SXVF-H35 handbook
Contents
1. Thank you for purchasing a Starlight Xpress CCD Imaging System We are confident that you will gain much satisfaction from this equipment but please read carefully the accompanying instruction manual to ensure that you achieve the best performance that is capable of providing As with most sophisticated equipment a certain amount of routine maintenance is necessary to keep the equipment operating at its optimum performance The maintenance has been kept to a minimum and is fully described in the manual In the unfortunate instance when the equipment does not perform as expected may we recommend that you first study the fault finding information supplied If this does not remedy the problem then contact Starlight Xpress for further advice Our message board service on the Starlight Xpress web site will often provide solutions to any problems The equipment is covered by a 12 month guarantee covering faulty design material or workmanship in addition to any statutory Consumer Rights of Purchasers CONDITIONS OF GUARANTEE 1 The equipment shall only be used for normal purposes described in the standard operating instructions and within the relevant safety standards of the country where the equipment is used 2 Repairs under guarantee will be free of charge providing proof of purchase is produced and that the equipment is returned to the Service Agent at the Purchaser s expense and risk and that the equipment proves to be defective2. View menu and select Auto Contrast Stretch Image The faint image data will then appear in considerable detail and I think that you will be impressed by the result If you are happy with the image go to the File menu and save it in a convenient directory Now you need a dark frame if the best results are to be extracted from your raw image To take this just cover the telescope objective with the lens cap or drop the flip mirror to block the light path to the CCD make sure that this is light tight and take another 60 second exposure This image will be a picture of the dark signal generated during your exposure and it should be saved with your image for use in processing the picture The SX VF H35 generates relatively little dark signal and so dark frames are not essential for short exposures of less than a few minutes but it is a good idea to record at least one for each exposure time used during an imaging session As variations in ambient temperature will affect the dark signal it is best to take the dark frames within a few minutes of capturing your images For the same reason it is not wise to use old dark frames if you want the best possible results however some software allows you to scale library dark frames to match the image e g AstroArt and Maxim DL Flat fields are often recommended for optimising the results from your CCD camera but these are generally less important than dark frames e
3. but different exposures must be used Summing an image with itself will not change the S N ratio 14 Handbook for the SX VF H35 Issue 1 August 2007 A deep image of the Deer Lick galaxy group by Rick Krejci Although I have concentrated on the use of a telescope for deep sky imaging do not forget that you have the option of using an ordinary camera lens for impressive wide field shots A good quality 200mm F3 5 lens with an infrared blocking filter will yield very nice images of large objects such as M31 M42 M45 etc If you cannot obtain a large IR blocker for the front of the lens it is often quite acceptable to place a small one behind the lens inside the adaptor tube Taking pictures of the Moon and planets The SX VF H35 is not intended for planetary imaging as a much smaller CCD is in many ways much better for this However lunar imaging is a different matter and the H35 can give impressive whole moon pictures Most deep sky objects are faint and relatively large so a long exposure is needed while the moon is bright and needs very short exposures This can be a problem for a large area CCD as the readout time is usually quite a lot longer than the exposure time and this can cause a pale smear 15 Handbook for the SX VF H35 Issue 1 August 2007 below the image from light leakage in the CCD structure To minimise this keep the image brightness down with an ND filter or aperture stop so that the exposure time is n
4. telescope flexure mirror shift etc but the final result is well worth the effort FAS FAS 2S 2g 2g 2g 24g E K E FAS E E E K K 2g K K K 246 K K K K K K k K K K K ig K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K Camera maintenance Very little maintenance is needed to keep the SXVF H35 in excellent operating order however two problems which are common to all CCD equipment are likely to show up on occasion These are dust and condensation Removing Dust 1 Dust can be deposited on either the optical window not a big problem to cure or on the CCD faceplate difficult to eliminate entirely When small particles collect on the window they may not be noticed at all on deep sky small F ratio images as they will be very much out of focus However if a powerful contrast boost of the image is carried out they may well begin to show as the shadow Do nuts mentioned earlier Images taken with a large F ratio optical system are more likely to be affected by such dirt owing to the smaller and sharper shadows that they cast There is no great difficulty in removing such particles on the outside surface by the careful use of a lens cleaning cloth or air duster and so you should have little trouble with this aspect of maintenance Dust on the CCD faceplate is a much greater nuisance as it casts very sharply defined and dark shadows and it entails dismantling the camera to get rid of it To clean the CCD you w
