer We recommend that you shut down MaxIm DL and restart it after changing modes If High Color mode is not available you need to select the correct video driver Advanced Properties Please contact your computer or video card vendor for more information Video and Printer Driver Problems Many problems encountered with Windows based PC s can be traced to problems in the video or printer drivers Driver bugs can often result in stability problems with Windows itself or cause odd behavior in applications software Some printer drivers can actually cause problems completely unr
528. tion modes attempt to combine the best features of the Median and Average modes but require more intensive calculations These algorithms require additional settings which are discussed below When the Sigma Clip or SD Mask Standard Deviation Mask a custom algorithm contributed by Ray Gralak combine algorithms are selected additional parameters are required to control how the images are combined Both algorithms work by calculating the mean value of each pixel across all of the input images as well as the standard deviation of those pixel values If Ignore Black Pixels is checked then any pixel with a value of 0 is excluded from the mean standard deviation calculation Command Reference Hima of paciar Eigra Fiche b5 When using the Sigma Clip algorithm the pixel value that deviates the most from the mean will be discarded provided that the deviation is greater than the number of standard deviations given by the Sigma Factor and a new mean will be calculated without the discarded value This value is assigned to the corresponding pixel in the output image MEENE Himba of pacer E 4q nyafi 05 When the images are rotated or resized MaxIm DL will interpolate the values of the pixels in the input images to produce a more accurate result in the output Two interpolation modes are available Bicubic Resample uses a higher order resample algorithm that produces a crisper result but requires more processing time When tu
529. tion n cccccccccccccccccsssssssccccccccccssssesccccssccesseescccssseeesesess 3 29 Flat Field Frame Calibration cccccccccccccccscccccssccccccccccsssseccccscccssccessesesceees 3 30 Combining Frames oooooocnnnccnnancnnnncnnnnnnnnnnonnn conan conan sasear iee tis ansien iseiti 3 32 Are All Three NeCeSSArY scccessccsssccessceenscesseeceeecesnecesaecesseesaeeesaeessneees 3 32 Hoy Ela 2 A RE 3 33 STRETCHING cue dscecsviccceestedecsatucestecdtedesecedtec EE E talado callando 3 34 Monitor Setup isrener aa a E E ETE AR aAa PEKAR Ta REAT eTA 3 34 GOIN Gs nre in Ea E aE A a A e AS E EESE A E eai 3 35 CUIVES haiti eRe is BES A AAA AA e 3 36 Histogram Specificati0K oooocononococnnnonnnnnnnannnnnananonnnnnnnnnnnna cnc naar anecnnnancc no 3 37 BACKGROUND AND GRADIENT REMOVAL s sssecccceeecessseecccceeecesseecessaaeseeeeceeseeaanness 3 38 TE TERING 3 3 sec EE cee es wee a e a di 3 38 NOISE R EAQUCTION Fair Bei ae aes Eo is ae Bk Oh EI RP EE 3 39 SHGIPONLIN Gs A TOS 3 39 Digital Development Processing moonnonnnoninnoninonncnonanonncnnnncrnna conan ncnnnconnos 3 40 Special Purpose Filters cccccscccsscccesceescecescecescecesseeesseecnseseseessseeeeseeesaes 3 40 Table of Contents COLOR PROCESSING errr a TETOR dave AA a A E 3 41 Creating Color IMA eS niini iiin e a E a 3 41 Adding Luminance scccescccescccesseceeseeeeseesescecesceceesseecsseesseecsseecssaesesaeeesaes 3 41 COlOP balanc o E E E E e 3 42 Color UTA AT E 3 43 Smo
530. tion using the matching area from the calibration images This allows you to set up calibration frames for both the guider and main camera under a variety of conditions without needing to switch manually between different groups of calibration images Since calibration can be complicated you may wish to use the Calibration Wizard to help you select the correct settings MaxIm DL allows you to create an arbitrary number of groups of calibration images Command Reference Each image group is identified by the properties of the images that it contains including the image type bias dark or flat filter used for flat field duration image size binning and camera temperature All images in a group must be the same size These input images are combined to produce a single master frame for each group which is then used for calibration Each image group has different properties specifying the algorithm used to combine the images Groups of dark frames have additional settings that control whether and how they are scaled to match the exposure duration of the image to be calibrated The Calibrate Bias Calibrate Dark and Calibrate Flat check boxes are used to enable or disable the use of the associated type of group for calibration If bias and dark subtraction are both enabled then the dark frame will always have the bias frame subtracted from it Flat fields are themselves calibrated before being used to calibrate a light frame but it is poss
531. tional Gradient The Rotational Gradient filters are useful for enhancing low contrast structures that are radially organized about some point in an image They are particularly suited to bringing out details such as jets in comets such as near nucleus jets and gas tail structure Two types are provided the Simple Subtraction filter takes the difference between two oppositely rotated copies of the image from each other while the Larson Sekanina filter adds the two and subtracts the result from twice the original image In either case a constant is added so as to make the minimum pixel in the result zero Select the Filter Type desired The Simple Subtraction filter is the more aggressive of the two but fine detail tends to get lost Moreover the output is not symmetric in that positive and negative features are rotated in opposite directions and the eye tends to notice the former more readily resulting in an apparent rotation This is particularly 6 111 Maxlm DL User Manual obvious when blinking the filter output against the input The Larson Sekanina filter shows finer detail but its output is also more subtle Both Rotational Gradient filters require a Rotation Center which should normally be positioned in the case of a comet on the nucleus MaxIm DL attempts to set this automatically when you open the tool by searching the image for the likely candidate However if the object of interest is small faint or there are bright sta
532. tively satellite time receivers including computer interfaceable GPS receivers may come with software for this purpose When shutter calibration has been successfully performed MaxIm CCD sets the DATE OBS FITS keyword to one hundredth of a second precision If you wish to discontinue use of high precision exposure time tagging set each field to blank and click Apply In this case DATE OBS is recorded only to one second accuracy Images taken with the autoguider are always written to only one second accuracy and shutter calibration cannot be performed on the guiding camera When shutter calibration is complete click Close so that MaxIm CCD does not continuously generate the dynamic test target during all CCD exposures Sequence Tab The Sequence tab is used to set up sequences of exposures and capture them automatically Multiple images of the same area of sky can be combined later using the Combine Files command to improve the image quality signal to noise ratio or 6 147 Maxlm DL User Manual analyzed to study the behavior of a short period variable or the motion of an asteroid If you have a computer controllable telescope mount you can also configure the Sequence tab to capture images over a specified rectangle of sky and combine them later into a wide field Mosaic i ham en ix Espora Saig Sequence Foc imipect Gude Etup i _ _ Ld Pepe Supt al time Sala ea Cod A as et E 101 eg T
533. to come Note that some CCD cameras may have a small bias dependency on temperature Small bias offsets are not important of themselves but they can degrade the effectiveness of the flat fielding calibration Dark Frame Calibration Every CCD camera produces a certain amount of dark current which accumulates in the pixels during an exposure The dark current is produced by heat high performance cameras cool their CCD chips to minimize this effect The main problem with dark current is that it accumulates at a different rate in every pixel If not compensated for this will add a large amount of noise into the image Fortunately this effect can be easily removed by subtracting a dark frame A dark frame is an exposure taken under the same conditions as the light exposure but with the shutter closed Since each pixel is consistent in its dark current at any one temperature the dark frame can be subtracted from the light frame to remove the effect Unfortunately while the rate of dark current is constant the actual accumulation of dark current is random Doubling the dark current increases the random noise produced by the square root of 2 1 414 Most CCD arrays have some hot pixels that produce larger amounts of dark current this also means they produce significantly more noise Since the noise is random and therefore unpredictable it cannot be removed You can improve the hot pixels but you cannot completely fix them Over the course of
534. tomatically add 1 second of drive time whenever the direction changes A suitable backlash time can be entered into the Guide tab Settings dialog box for each axis This number is used for both calibration and for guiding You should always set this to less than the estimated backlash time if it is too high it will result in chronic overcorrection If in doubt set it to zero Note that some mount drive systems include built in backlash compensation It is recommended that this be turned off during autoguiding The term stiction comes from static friction Static friction occurs when two objects in contact are at rest or moving very slowly relative to each other Dynamic friction occurs when the two objects are in motion Static friction is always larger than dynamic friction so when an object starts moving the amount of friction present can change very rapidly An example of this happens when you brake your car Just before the car stops you have to let up on the brake pedal otherwise the car jolts to a stop if you ve been driving for years you may not even be aware you are doing it Stiction occurs between the teeth in a gear system Of particular interest here is the effect on worm drives which are typically used in astronomical telescopes When the 3 9 Maxlm DL User Manual drive is stationary the gears stick together When the worm starts rotating it pulls on the teeth of the worm wheel In this situation th
535. top command If the focuser features automatic Temperature Tracking you can turn on the check box to activate this During temperature tracking the focuser position cannot be changed manually You can also move in incremental steps This is very useful during manual focusing Set an Incremental step size and then click Move In or Move Out Autofocus Tab 6 182 This tab operates the SharpStar autofocus algorithm SharpStar is designed for highly accurate fully automatic autofocus SharpStar autofocus uses the Half Flux Diameter measurement technique a highly accurate and repeatable method of measuring the star diameter Half Flux Diameter is the diameter that encompasses half of the total light received from the star It can handle extremely large donuts from centrally obstructed systems without trouble The highly robust Half Flux Diameter method was invented by Larry Weber and Steve Brady For more information on HFD focus methods and an excellent autofocus utility program designed for use with MaxIm DL CCD please see http www focusmax org Command Reference Once Autofocus is set up merely click the Start button and wait SharpStar is designed for reliability and accuracy not speed It may take several minutes to find best focus However this is often much faster than can be achieved manually ST x Tetetcope Catalog Corin Foto Aatolocin sama It is extremely important before starting autofocus to
536. tretch shown on toolbars or in the context menu displayed when you right click on the image In many cases statistical analysis and image inspection tools such as the Information and Line Profile windows can be used while an image processing command is open Usually just the window you are working on is active but for some commands that operate on multiple images all open image windows are available Note that the small preview window on the dialog box can be adjusted for Screen Stretch as well as the main image window High Bit Depth Images Most point and shoot digital cameras produce 8 bit data Scientific grade CCD cameras typically produce 16 bit data Moreover if you attempt to stack 16 bit data you end up with more than 16 bits For this reason MaxIm DL works with images in 32 bit floating point format This requires more memory than a standard paint program but it means you have almost unlimited data range available This has two major effects on how you work with the package e When you view images you have to Screen Stretch the image that is adjust its brightness and contrast so you can see it e When you save images you have to make sure the file format can accommodate the bit range Viewing Images Let s assume we have a 16 bit image The brightest pixel in such an image has a value of at most 65535 For an astronomical image we might have a few stars this bright but much of the information esp
537. ts can be effectively removed by creating an artificial image containing only a smooth plane with a slope matching that of the background of your image If you then subtract this artificial image from your image the background will be leveled out and the gradient eliminated The Flatten Background command does exactly this when Background Fit is set to Simple bilinear Areas of the image that contain only background are first identified Measurements are made in each area and then a plane is fitted to the data Finally this plane is subtracted off eliminating the gradient The measurements can be made automatically but it is difficult for the software to determine which areas contain only background It is always best to specify these areas manually using the mouse Point the mouse at the image and using the right click menu set a medium aperture size large enough to collect a good sample of background but not so large that it will be hard to fit in between the stars Now click on a few widely spaced areas of the image that are obviously background and then click OK If you have vignetting the light level will fall off towards the edges In some cases you may have glows with an odd pattern due to a light leak or readout amplifier glow The Flatten Background command also allows you to correct for this Set Background Fit to Complex 8 order First select a dozen or so points around the image then turn on the Auto Full Screen preview
538. ts file in the Samples directory For help on opening files see the Open a File Tutorial Make sure the Screen Stretch window is visible If it is not click the Toggle Screen Stretch button on the Toolbar Tutorials The Screen Stretch window should look something like this The large histogram graph at upper left shows the relative number of pixels vertical scale at each intensity level horizontal scale in the image The graph shows that most of the pixels are grouped on the left dark side of the histogram and that the number of pixels drops off rapidly at brighter levels right side The red caret pointer indicates the brightness level that is displayed as black on the screen The brightness level of the red caret is indicated in Minimum Similarly the green caret indicates the brightness level that is displayed as white on the screen this brightness level is indicated in Maximum Click on the drop down list with the mouse and select Low The image should change as follows A ING_ldakelepg lla The Low Stretch setting makes the image darker allowing details in the brighter part of the comet to be visible Try selecting the High Stretch setting and see what happens Each of the three views reveals different parts of the comet Note that selecting the stretch mode has no effect on how the image is stored it only changes how it is displayed Quick Stretch The fastest way to adjust the image brightness and cont
539. ts in the earlier file Alternatively to load a sequence numbered file immediately to the left of the current data set the offset to the negative of the number of points in the file being loaded Process Menu Calibrate The Calibrate command will calibrate the currently selected image If a valid calibration is not set then an error message appears If the calibration was set on a previous MaxIm DL session the calibration files will be loaded again if still available Only monochrome images can be calibrated and they must have the same dimensions as the calibration frames Calibrate All The Calibrate All command will calibrate all open images that e Have not already been calibrated during this MaxIm DL session e Are monochrome and e Match the image dimensions of the selected calibration frames This is useful for calibrating a large group of images simultaneously Set Calibration The Set Calibration command allows you to initialize the calibration function Calibration is used to overcome limitations in CCD cameras as well as other instrumental effects e g vignetting Calibration greatly improves the signal to noise ratio and photometric accuracy of images Calibration is performed using a group of calibration images taken with the same CCD camera under the same conditions as the actual image Calibration images must be full frame images although they can be binned The Bias Frame is used to remove offsets 6 75 Max