5. M72 adaptor H35 camera Handbook for the SX VF H35 Issue 1 August 2007 If you use a normal lens then stop it down to the smallest aperture number possible usually F22 as this will minimise focus problems and keep the light level reasonable for daytime testing The pin hole needs no such adjustments and will work immediately although somewhat fuzzily SXV_H35 Camera Control Continuous Mode a Delay between Seconds exposures ane e Delay before exposure No of Exposures e Exposure Range Focus Window Focus Mode Alternative Slew Method E R s P Average Multiple Exposures Thousandths i Hundredth s C a Max Yalue Exposure Mode Tenth s E f 3 A Ai seconds a FWHM High Resolution ie econ Binned 2x2 C Minutes Binned 3x3 s Exposure Yalue Autochange Exposure I Binned 4x4 c Bin Focus Frame iv 4 Start Stop User Defined SubFrame c 4 __ Start stop Filter Wheel Auto Save Image Last file no p Sub Dir ed Auto Remove Dark Frame c darkdef O O D mo Apply Auto Processing Camera Mode Single Image ooo Ol AutoGuider Status buide Camera not detecte First Next Prey Autoguide Photo Cancel Go to Autoguider Help Point the camera lens or pinhole towards a well lit and clearly defined object some distance away Now click on the camera icon in the toolbar of the SXV H35 software and the camera control panel wi
6. mount You have the option of manually selecting values or asking the software to attempt to determine what they should be This is done by pressing the Train button and waiting for the software to complete a sequence of automatic moves and calculations The training will also determine the angle at which the guide camera is oriented with respect to the RA and Dec axes If you do not wish to train the system at this time the default values of 6 pixels per second will serve as a Starting point Now press Go to main camera and the guider control panel will be replaced by the camera control panel Set the required exposure time for the image say 5 minutes and press the Autoguide next image button The autoguider window will reappear and after a few seconds you should see error values appearing in the text windows at the top The guide star will be fairly close to the green cross although not necessarily accurately centred and you should see the power guide LED on the rear of the camera brighten and change colour with each correction 10 If the star begins to drift away from the cross despite the corrections being made the chances are that the N S and or E W directions are set wrongly Judge which axis is incorrectly set by observing the direction of the drift and then stop the exposure by pressing Esc Open the guider control panel and check the appropriate swap box es After this operation you will probably need t
7. period The resulting image has more noise than a single exposure of the same total length but this method of imaging is still an effective way of making long exposures 16 Handbook for the SX VF H35 Issue 1 August 2007 To take an S amp S image go to the camera interface window and select an exposure time for one image of the sequence Do not use a very short exposure time as the read out noise will become dominant About 30 seconds is a reasonable minimum Now go to the Multiple Exposure Options and select a number of exposures to take You can also select to average the images rather than adding them and there is a Alternative Slew Mode available which uses the correlation of image areas rather than a single star This mode can be better in dense star fields Another option is Auto remove dark frame This is advisable with S amp S images as the slewing will mis register the images with a single dark frame that is applied to the finished sequence To use this option you will need a dark frame taken with the same exposure time as a single image from the sequence This is stored on drive C with the name dark def Now click on Take Picture and the sequence will begin Taking and using a flat field Flat fields are images which display only the variations of illumination and sensitivity of the CCD and are used to mathematically modify a wanted image in such a way that the errors are removed Common flat fie
8. set up a good optical match between your H35 and your telescope The H35 has a very large CCD area and so many of the popular SCT scopes are unable to provide good quality star images over the large chip Because of this limitation the H35 was designed for use with a wide field highly corrected refractor such as the Takahashi FSQ106 or similar and is supplied with an M72 spacer ring to screw into the FSQ106 focus assembly Here is a view of an SX VF H35 attached to the author s FSQ via the adaptor ring rN A A a A As a general guide most CCD astronomers try to maintain an image scale of about 2 arc seconds per pixel for deep sky images This matches the telescope resolution to the CCD resolution and avoids undersampling the image which can result in square stars and other unwanted effects To calculate the optimum focal length required for this condition to exist you can use the following simple equation F Pixel size 205920 Resolution in arc seconds In the case of the SX VF H35 and a 2 arc seconds per pixel resolution we get F 0 009 205920 2 927mm Handbook for the SX VF H35 Issue 1 August 2007 Because of the large CCD size used in the H35 field vignetting and field curvature will be a problem with many general purpose telescopes The larger SCTs and many of the new APO refractors will not suffer so badly from this issue but you may have to compromise on vignetting a
9. socket PC computer Handbook for the SX VF H35 Issue 1 August 2007 Connect the miniature 4 way power plug to the socket on the rear of the camera and screw the retaining ring into place The LED on the rear of the camera will light a dim yellow The other connections should not be attached until after the software has been installed Installing the software Switch on the computer and allow it to boot up Once you have the system ready to run insert the program disk into your CD drive and select Setup exe if the disk does not autostart The initial installation is to set up the USB drivers required by the SXVF electronics The files SX VIO sys and Generic sys are copied to your Windows System32 Drivers folder and SX VIO_H35 inf is copied to Windows Inf After this the program SXV_H35_usb exe will be installed into your CCD directory and a new directory called Autosave will now exist on the same drive Autosave is where SX V_H35 will normally store its configuration file SX VH35 ini and any image files which are recorded using the Autosave mode in SXV_H35 and saved in FITs format Please note that the version of SX VIO sys supplied with your H35 is an improved issue that should replace any copy that is already resident on your machine Failure to update will usually result in a tendency for white spots and streaks to appear in your images K QS SXV H
10. 3 The guarantee shall not apply to equipment damaged by fire accident wear an tear misuse unauthorised repairs or modified in any way whatsoever or damage suffered in transit to or from the Purchaser 4 The Purchaser s sole and exclusive rights under this guarantee is for repair or at our discretion the replacement of the equipment or any part thereof and no remedy to consequential loss or damage whatsoever 5 This guarantee shall not apply to components that have a naturally limited life 6 Starlight Xpress s decision in all matters is final and any faulty component which has been replaced will become the property of Starlight Xpress Ltd For further info or advice please call Mr Michael Hattey Starlight Xpress Ltd The Office Foxley Green Farm Ascot Road Holyport Berkshire England SL6 3LA Tel 01628 777126 Fax 01628 580411 e mail michael hattey starlight xpress co uk Web site http www starlight xpress co uk 26
11. Handbook for the SX VF H35 Issue 1 August 2007 Starlight Xpress Ltd SX VF H35 CCD camera user manual Thank you for purchasing a Starlight Xpress CCD camera We hope that you will be very satisfied with its performance The SX VF H35 is a very large format high resolution cooled CCD camera especially designed for astronomical imaging The SXVF H35 uses a Kodak KAI11002 Interline CCD with 4008 x 2672 pixels in a 36 1mm x 24 05mm active area The use of high performance microlenses on the CCD surface gives the greatest possible throughput of light to the pixels and the resulting QE is very good over the entire visible spectrum Our new F type USB2 interface hardware gives an exceptionally fast download speed of about 2 megapixels per second and so the SX VF H35 can download a full resolution 16 bit image in only 8 seconds Handbook for the SX VF H35 Issue 1 August 2007 Please take a few minutes to study the contents of this manual which will help you to get the camera into operation quickly and without problems I am sure that you want to see some results as soon as possible so please move on to the Quick Start section which follows A more detailed description of imaging techniques will be found in a later part of this manual Quick Starting your SX VF H35 system In the shipping container you will find the following items 1 The SXVF H35 camera head 2 A power supply module and cable 3 A3 metre USB2 camera
12. be very effective on daylight images Too much high pass filtering results in dark borders around well defined features and will increase the noise in an image to unacceptable levels but the Low Power filter is close to optimum and gives a nicely sharpened picture The Contrast routines are used to brighten or dull the image highlights and shadows A Normal stretch is a simple linear operation where two pointers the black and white limits can be set at either side of the image histogram and used to define new start and end points The image data is then mathematically modified so that any pixels that are to the left of the black pointer are set to black and any pixels to the right of the white pointer are set to white The pixels with values between the pointers are modified to fit the new brightness distribution Try experimenting with the pointer positions until the image has a pleasing brightness and crispness At this point you will have a working knowledge of how to take and process an SXVF H35 image It is time to move on to astronomical imaging which has its own unique set of problems PAS FAS FAS 2g 2g 2g E E E E FAS FAS E K K K K K K FAS K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K Handbook for the SX VF H35 Issue 1 August 2007 Astronomical Imaging with the SX VF H35 1 Getting the image onto the CCD It is essential to
13. cable 4 An adaptor spacer for 72mm x 1mm thread Takahashi focuser assemblies 5 An adaptor for 2 drawtubes and M42 Pentax thread lenses 6 A guider cable for ST4 style mount guiding inputs 7 ACD with the SXVF_H35 software and manual You will also need a PC computer with Windows XP or Windows Vista This machine must have at least one USB2 0 port and at least 500 Megs of memory If you intend to view the finished images on its screen then you will also need a graphics card capable of displaying an image in a minimum of 1600 x 1200 pixels and 32 bit colour A medium specification Pentium with between 1GHz and 3GHz processor speed is ideal Please note that the SX VF H35 is not designed for USB1 1 operation and will give inferior results if used on USB1 1 Connecting up Plug the 5 pin DIN connector into the socket on the power supply box and plug the power supply into the wall socket The yellow LED on the power supply should light Handbook for the SX VF H35 Issue 1 August 2007 USB2 0 socket Guider output E Guide indicator lamp Guider socket Power socket Flange tip tilt screws 3 sets A rear view showing the input and output connectors Wiring up your SXV camera USB plug IIIs 3 metre Camera head USB lead 5 pin plug J zone on LED Power Supply Line Plug 12V DC input optional Plug into USB