540. tters numbers underscores and hyphens Select a mode with the Type control you can select an integer number real number a character string or a logical format When you have finished entering the data click the Set button To delete a key click on it under the Keyword column or using the Key Name drop list Click the Delete key to remove it Note that you cannot remove or modify certain mandatory keywords required by the FITS standard Command Sequence 6 46 The Command Sequence tool is used to record commands drawn from the MaxIm DL application menu into sequences sometimes called macros and to edit them and play them back For interactive commands that is those which invoke a modal dialog box to obtain control parameters the complete set of values as they were at the time the command was recorded are all saved in the sequence The same command can be used more than once in a single sequence each time with different control parameters Alternatively command s can be marked as requiring user interaction on playback the sequence will open the command s dialog with the various controls preset to the recorded values but will then pause and allow you to change settings You can preview the operation as necessary in the usual way and even cancel the command dialog but the Command Reference remainder of the sequence will continue normally Command sequences are perhaps most useful when you need to perform the same process
541. ttings necessary to equalize the image background in all three color planes toi o aaj a hal D Avior Filter OF Ha cone E Aa fio al ns Carers r Al T Gem 100 H ie jo Presa ine ie Prima to Fal Guss Scaling adjustment percent allows you to compensate for differing sensitivity between the color planes Values of 100 result in no change The scaling adjustments can be typed in or adjusted using the spin controls The Preview Image is particularly helpful in monitoring the results when using the spin controls The Reset Scaling button resets to 100 on all three planes The X Offset and Y Offset selections are used to correct for any misalignment of the color mask in the CCD camera Normally these are turned off If the converted images exhibit an obvious color imbalance try selecting different combinations of these two options In most situations clicking the Auto background level button and then clicking OK can obtain accurate colors The conversion routine is already calibrated for good color balance with MX series cameras Further adjustments to the color balance can be made using the Color Balance command The color pixel grids in the MX series cameras and others which use similar on detector filter matrices can cause color aliasing which manifests itself as colored fringing particularly around bright stars Enabling the Anti Alias Filter setting applies 6 133 Maxlm DL User Manual
542. ty The Serial Command field allows you to enter a text command that will be sent to the port For example if Serial Command is set to MOVE a typical output command will be MOVE 1 23 2 34 lt CR gt The first number indicates the number of seconds to actuate the X motor and the second number indicates the number of seconds to actuate the Y motor A minus sign indicates to move the telescope in the minus direction The Binning control allows you to combine multiple pixels into larger super pixels This increases sensitivity and reduces download time but reduces resolution It is only recommended when using a large autoguider CCD chip with small pixels on long focal length instruments The Left Top Width and Height controls set the subframe area used for the Expose and Calibrate modes These can be set from the image using the mouse and a previously acquired autoguider image hold down the left button and drag the mouse on the Autoguider Image while the Autoguider Settings dialog is open to this page The Reset button restores the subframe settings to the entire CCD array Changes to most controls on this dialog do not take effect until you either close the dialog or click the Apply button When a control has been altered the Apply button enables automatically to remind you that it has not yet taken effect The Defaults button resets most controls to their factory defaults The exceptions are the calibration values X Speed Y Sp
543. u will want to take it from the image you are about to deconvolve To capture it from a different one click on the title bar or image tab of the desired image before clicking Automatic Select or Select from Image When the From File option is selected you can click the Select File button to bring up the Open dialog MaxIm DL will take the brightest pixel in the file as the center of the PSF The resulting PSF is cropped or expanded to 64x64 pixels if necessary Once a PSF has been created you can view it in its own window by clicking on the Show PSF button An image buffer will be created containing the PSF image which you can save to a file for later reuse with the From File option The window is a copy of the PSF and not the PSF itself that is if you filter or process the image in any way or close its window you will not affect the current PSF Show PSF is a latching button and remains depressed as long as the PSF window exists Clicking the Show PSF button again causing it to pop back up to the raised state causes the PSF image window to be closed Point spread functions can be sampled from color images but are always themselves Command Reference monochrome When conversion is necessary it is done automatically Deconvolve The Deconvolve dialog is where the actual deconvolution processing is initiated The Noise and Point Spread Function models must be initialized before you can start deconvolution Since there are a number
544. uide star from the center position and is measured in pixels Minimizing this value will improve the quality of the main exposure by minimizing the spot size of the stars The AO 7 Tilt displays the current AO 7 mirror tilt in percent in the X and Y directions When autoguiding commences the mirror is set to the home position i e 50 x 50 which is the same position used when locating a guide star with the Locate tab The update Rate is measured in Hertz and is the number of full cycles each cycle comprising image acquisition image download processing mirror tilt and display update completed per second The update Rate will generally be limited by the Track Time however for short track times lt 0 05 sec the image download and mirror movement times will have a greater impact on performance Note that slightly faster update rates can be achieved by guiding on a star located near the top edge but not too near of the guide chip since the download time is slightly shorter A larger improvement in the update rate can be achieved by reducing the Track Box size on the Setup tab The Total Counts field displays the current number of counts accumulated in the Track Box during the Track Time versus the number of counts accumulated in the initial Command Reference tracking image The number of Total Counts will be proportional to the guide star s brightness AO 7 Drive Tab The Drive tab is used to set up the motor drive for autogui
545. ults In MaxIm DL CCD there are four tabs e General e FITS Header e Site and Optics e Audible Alarms NOTE In the image processing only version of MaxIm DL only the General and 6 14 Command Reference Audible Alarms tab are available General The Fast Calculation setting when enabled causes MaxIm DL to skip some image pixels when developing the histogram for the Screen Stretch window This greatly speeds the histogram calculation but reduces accuracy somewhat Using this will improve program responsiveness for large image files per ax Garaa FITE eden Sia red Dodici acid Aan Goten Saca Hels or Lak sul Freel FF Fat Cati a HoreSuaredaed FITS lago ca os E iar brag Tabi l mpm hein CiD legen F Se Digan enai Feri nee and liar dai dugal 7 did ofi ip rake palis Laion of eap Pee EOE a ERLOA Ten eam Controls in the Look and Feel area affect the visual appearance of the MaxIm DL application The Skin dropdown allows you to choose among several different styles of menu toolbars and status bar When Show Image Tabs is checked MaxIm DL reserves a small horizontal band near the top of the application window in which to display tabs similar to those on file folders one for each open image window Clicking on one of these tabs transfers application focus to the corresponding image window and is a convenient alternative to picking the window from the list in the Window menu When there is not enough