14. cket provides both control and power for the add on autoguider but also includes a pair of serial ports for use with other devices 18 Handbook for the SX VF H35 Issue 1 August 2007 Using the built in serial ports The SX VF H35 incorporates two fast serial ports for use with external accessories The ports are available on 5 pins of the 18 way connector that is provided for the autoguider and may be accessed by plugging in a serial port divider box The divider box and cables are available as an accessory and may be chained in series with the autoguider cable when the guider is in use or may be used on its own The two serial connections are in the form of standard RS232 PC style plugs and provide TX RX and Ground connections at RS232 levels Access is via commands sent through the USB connection and at the time of writing is limited to any serial controls that are provided by the SXV software It is expected that more functions will be added as the software is upgraded PAS FAS 2S 2g 2g 2g E E K E FAS K K K K K 2g K K FAS K K K K k K K K K K K K K K K is K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K FK K K Using the add on autoguider A very useful accessory is the add on autoguider head which takes its power and control signals directly from the SXV camera via the 18 way socket on its rear panel The autoguider is only 1 25 in diameter and has a video style CS mount thread in its nose so video lenses
15. ction Handbook for the SX VF H35 Issue 1 August 2007 You now need to set up the camera control defaults shown above as follows Start SX V Hmf by clicking on the icon and select the File menu Now select Set program defaults and a window which contains the various software settings will appear Suggested starting defaults are as follows 1 Background Image area Red or as preferred 2 FITS Unsigned Integer format Off 3 Star mask size area used for photometry and guiding 8 pixels 4 Telescope guiding output to autoguider socket The other default settings are not important for current purposes and may be left as the software start up values for now Recording your first image We now have the camera and computer set up to take pictures but an optical system is needed to project an image onto the CCD surface You could use your telescope but this introduces additional complications which are best avoided at this early stage There are two simple options one of which is available to everyone 1 Attach a standard M42 SLR camera lens to the SX VF H35 using the 27mm spacer adaptor to achieve approximately the correct focal distance 2 Create a Pin hole lens by sticking a sheet of aluminium baking foil over the end of the lens adaptor and pricking its centre with a small pin p h Pentax thread SLR lens Loe M42
16. el and see if the BlockIOClass device is installed properly If all looks OK try checking the Disable VID PID detection in the Set program defaults menu and try again 3 If you cannot find any way of making the camera work please try using it with another computer This will confirm that the camera is OK or otherwise and you can then decide how to proceed Also check on our web site to see if there are any updates or information about your camera software that might help The message board might prove useful to ask for help with getting your camera operating properly Our guarantee ensures that any electrical faults are corrected quickly and at no cost to the customer Enhancing your image Your first image may now be reasonably good but it is unlikely to be as clear and sharp as it could be Improved focusing and exposure selection may correct these shortcomings and you may like to try them before applying any image enhancement with the software However there will come a point when you say That s the best that I can get and you will want to experiment with various filters and contrast operations In the case of daylight images the processing options are many but there are few that will improve the picture in a useful way The most useful of these are the Normal Contrast Stretch and the High Pass Low Power filter The high pass filter gives a moderate improvement in the image sharpness and this can
17. f series Camera Control and Image processing program e e e a Telescope Guiding Miscellaneous 7 Pixels S 1 sec delay when focussing T 8 Pixels G Meade LX200 Tm n gt Meade Autostar Tm eae ie 9 Pixel t Autoguider Socket se cies 11 Pixels z s S a Main Camera Autoguider Show Interface Details v 15 Pixels peran 1Sec C Expand Binned Images Vv uide 2 Sec Training s 2 A Window Background Tiao 4Sec Suppress File Saving Warning test aT 8Sec C 9 k t Gray Red tay Com Port Usage AutoSave Directory hi i Comi Dec pizols per sec Com Port for om telescope Com2 AutoS ave Directory RA Backlash Use PC Port C Set AutoSave Dir Deciuection Hysteresis in RA 0 10 Filter Wheel D A emer Wheel Ta Hiystecore m Dec 0 23 Telescope Drive Direction ext mnr Fitter 3 Set slew values Swap n s direction i Filter 4_ Motor Control Swap e w direction E riesaa O Freee Filter 6 Ignore Backlash AO Unit Filter 7 _ Turn off North Corrections AO Unit Available a Fitter 8 Turn off South Corrections 0 Set Filter Details ERREA Select half rate Vv Auto Advance when Imaging ignnerdaitiess thant A Camera VID PID Detection Ignore Camera VID PID Iv File Formats Save in 16 bit Tiff format a SXV_H9 C Save Changes Cancel Manual Sele
18. h brightly lit and short exposures there is the bias offset of the camera in each image and this can produce an error in the final correction As we are mainly interested in the bias any very short exposure dark frame will give a good result The dark subtracted images should then be averaged together before use After the above procedures have been executed the flat field will be ready for use Load up your image for processing subtract the dark frame and then select Apply flat field in the Merge menu The result should be an image with very little sign of the original artefacts 2 8 58 FAS K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K FAS K K K K K K K K K oS ok The accessory ports The SXVF H35 is provided with two ports for use with accessories The Autoguider output port is a 6 way RJ11 socket which is compatible with the standard autoguider input of most telescope mounts It provides 4 active low opto isolator outputs and a common return line capable of sinking a minimum of 5mA per output This socket may be used for telescope control if the SX VF H35 is employed as an autoguider but is primarily intended to be the control output for the optional add on autoguider camera head available for use with the SX VF H35 O oO 2 m O Z The autoguider output connections as seen looking into the RJ11 socket The high density parallel port so
19. he result look very noisy and so some of the effects of poor seeing can be neutralised Try applying an Unsharp Mask filter with a radius of 5 and a power of 5 This will often greatly increase the visibility of any detail on the moon but the optimum radius and power will have to be determined by experiment In general terms the larger the image and the worse the seeing then the wider the radius for best results I find that the radius 5 power 5 values are good for most average seeing conditions If you have exceptionally good conditions then a reduction to R 3 P 3 will probably give a more natural look to the image as too large a radius and power tends to outline edges with dark or bright borders As a finishing touch the application of a Median filter or a Weighted Mean Low Pass filter can be useful to smooth out the high frequency noise after a strong Unsharp Mask FES FAS 28 2g 2g 2g 2g is E E FAS E E K E K fs K K FAS FAS K E K K K K 28 K K k K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K Other features of SXV_H35 Slew amp Sum imaging The SXVF H35 can be used in an automatic image stacking mode called Slew amp Sum The camera is set to take several sequential exposures which are automatically slewe into alignment and then summed together by the software This mode can help to overcome a poor RA drive by summing images that have exposure times shorter than the drive error
20. ill need a good quality lens cloth no silicone or tissues and some high grade isopropyl alcohol A very suitable cloth is the Micro Fibre type marketed by PENTAX etc and suitable alcohol is available from TANDY Radio Shack etc as tape head cleaning fluid A bright light and a strong watchmakers eyeglass will also be found essential Procedure 1 Disconnect the lead from the camera head and remove it from the telescope Place it on a table with the optical window facing downward 22 Handbook for the SX VF H35 Issue 1 August 2007 2 Remove the two M3 screws from the camera back plate and ease the plate out of the camera body You may need to press down with a finger on the USB socket while pulling up on the camera barrel to overcome the friction 3 Withdraw the body cylinder and unscrew the two long spacer pillars from the heat sink plate assembly Hex standoff heatsink barrel fixin 8 3mm Posidriv screw heatsink fixing Heatsink plate 4 The entire camera electronic assembly can now be lifted away from the camera front barrel and the CCD will be readily accessible Note that a layer of white heat sink compound is applied to the periphery of the heat sink disc and this should be left undisturbed by subsequent operations 5 You can now closely examine the CCD faceplate under the spotlight using the watchmaker s glass when any dust motes will show clearly If there is only an odd particle or two and the CCD is o
21. ld errors are due to dust motes on the camera window and vignetting effects in the optical system of the telescope Dust motes act as inverse pinholes and cast out of focus images of the telescope aperture onto the CCD chip where they appear as shadow do nuts Most optical systems show some vignetting at the edges of the field especially when focal reducers are used This causes a brighter centre to show in images especially when there is a lot of sky light to illuminate the field If dust motes are your main problem it is best to clean the camera window rather than to rely on a flat field to remove the do nuts Flat fields always increase the noise in an image and so physical dust removal is the best option If you have serious vignetting first check whether the optical system can be improved The most likely cause of this problem is trying to use too powerful a degree of optical compression with a focal reducer and you might want to try moving the camera closer to the reducer lens If you really do need to use a flat field for image correction then it must be taken with care It is most important that the optical system MUST NOT be disturbed between taking your original images and taking the flat field Any relative changes of focus and rotation etc will upset the match between flat field and image and the result will be poor correction of the errors The other necessity for recording a good flat field is a source of very even illu