546. um Number of Stars to Identify sets a lower limit on how many stars must be 6 67 Maxlm DL User Manual used for the reduction If too few stars are used the analysis may not be accurate This ensures that the astrometric reduction will fail if the results are inaccurate due to too few matched stars jaa ceed Parecer s T Soun ree MEE 3 ope NERS pa Em Fo Mrs Hanks itachi pl Fe M iE Fe Eder Wi baedi PF FF Bia phj E The Fit order specifies the minimum order of the fitting polynomial used The Border Width pixels is used to discard edge artifacts including objects cut off by the edge of the image Any object less than Size pixels is ignored Please see the PinPoint documentation for more information on any of these parameters Pixel Scale Editor 6 68 If the pixel scale is already in the FITS header simply select Pixel Scale and click Load from FITS Alternatively you can enter values manually in the X and Y fields in this mode The scale is in arc seconds per pixel Another method is to use the Calculator mode Enter the Pixel Size microns and Focal Length mm or click the Load from FITS button within the Calculator frame to extract the values directly from the FITS header Most cameras supported by the MaxIm CCD camera control window provide pixel dimensions automatically when an image is taken The Focal length mm field will contain the telescope focal length if it was specified on the Site
547. unction Autoguider operations may seem somewhat complex at first It is highly recommended that you review the tutorial MaxIm CCD can take sequences of exposures while the autoguider is running even for cameras that share a shutter between the guide CCD and imaging CCD During download the shutter is closed and the guider cannot operate MaxIm CCD automatically reacquires the guide star after each exposure If a multi filter sequence is in progress it waits for the filter wheel to finish rotating before reacquiring the guide star When taking exposure sequences a five second delay is automatically inserted between exposures to allow time for the autoguider to settle This is necessary because the guider cannot operate during camera download and the telescope may drift If needed you can increase the delay time use the Delay field on the Expose tab for individually triggered exposures or Delay Between on the Setup Sequence dialog for sequences Before starting is a good idea to review the Guider Settings You can display them by selecting the Settings item from the Options button menu To set up the autoguider first select the Expose option Choose an Exposure duration and click the Start button When the image appears check that a suitable guide star is present if not you may need to adjust the telescope position or increase the exposure The Guide Star position in X and Y should automatically update to reflect the star s location
548. unt moves with the motor relays if this is not necessary this function can be turned off If the orientation of the camera with respect to the telescope motions remains constant the calibration only needs to be done once In order to guide an exposure with the AO 7 a guide star must first be located using the Locate tab Next switch to the Track tab select a Track Time guider exposure duration and click Start If everything works correctly the guide star should appear and then be pulled into the center of the guide box immediately The Track Time should be as short as possible to allow for the fastest update rate but long enough to ensure a clear image of the guide star To adjust the Track Time momentarily stop the guider click the Stop button dial in the new duration and click Start again The Aggressiveness and Max Move can then be adjusted while autoguiding to tweak the tracking stability With a short Track Time extremely fast guide rates are possible using the AO 7 This provides the optimum guiding and can often have a noticeable effect on the resolution of the resulting images Note that higher rates may be possible using the Windows NT 2000 XP operating system as opposed to Windows 98 ME Since autoguiding with the AO 7 is very CPU intensive users may find that it is more convenient to stop the AO 7 while adjusting the exposure settings in the MaxIm CCD control window Once all the relevant exposure parameters are set sta
549. ust be selected before you can proceed Align Images This step is optional you will need to use it if your images are not already registered If the Align button was clicked in the previous step the Align Images dialog will appear along with a special Align image buffer Refer to Process menu Align for a full description of how to align images On completing image alignment you are automatically returned to the image selection step Click OK there to move on to the Animate dialog itself 6 63 Maxim DL User Manual View Images When OK is clicked in the Select Images dialog boxes the small Animate toolbox appears If visible the Information and Screen Stretch windows disappear so that time is not wasted updating them during the animation MaxIm DL CCD shows a temporary image buffer named Animate suffixed with the name of the currently displayed image As for any image buffer it can be panned and zoomed You can adjust the screen rendition using the Quick Stretch method SHIFT click on image hold down the button and drag animation is automatically suspended while you are doing this When you quick stretch the Animate buffer image the resulting screen stretch settings are propagated to the other images involved in the animation If you need to tweak the stretch settings for a particular image click on that image or its image tab if present and perform the necessary quick stretch stretches applied to individual images are not a
550. ut in some applications the overscan region is used as part of the calibration process The Exposure and Shutter Options include the exposure trigger modes Normal performs a simple timed exposure started by software Triggered instructs the camera to wait for a TTL input before the exposure actually starts External Shutter Signal allows the shutter to be gated open and closed during the exposure by an external TTL level signal and Ext Shutter and Readout provides both a gated shutter and the ability to Equipment Setup trigger the start of readout using a TTL level signal Readout on Stop causes the exposure to read out when the Stop button is clicked instead of simply aborting the exposure Open Shutter forces the shutter open immediately this control is only available when the camera is connected The two Status Indicator lights can be configured to provide basic status information To prevent light contamination under very low light imaging conditions you can select OFF when exposing You can also select Always OFF or Always ON The two Light Emitting Diodes LED A and LED B can be configured individually They can be set to illuminate when the camera is in Expose mode unless disabled by OFF when exposing when the camera is Active during Flushing to remove charge from the array when an Ext Trigger is received Wait Trigger to show when the camera is waiting for a trigger Ext Shutter to show the state of the external shutter Ext
551. utilize an alternating pattern of color dyes or filters in front of the pixel array The Convert MX command converts the color information present in the raw image into the standard RGB color plane format used by MaxIm DL and other programs and provides controls for color balancing Select Camera is used to control the conversion process MXS is used for the MX5 C camera The MX7 Fast Mode and MX7 Interlace Mode settings are used for the MX7 C If you use the Starlight Xpress software to operate the camera it should be noted that Interlace Mode is used for both Progressive and Interlace modes MaxIm CCD auto switches between these modes and does not differentiate between them as far as there user is concerned The MX5 Optimized MX7 Fast Mode Optimized and MX7 Interlaced Optimized settings perform the same tasks but use an iterative algorithm that produces more accurate colors at the expense of processing time The optimized algorithms were contributed by Magnus Nyborg Command Reference Color images from CCD cameras typically require a background level adjustment This is accomplished by bringing the background level or bias in each color plane down to zero Each of the Background Level values is subtracted from every image pixel in its color plane Any pixel values that become negative are forced to zero The Reset button resets the background subtraction to zero on all planes The Auto button automatically determines the se