22. ll appear see above Select an exposure time of 0 1 seconds and press Take photo After the exposure and download have completed between 8 and 10 seconds an image of some kind will appear on the computer monitor It will probably be poorly focused and incorrectly exposed but any sort of image is better than none In the case of the pinhole all that you can experiment with is the exposure time but a camera lens can be adjusted for good focus and so you might want to try this to judge the image quality that it is possible to achieve One potential problem with taking daylight images is the strong infrared response of the SX VF H35 as this will cause soft focus with camera lenses Soft focus is much reduced by keeping the aperture setting below F8 Also IR blocking filters are available from various suppliers True Technology Edmunds etc and are recommended for the best results when using a lens If you cannot record any kind of image please check the following points 1 Is the power LED on 2 Does the software indicate that the camera is successfully connected An attempt to take a picture will fail with an error message if the USB is not properly installed In this case try unplugging the USB cable and then reconnecting it after about 5 Handbook for the SX VF H35 Issue 1 August 2007 seconds Restart the camera software and see if it can link now If not check in Windows device manager via System in Control Pan
23. may be attached The guider may be used with either an off axis prism assembly mounted in front of the SXV camera or with a separate guide telescope rigidly mounted alongside your imaging telescope I personally use it with an 80mm aperture F5 inexpensive refractor as a guide scope but a shorter focal length lens will make more guide stars available in any given region of sky See the picture below To use the autoguider first orient it so that the connector plug is roughly parallel to the declination axis of your mount This is not absolutely essential as the training routine will learn the angle of the head and compensate for it but it is easier to understand the motion of the guide star if the guider frame is aligned with the RA and Dec axes Now connect the head to the SXV camera using the 18 way connector lead including the port divider box if it is to be used The recommended way of connecting the autoguider output to the mount is to use an RJ11 telephone lead between the socket on the SXV camera and the autoguider input of your mount This output is active low i e the control relays pull the guider inputs down to zero volts when applying a guide correction and matches most of the autoguider inputs on commercial mounts If active high inputs are needed or a very low control voltage drop is essential then you will need to add a Starlight Xpress relay box between the guider output and the input to the mount Plea
24. mination for the telescope field This is surprisingly difficult to achieve and many designs of light source have appeared in the literature and on the Web These usually consist of a large lightweight box containing several lamps and an internal coating of matt white paint which is placed over the objective of the telescope to provide an evenly illuminated surface These can work well but I prefer a simpler method as follows Most imaging sessions begin or end in twilight and so the dusk or dawn sky can provide a distributed source of light for a flat field However using the sky directly is likely to result in recording many unwanted stars or patches of cloud etc soa 17 Handbook for the SX VF H35 Issue 1 August 2007 diffuser needs to be added to the telescope An ideal material is Mylar plastic draughting film obtained from an office supplies warehouse It is strong and water resistant and can be easily replaced if damaged Stretch a piece of the film loosely across the aperture of your telescope and point the instrument high in the sky to avoid any gradient in the light near the horizon Now take several images with exposure times adjusted to give a bright but not overloaded picture Averaging flat field together is a good way to reduce their noise contribution and so recording 4 or more images is a good idea To use your flat fields they must first have a dark frame subtracted Although this may appear to be unimportant with suc
25. n the picture frame If the images look too dim use the Stretch Image slider to increase its contrast and brightness until the noise begins to be visible If you haven t focused the guider lens or scope move the mount until a bright star is visible on the guider image and then adjust the focus until it is as sharp as possible At this point you may want to test the guiding control by pressing the manual Move Telescope buttons at the bottom left corner of the control panel You can watch the position of any stars in the guider image and confirm that they move in response to the buttons The movement should be slow if the correct guiding rate is selected on your mount typically 2x sidereal Adjust this if necessary Move the mount until the required object for imaging is properly framed in the main CCD image leave the guider menu and use the main camera control panel as necessary Re open the guider control panel start imaging and try to locate a clearly visible guide star If necessary make adjustments to the guide telescope or off axis guider until one is found Press Stop and then press Select Guide Star Use the mouse to left click on the selected star and a green cross will highlight it and the co ordinates will appear in the text boxes above the image window The various guiding rate defaults listed on the right hand side of the control panel are unlikely to be perfect for your particular telescope and