552. utomatically propagated to the others The topmost button is the Close button which terminates animation Below that is the speed control which selects the delay in seconds before the next image is presented The next four buttons resemble those on a tape recorder or VCR The two broken arrow buttons allow you to step forwards and backwards through the image list The play button arrow starts the animation process and the stop button square stops it If Loop is checked play cycles back to the first image after the last image has been displayed If it is unchecked animation stops after the last image has been displayed Loop has no effect on the operation of the step forwards and backwards buttons Equalize Screen Stretch 6 64 This command adjusts the screen stretch of all images so that their brightness and contrast are equal This is very useful when the images are to be blinked Manual operations in the Align Combine and Mosaic commands are also eased even though the final results of these commands do not depend on the rendering of the input images The Minimum and Maximum settings on the Screen Stretch window for the currently selected image are applied to all other open images after being adjusted for the differences in background and dynamic range between source and destination images This process depends on overall similarity of the distributions of bright Command Reference medium and dark pixels in
553. value of the pedestal is added to the FITS header Default Zoom determines the zoom level for all new images when they are opened Location of Temporary Files can be used to set the temporary file location used by MaxIm DL Temporary files are used during median combine operations and maximum entropy deconvolution After changing any control on this tab you must click Apply or OK to cause the change to take effect FITS Header 6 16 The FITS Header tab allows you to enter information that is automatically added to the FITS header when a new image is acquired from the camera Five predefined FITS keywords are available all of which contain string data e OBJECT the identification of the object being imaged e TELESCOP the name or description of the telescope used e INSTRUME the model or type of CCD camera used e OBSERVER the name of the observer e NOTES a brief note about the object observation conditions etc The above information appears in the Details field of the File Open dialog when browsing to a file All except for NOTES are standard FITS keywords One obsolete FITS keyword also appears in the list TIME OBS the universal time at which the observation was made Normally the time is included as part of the DATE OBS key if you choose to add TIME OBS to your FITS headers DATE OBS records only the year month and day You cannot specify the value of TIME 0BS only whether it is adde
554. vantages 1 The approximate Right Ascension and Declination from the telescope are automatically entered into the FITS Header This is helpful for determining where an image was taken running PinPoint astrometric analysis etc 2 MaxIm DL s Auto Center function is available You can slew to an object catalog position using the planetarium and then take a quick binned exposure Right click on the object in the image and select Point telescope here The object is automatically centered in the CCD image 3 You can monitor the telescope position inside MaxIm DL abort slews if a problem develops while the Planetarium is minimized use the Nudge controls etc Usually both the planetarium and MaxIm DL are configured to connect to an ASCOM Hub such as POTH included with ASCOM or MaxPoint for pointing corrections In some cases it may be necessary to hook MaxIm DL directly into the planetarium An example is the situation where a telescope can only be controlled directly from the planetarium itself e g Paramount For TheSky you can connect directly to it using the TheSky controlled telescope driver Please see Telescope Setup for information on setting this up Other planetarium and catalog programs known at the time of writing to have ASCOM support include Desktop Universe Easy Sky Pro Hallo Northern Sky NGC View 5 4 Working With Other Software Power Age Sky Simulator Ricera SkyMap Pro SkyTools 2 Star Atlas Pro
555. ver for imaging Due to operating system differences performance on Windows NT 2000 XP machines is superior to Windows 98 ME The SBIG Parallel driver must be used for this connection Special wiring is required Two connections are used pulse and ground Connect as follows 4 55 Maxlm DL User Manual Signal PC Parallel Port Filter Wheel Please take care to connect this properly or damage to the computer may result Powering an SBIG CFW8 If you wish to connect an SBIG CFW8 without using an SBIG camera then you must supply power to the filter wheel The connections are as follows Signal Filter Wheel Ground Pin 5 or Black wire 12V Power Pin 8 or Red wire Please take care to connect this properly or damage to the filter wheel or computer may result Notes On Direct Serial Port Connection Warning Only the Homeyer filter wheel is designed to connect directly to a PC serial port All other filter wheels may be damaged if they are connected directly to a PC serial port For a Homeyer filter wheel the connector on the wheel may have to be modified to connect to the PC The connector is normally configured for direct connection to an SBIG camera the connections required for a serial port are different Here are the required connections Signal PC Parallel Port Filter Wheel 4 56 Equipment Setup Connecting non Homeyer filter wheels to the PC serial port The following circuit will limit voltages from
556. veral fine adjustment features are available to control the registration of the new image Immediately after placing a new tile or whenever the mosaic image has the focus the four arrow keys will move the new tile left right up or down by the number of pixels indicated by the XY Step control If you press and hold the Ctrl key the left and right arrow keys rotate the new tile by the number of degrees shown by the Angle Step Ctrl plus Home returns the tile to the original orientation 0 The status line at the bottom of the MaxIm DL window displays a hint about how to use keystrokes for fine positioning plus the current tile center coordinate in the frame of the mosaic image buffer or if Ctrl is pressed its Command Reference rotation angle Note that after clicking on the Mosaic toolbox to enter or adjust XY Step or Angle Step the mosaic window has lost the focus and arrow keystrokes are not processed Simply click on the title bar of the mosaic image or its document tab to restore focus to it and reenable use of the arrow keys You can use the Snap button to automatically fine tune tile placement provided there are enough stars in the region of overlap between the current tile and previously blended ones Drag the tile to the approximate position preferably in such a way that you can see a pattern of stars in the floating tile and the same pattern perhaps at a different angle in the blended data behind it Click Snap The tile
557. which works in 8 3 Maxlm DL User Manual Half Flux High pass Histogram Hot Pixel IEEE Float Image Buffer Kernel Filter Lossless Compression Logarithm Lognormal Low pass Lucy Richardson 8 4 the logarithm domain A measurement that is an improvement on the older Full Width Half Maximum measurement invented by Larry Weber and Steve Brady The half flux diameter is the diameter in pixels that contains half the energy in a star image In other words if you add up the ADU values less the background inside the diameter and outside the diameter you will get the same number This measurement gives a very similar answer to FWHM but it is much more robust in the presence of seeing and noise and can handle images that are so out of focus that they look like donuts The Half Flux Diameter also varies linearly with focus position except very close to best focus This makes reliable autofocus possible A filter which removes or reduces low frequency slowly varying components of the image while leaving high frequency quickly varying components untouched A high pass filter will sharpen an image A histogram is a graph plotting intensity on the horizontal axis and number of pixels on the vertical axis This shows the distribution of pixels within various intensity ranges The most common pixel value corresponds to the highest point on the graph A hot pixel has an unusually high level of dark current A hot
558. ww ccd com The Browse button allows you to select the INI file to use with your camera The selection sub dialog appears as shown below Select the appropriate file and click Open Note Old ini files used with Version 1 and Version 2 of MaxIm CCD are not compatible with the modern drivers if you experience problems or do not have a file for your camera please contact Apogee Instruments Inc AN iLook ie ES i TT apitia Hari ala jam Sl apla pii ail Ajautde pol El spije pini El apre iri lagrima AEE E aA es iri Els a Bl sori be pam IPN api _ pame CE eg gs ia 1 Aplr pi Fo laos ii inj pTi par Alarcon Ml apia narm 5 aprh pcia A Fi rere ati pcina Files a pes Erena iraha rador bss 1 Lara 4 10 Equipment Setup Shutter allows you to set shutter options Normal is the usual setting Freeze prevents the shutter from moving unless it is switching from dark frame exposures to light frame exposures or vice versa Freezing the shutter open increases shutter lifetime when using the camera as an autoguider but can cause streaking or image saturation The External Trigger control enables external triggering of the camera When enabled and the Expose button is clicked the camera will wait for the external trigger before starting the exposure This should be switched off unless the camera is configured for an external trigger Priority Level can be set to High to prevent other programs from interrupting t
559. xIm DL and MaxIm DL CCD are copyright O 1997 2004 Diffraction Limited All rights reserved Developed by Doug George Garland Sharratt Eric Benson Hilderic Browne Chris Creery Paul Boltwood Pat Browne RoseAnne Mussar and John Waring We would like to give a special thanks to Ray Gralak for contributing his Standard Deviation Masking and Sigma Clipping code to Magnus Nyborg for contributing his optimized MX color conversion code Maximum Entropy Deconvolution was written by Ajai Sehgal and L Robert Morris and is copyright 1993 Sehgal Corp FITS interface code was written by Paul Boltwood and is copyright 1992 Boltwood Systems Corporation TIFF interface copyright 1988 1996 Sam Leffler and copyright 1991 1996 Silicon Graphics Inc This software is based in part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group Portions copyright Blue Sky Software Corporation This program includes routines from Astronomical Algorithms Software Copyright 1991 2 by Jeffrey Sax which is an option to the book Astronomical Algorithms by Jean Meeus Copyright 1991 by Willmann Bell Inc ISBM 0 943396 35 2 Non exclusive use has been specifically granted in writing by Willmann Bell Inc for use in this program Serial Number 0265923 TRADEMARKS MaxIm DL MaxIm CCD and MaxIm DL CCD are trademarks of Diffraction Limited Desktop Universe is a registered trademark of Main Sequence Software Inc Windows 98 Windows ME Windows NT Windows 2000 and
560. xposures If the filter wheel is in front of the autoguider make sure that there is enough light for all filter bands often the blue filter has the lowest transmission This caveat also applies to images submitted for solution by Astrometric Resynchronization Setup Sequence A sequence contains from one to sixteen exposure definitions referred to as slots It is presented as a table with one column of controls for each exposure attribute Only six slots can be seen at a time but you can use the scroll bar at the right hand side to view the rest fern seree tal Ede Ie it e Bs Fo rar SF eakal g eee af Jp fe ark ap al a Pr 3 Fararar Jd erp AFAN J ki Sara ar FR sl Jai Poa fa pao ene p Ca tes Each slot contains an Enable check box that turns it on and off Any number of slots up to 16 can be enabled and they do not have to be contiguous The order in which slot 6 151 Maxlm DL User Manual 6 152 exposures is acquired is discussed below The Type drop list specifies the kind of exposure one of Light Bias Dark or Flat as with the radio buttons on the Expose Tab If a filter wheel is present and the exposure type is Light or Flat the Filter drop list allows you to select the filter to use The Suffix specifies a string composed of letters digits hyphens and underscores which is appended to the base file name for the exposures made with that slot It must be unique across all enabled slots although one can be em
561. xposures since the mouse freezes This option has no effect under Windows NT 2000 XP nor is it necessary Set Readout Mode to Interleave for full resolution images or Fast for interpolated images Interleave will automatically switch between the progressive and interlaced mode when set to Interleave depending on the exposure duration Important Note On Windows NT 2000 XP systems MaxIm DL must be installed from an Administrator level account in order for this driver to be properly installed 4 33 Maxlm DL User Manual The Starlight Xpress cameras use open loop cooling so the cooler controls are not enabled when this camera is in use Tip for best performance the USB interface upgrade is highly recommended Starlight Xpress MX7 MX9 USB For this driver choose SX MX7 9 USB on the Setup tab Tba i AA ML sl E hkg A A ee id DO i Copprght e NELI Pica Lied Ex ae eee s Rerisi Sie Comes pra irasisar wee The Starlight Xpress MX716 USB and MX916 USB cameras connect to the PC via a USB interface These cameras are identical from a control standpoint For best results with the MX7C camera use the special MX7C version of this driver Set Readout Mode to Interleave for full resolution images or Fast for interpolated images Interleave will automatically switch between the progressive and interlaced mode when set to Interleave depending on the exposure duration The Starlight Xpress cam
562. y An alternative to median is to use Sigma Clipping or Standard Deviation Masking these techniques throw out outlier pixels and then average the remaining They are in effect a compromise between median and average combining the noise reduction advantages of average with the outlier pixel rejection of median combine The user can also select renormalization options for these methods Are All Three Necessary 3 32 Not always All image frames taken with a CCD camera naturally include the bias If you subtract a dark from the light frame and subtract a flat dark one that matches the exposure duration of the flat from the flat field then bias is already subtracted from both You do not need a separate bias frame Bias frame are required if e You are using exposure scaling for the dark frames or e You are using flat field frames and do not have dark frames with the same Guide to CCD Imaging exposure duration as the flat field frames flat darks In that case you can either just subtract bias frames or use them to help auto scale dark frames Our recommendation is that you use bias frames they are after all exceedingly easy to capture and that you always average together at least 10 frames to avoid adding extra noise into your images If the flat field exposure is short then dark current is negligible and you can just subtract the bias frame from the flat You must subtract bias or dark from flat otherwise the
563. y The human body can produce large static discharges after simply walking across a carpet You should ground yourself by touching a metal part of the telescope mount before connecting or disconnecting cables Also when a telescope is not in use it is a good idea to disconnect all power and communications cables if you are in an area subject to Troubleshooting lightning storms We have heard many tales of telescopes cameras and computers being destroyed by lightning strikes it doesn t take a direct strike to destroy sensitive electronics Focuser Troubleshooting Focusers are usually reasonably trouble free Make sure the communications cable is connected properly and not damaged For FLI focusers make sure the latest FLI drivers are installed Autofocus Troubleshooting The built in SharpStar autofocus only works with stepper motor or servo motor based focusers that have absolute position control This includes JMI SmartFocus Optec TCF S TI RoboFocus and RC Optical Systems It does not include DC motor focusers like the Meade 1206 For these relative mode focusers please use FocusMax available free at http focusmax org If autofocus fails it is usually because the Telescope Focal Ratio Focuser Step Size or Target Half Flux is set incorrectly If coarse focusing fails the focal ratio or focuser step size are very wrong Watch the autofocus log during fine focusing It should move approximately 1 5 half flux units