26. nd this will become corrosive water on the cooler and CCD pins when the power is removed If substantial amounts of moisture are seen on the CCD dismantle the camera immediately and dry it thoroughly BES BS 8 2 EKE EKE EEE fe EEEE EEEE EE EE EE SIS SIS 8 E E E E EE YS IS SS EE EK E K IS E Ie E E E E OBS E K E E E E K E K K K k Kk Alternative Software Although we hope that you will be satisfied with the SXV_Hmf_usb software other companies are offering alternative programs One of the most active and successful of these is AstroArt by MSB software You can purchase AstroArt from many dealers Worldwide and more information may be obtained from their web site at http www msb astroart com Maxim DL is also a very popular option and may be purchased from many astronomical equipment dealers Their web site is at http www cyanogen com Please note that any Download progress indicators in third party software are best disabled so as to avoid disturbing the process of reading the camera data BES BS E 24S 24S 24S 2YS IS BIS SS 8 fe 24S 24S 24S YS IS SIS BS 8 E 24S 24S 2S OYE STS SIS Se he 24S 24S 248 YS IS SIS SS he 24 E E E E E E E E E E E E E IS IS E E 28 2S IS OR EE a E Aligning the CCD to the optical axis The large area of the KAI 11002 CCD can lead to problems of alignment between the CCD plane and the focal plane of the telescope If you can detect uneven star image distortions towards the edge of the CCD field this ma
27. nd usable field size when imaging with a less highly corrected instrument Application of a flat field to your images will help to remove the edge shading but the star images may well be badly distorted around the periphery of the image due to field curvature Achieving a good focus The SX V_H35 software has a focus routine that will repeatedly download and display a 100 x 100 pixel segment of the image at a relatively high speed This focus window may be positioned anywhere in the camera field and can be displayed with an adjustable degree of automatic contrast stretching for focusing on faint stars To use this mode start up the software and select the H35 camera interface File menu Set the camera mode to Bin 1x1 and select an exposure time of 1 second Press Take Picture and wait for the image to download There is a good chance that your selected star will appear somewhere within the image frame and with luck it should be close to a sharp focus If the focus is still poor then it may appear as a pale disk of light sometimes with a dark centre the secondary mirror shadow in an SCT or Newtonian Now select the File menu again and click on Focus frame centre you can now use the mouse pointer to click on the star image and the new focus frame co ordinates will be displayed Now return to the camera interface window and click on Start in the Focus frame The computer will now display a continuous series
28. o find the guide star again by taking a guider image and reselecting the star as before Now return to the main camera menu and try the Autoguide next image button again 11 Once guiding is taking place without problems the main exposure can be allowed to finish and if all is well you should see an image with tiny circular stars 21 Handbook for the SX VF H35 Issue 1 August 2007 If the stars are not circular you may need to alter the guiding parameters or investigate the rigidity and drive performance of your mount A lot of information can be deduced by watching the behaviour of the guide star in the guider frame If it is continually moving between two locations either side of the green cross then the RA or Dec pixels per second value is set too low The higher these values are set the gentler the guiding becomes Too low a value will cause an over aggressive correction to be made and result in oscillation of the star position between two points Another source of guiding errors can be a too accurately balanced telescope mount Good balance can result in the telescope mount bouncing between the gear teeth as corrections are made A simple fix is to add a weight of about 0 5kg 1 pound on the eastern end of the declination axis so that there is always some pressure acting against the gear teeth Getting a good result from an autoguider will often entail a lot of detective work to eliminate the sources of gear error
29. of 100 x 100 pixel images in the focus window and you should see your selected star appear somewhere close to the centre A peak value the value of the brightest pixel will also be shown in the adjacent text box and this can be used as an indication of the focus accuracy Although the peak value is sensitive to vibration and seeing it tends towards a maximum as the focus is optimised Carefully adjust the focus control on your telescope until the image is as sharp as possible and the peak value reaches a maximum Wait for any vibration to die down before accepting the reading as reliable and watch out for bursts of bad seeing which reduce the apparent focus quality Quite often the peak value will increase to the point where it is off scale at 4095 and in this case you must halt the focus sequence and select a shorter exposure if you wish to use the peak value as an indicator Once you are happy with the focus quality achieved you might like to trim the settings of your par focal or flip mirror eyepiece to match the current camera position Although you can reach a good focus by the above method many observers prefer to use additional aids such as Hartmann masks an objective cover with two or three spaced holes or diffraction bars narrow parallel rods across the telescope aperture These make the point of precise focus easier to determine by creating double images or bright diffraction spikes around stars which merge at the set