564. y distribution at will When the same process is applied to images it allows us to force any shape onto the image histogram This technique is particularly useful for compressing out regions of the histogram that have very few pixels Guide to CCD Imaging Spatial Filtering Spatial filtering is widely used for extracting detail and controlling noise Filtering is not like stretching which works on each individual pixel in isolation When filtering an image each pixel is affected by its neighbors This actually moves information around the image Low Pass Filtering The most basic of filtering operations is called low pass A low pass filter also called a blurring or smoothing filter averages out rapid changes in intensity The simplest low pass filter just calculates the average of a pixel and all of its eight immediate neighbors The result replaces the original value of the pixel The process is repeated for every pixel in the image Before and After Low Pass Filter This low pass filtered image looks a lot blurrier But why would you want a blurrier image Often images can be noisy no matter how good the camera is it always adds an amount of snow into the image The statistical nature of light itself also contributes noise into the image Noise always changes rapidly from pixel to pixel because each pixel generates its own independent noise The image from the telescope isn t uncorrelated in this fashion bec
565. y evaluate the effects of image processing steps using Previews Some image processing functions take a substantial amount of time to process a large image In this case it is handy to use the small Preview Image built into the processing command s dialog box Other functions occur quite quickly and it is more helpful to see the effect on the entire image The Preview Image is a small image window that appears in many of MaxIm DL s processing dialogs It is small typically 128 by 128 pixels and acts as a scrollable peephole into the parent document on which you invoked the processing function By zooming the Preview Image in on an area of interest you can very quickly evaluate the effects of any given image processing function even those which take a substantial amount of time on large images Prr riom Hal F n Type r hPa i ra Pa Fia Harran This is a typical dialog containing a Preview Image which shows a portion of the main image window The preview image can be panned using the scroll bars or by dragging with the left mouse button while holding down the CTRL key The Zoom buttons allow you to zoom in E or out When the Preview button is off the image is stretched in the same manner as the main buffer When Preview is on the processed version of the image has independent stretch settings which are reflected in the Screen Stretch window You can click on the title bar of the original image window to direct the atte
566. y identifying the stars in the image and matching them against an accurate catalog of star positions The software is then able to calculate accurate positions for every object in the image The full edition of PinPoint available from DC 3 Dreams provides additional capabilities and has tools for discovering asteriods and supernovae generating MPC reports and more For more information visit the DC 3 Dreams web site at http pinpoint dc3 com To display information the image needs to have World Coordinate System WCS entries in the FITS header These are added automatically during image analysis by PinPoint but they can be obtained from other software as well The Information window shows the following information in Astrometric mode 6 41 Maxlm DL User Manual Cursor X Y pixel coordinates and annulus radii along with the Right Ascension and Declination of the pixel under the mouse cursor Centroid of the star under the circular cursor in both X Y coordinates and RA Dec and the magnitude of the star within the aperture as measured by MaxIm DL using the current calibration see below CE al Cans Me Fre 55 Ned Lie 1607 WIE a2 IBD mrzi Mih ELE ttgr iig 41 AA iksa Sia 264010 55674 iigiin Almir TAN Daop Rel 25477 ATTA GROTH 6071351 eT TIOR Wicks aasta zj Calbr da gt For users with the full version of PinPoint extra information is available after you perform a PinPoint analysis on an open image
567. y open images as if a Save operation had been performed for each For images which do not have an associated disk file e g those captured from CCD or created by combining other images a Save As dialog is shown Clicking Cancel in a Save As file selector skips writing that image to disk but Save All will continue with the remaining files Batch Save and Convert Batch Save and Convert can be used to save files in memory change the format of image files and move files from location to location on the hard drive Coral lo File F rat ume Fema FT aj ikti i pi bhim Cere Tee Rte fa 7 Er rege Put ovate Chai bcs baca Fab EAN E P bps Taiao Miu madim 4 or r iaa 7 morra bicis Casal El Maxlm DL User Manual The first step is to select a set of images or files Files can be selected from disk using the Select Files button You can browse to a location on the disk where your files are located and select a number of files Use CTRL click to select individual files and SHIFT click to select a range of files You can also select images already open in MaxIm DL for transfer to disk by clicking the Select Images button This is useful for saving a large number of images in bulk to a particular directory Again use CTRL click and SHIFT click to select multiple images Fiara AAA Fibra e Epa id 55081 T T Cancel You can see the path for the selected images by turning on the Show Path c
568. y point the mouse at the image Hold down the Shift key and then press and hold the left mouse button and drag it on the image Up Down will adjust the brightness of the image up down Right Left will increase decrease the contrast of the image The image adjusts continuously as you move the mouse When using Quick Stretch it is best to use short motions lifting the mouse button in between This gives you the best control Practice a bit on the sample images to get the hang of it you will be using it a lot If you get lost just flip it back to Medium in the Screen Stretch window Saving Images 1 8 Suppose you take a 16 bit image with your CCD camera and want to save it as an 8 bit JPEG that you can post on your web site How can you make sure the image appears correctly Often the data in a 16 bit image will never go as low as 255 if you simply save the image in JPEG it will come out as all white To fix this the File menu Save As command has an option called Auto Stretch What this does is apply the Screen Stretch setting to the file before it saves it to the disk If you then load up the picture in your web browser it will now look exactly the same as it did in MaxIm DL You can also do these adjustments manually if you so desire using the Process menu Stretch command That said it is usually easiest just to set the Screen Stretch and save using Auto Stretch Introduction Preview Image MaxIm DL allows you to quickl
569. y work by changing the color of a liquid crystal element COM Port must be set to the serial port the filter is connected to The user can assign names for each of the color filter slots under Filter Name If your filter wheel has fewer slots than allowed for by this driver simply leave the Filter Name in the extra slots blank they will not appear in the drop list filter selectors If the filters vary in thickness a Focus Offset can be entered for each filter This causes the focus position to be offset appropriately every time an exposure is taken with a new filter position If this feature is used absolute positioning focusers are strongly recommended to ensure repeatability Equipment Setup CHIUED Toate Fite Grew Vean 4 Dt mbr pi cru Vicar sad oppg FAH Dion Lente For lechal de a CVI AB 301 For this driver select CVI on the Setup tab CVI AB300 series filter wheels are selected on the Setup tab by choosing CVI in the Filter slot and clicking the Filter button to set it up The AB300 connects via a serial port as selected by COM Port SS EE TA Fike il Ere Vera 000 rd ri The user can assign names for each of the color filter slots under Filter Name If your filter wheel has fewer slots than allowed for by this driver simply leave the Filter Name in the extra slots blank they will not appear in the drop list filter selectors If the filters vary in thickness a Focus Offset can be entered for each filter
570. yan Green Cyan Yellow Magenta Blue Cyan Magenta Yellow CMY imaging is a more difficult technique which requires some effort in order to obtain correctly calibrated results The simplest method is to take an image of a gray card and adjust the exposures or scaling so that the resulting image looks gray The simplest scaling adjustment is to use the same absolute value for each row in the table keeping the additive subtractive recipe as shown above This is equivalent to scaling the exposure duration More complex transformations are possible using different numbers in all nine slots If a Luminance plane is selected LRGB or LCMY the color information is taken from the three color images and the luminance brightness level for each pixel is taken from the Luminance image The human eye is less sensitive to color variations than brightness variations This opens up the possibility of combining lower resolution short exposure color images with a single longer exposure for luminance When Lum Wt Lumininance Weight is set to 100 the luminance value derived from the color planes is completely replaced by the luminance frame smaller values blend the luminance frame with information from the three color frames You can see the effect of the Luminance information by switching between Conversion Types e g LRGB to RGB with Auto Preview enabled The Bgd Auto Equalize check box turns on automatic background equalization It adjusts t
571. you Cancel a command or if any other error occurs during processing the sequencer displays a message asking 1f it should continue to execute the rest of the sequence click Yes to continue or No to abandon the sequence You can also abort sequence playback by clicking the Stop button it is not possible to resume an sequence from the point of interruption You could of course modify the sequence by deleting the commands Command Reference already processed Note that a few commands behave slightly differently when sequenced than when performed manually for example Crop ignores any drag rectangle present in the image in favor of the recorded rectangle position and dimensions To play back a sequence on a group of images click the Play All HI button The sequencer displays a Select Images dialog listing all open images This is a multiple selection listbox click to select a single image Control click to select additional images or deselect images already selected and Shift click to select the range extending from the previous single or control click To select the entire list click once on the first entry scroll to the bottom if necessary and then shift click on the last entry Click OK to start the playback The first selected image is automatically brought to the front and the entire sequence performed on it then the next selected image is processed and so on During multiple image sequence playback the status line shows the number of
572. you can easily go back without having to start over Recommended Processing Sequence What is the best order to apply the processing functions in There is no single way to do things but generally speaking the following is a recommended ordering 1 Image calibration Bad pixel removal or hot pixel dead pixel kernel filter and or bloom removal Make pixels square for cameras with non 1 1 pixel aspect ratios Image stacking with alignment if required Deconvolution Filtering DDP unsharp mask low pass Color combine Color adjustment MO 0 Sate ONS SOV SR 209 1 Additional Filtering 10 Stretching Curves histogram specification gamma stretch etc Generally speaking image calibration should always be done first Deconvolution if performed should be done after calibration clean up and combining but before any other processing steps The filtering in Step 6 should be done on the Luminance frame if you are doing LRGB combination This will have the effect of filtering the entire image without significantly altering the color representation DDP in particular is best done prior to color combine because it will tend to reduce color saturation although this can be compensated for using the Color Saturation command There is a great deal of flexibility in the latter steps Generally speaking it is better to perform linear filters on images before they are stretched in a non linear fashion but 3 27 Maxlm DL User Manu
573. you may need to measure the noise in a dark frame Deconvolution also requires an input parameter that indicates the average background level in the image Even for astronomical images the background is almost never black zero due to sky glow light pollution and other effects Sometimes an image has had a background level previously added or subtracted in that case this amount the black 3 49 Maxlm DL User Manual level offset should be supplied so that the algorithm knows where the true zero point is MaxIm DL provides easy to use tools to extract the necessary information from the image itself Convergence Deconvolution is performed using an iterative procedure This means it starts with a blank image and adjusts it in steps until the desired output is obtained The decision on when to stop iterating is a difficult one and is the subject of some debate see below The image may not converge if the input parameters have not been set properly This usually becomes apparent quickly as the image fades out bounces back and forth between two states or just remains fuzzy The rate of convergence varies from image to image depending on the distribution of information in the image Often 10 15 iterations are sufficient for the image to converge The image should be noticeably converging after about five iterations If not consider changing the Photoelectrons per ADU noise model or point spread function The most common reason for
574. z is 2 a S 4 o E E orward timeout ot ECP Function not supported No devices Wrong OS Nj a o sa ps po 2 os 2 LY 9 1 Maxlm DL User Manual SBIGST 6 Tl SBIG and Celestron cameras excepi for serial port models a 2 8 Receive imeout Sd o Reveived NAK Giegaiveacknowedgnen HU response OOOO E 2 baen OOOO E a SITE 15 esmer O e BEPROM enor OOOO E r S smeren SS Un cara OOOO E 28 Deiene OOOO i E o Devicenotclosed SSCS 30 Devicenotimplemented SSCS Devi disabled edie a 7 a lh Server not found Filter wheel error Missing Telescope and Focuser Drivers MaxIm DL CCD uses the ASCOM Platform a collection of mainly open source drivers developed by the astronomical community This software must be installed in order to 9 2 Troubleshooting access telescopes and focusers A copy of the ASCOM Platform is included on the MaxIm DL CCD CD ROM Simply double click the file to install Earlier versions of MaxIm DL CCD automatically installed the platform but this was removed to avoid repeated installation If you downloaded a Version 4 upgrade then you must download the package from the ASCOM web site You may also want to check the web site for updates since new drivers and improvements are being added on a regular basis To get the latest version of the ASCOM Platform please visit http ascom standards org downloads html Camera Fails After Operating
575. zontally and vertically and the maximum pixel value Max 11 If we were connected to a real camera and telescope we could now adjust the focus The Start Focus and Stop buttons duplicate those on the Focus tab other focusing options including Continuous mode must be set on that tab Adjust focus until the graph shows a narrow peak the FWHM values are as small as possible and Max is as large as possible Note that the Max value will usually bounce up and down due to seeing when very close to focus you should take the best of several readings Aiming the Telescope 2 16 Aiming a telescope cannot be illustrated easily in this simulation but a few pointers are in order Once the telescope is in focus the biggest challenge can be finding your the target CCD cameras do not have a viewfinder and it can be very frustrating to aim if the images take more than about 20 seconds to appear It can also slow things down if you have to keep changing exposure settings All this can be solved using the focus mode as follows Tutorials 1 Use the Focus tab for aiming instead of the Expose tab This way you don t have to keep changing the settings the two tabs have completely separate settings 2 Use a high binning factor for aiming Binning combines multiple pixels into one super pixel with greater sensitivity 3 Take a short exposure With a binning factor of 2 or 3 most cameras will show a faint but usable image with an exposu

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