30. ot less than about 0 5 seconds A H alpha nebula filter often gives excellent results The exposure time needed for good lunar images is such that the image histogram has a peak value at around 127 and does not extend much above 200 Ignore the major peak near zero due to the dark background If you use too short an exposure time the image noise level will be increased and if too long a time is used you will saturate the highlights and cause white patches on the decoded image If you want to record an image sequence perhaps during a lunar eclipse you can set up the SX software to Autosave an image sequence To start the Autosave process call up the SXV Camera Interface and select the Continuous Mode check box at the top make sure the rest are unchecked Now check the Autosave Image checkbox near the bottom of the window If you now click on Take Picture the automatic sequence will begin and will not stop until you press a computer key The images will be saved in FITs format with sequential names such as Img23 Img24 and will be found in the Autosave directory or a sub directory of Autosave set up in the program defaults menu Processing a lunar image Lunar images have one major advantage over deep sky images when you come to process them they are MUCH brighter with a correspondingly better signal to noise ratio This means that aggressive sharpening filters may be used without making t
31. se contact your local distributor if a relay box is required Some mounts Vixen for example use a similar guider input socket but have re arranged connections Details are given on our web pages at the end of the STAR2000 section 19 Handbook for the SX VF H35 Issue 1 August 2007 SXV camera f m m OO head if ii To autoguider input on mount 1 M The autoguider installed on a 80mm refractor guide scope in the author s garden To use the autoguider please proceed as follows 1 Having started the SX VF H35 software open the autoguider control panel by clicking on the autoguider menu button Auto Guider Camera Control co ordinates x Y val fo Selected x 13 Y iss Exponure Rate Default Latest Hundredths RAL Dec Tenths Seconds fe RA Backlash value gt Dec Backlash Start RA Angle Stop Change Defaults Beene E Save Latest Stretch Image Ja l Ignore RA Angle 8bit d Swap n s direction Swap e w direction Goto Main Camera Train Use Default Using Default vals Help io 0 io io 0 Ignore Backlash The autoguider control panel with a guide star selected 20 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Handbook for the SX VF H35 Issue 1 August 2007 Press the Start button and a series of 1 second exposure guider images will begin to appear i
32. specially if you make sure that the optical window of the camera is kept dust free The purpose of a flat field is to compensate for uneven illumination and sensitivity of the CCD and it is better to avoid the need for one by keeping the optics clean and unvignetted I will ignore flat fielding for current purposes and describe the process in detail at a later stage 10 Handbook for the SX VF H35 Issue 1 August 2007 Processing the deep sky image Below you will see typical examples of a dark frame and an uncalibrated raw image of M16 A typical 5 minute dark frame exposure Note the random scatter of warm pixels A 5 minute exposure many warm pixels are visible see the magnified view below 11 Handbook for the SXVF H35 Issue 1 August 2007 Warm pixels in a small portion of the raw image The isolated nature of the warm pixels in an SX VF H35 image permits you to use several different methods of removing them from your raw images Subtracting a dark frame is the most commonly used means of removing the warm pixels but is not necessarily the best or most effective method This is because of the increase in readout noise that dark frame subtraction entails and the need to accurately match your darks to the light image If you average many dark frames together to create a master dark the readout noise will be much reduced by the square root of the number of averaged darks and so this is one way to improve the si
33. therwise clean carefully brush away the dust with a corner of your lens cloth A smeared or very dusty CCD will need a few drops of alcohol to clean thoroughly and you may have to make several attempts before the surface is free of contamination One gentle wipe from one end to the other with no return stroke will be found to be the most effective action DO NOT rub vigorously and be VERY careful to avoid scratching the window 23 Handbook for the SX VF H35 Issue 1 August 2007 6 Before re assembly make certain that the inside surface of the front window is also clean and then carefully replace the camera front barrel and screw it into place If the heat sink seal is disturbed renew it with fresh compound before reassembling 7 Replace all the camera parts in reverse order and the job is done Dealing with condensation The SX VF H35 is designed to avoid condensation by minimising the volume of air trapped within the CCD cavity This normally works well but storage of the camera in a humid location can lead to the trapped air becoming moist by diffusion through the optical window mounting thread etc and will result in condensation on the CCD window If this becomes a problem try to store the camera in a warm dry place or in a plastic lunch box containing a sachet of silica gel desiccant N B DO NOT leave the camera switched on for long periods between uses The cold CCD will collect ice by slow diffusion through any small leaks a
34. ting of exact focus The 12 16 bit slider control allows you to adjust the contrast of the focus frame for best visibility of the star image It defaults to maximum stretch 12 bits which is generally ideal for stars but a lower stretch value is better for focusing on the moon Handbook for the SX VF H35 Issue 1 August 2007 Taking your first astronomical image I will assume that you are now set up with a focused camera attached to a telescope with an operating sidereal drive If so you are now in a position to take a moderately long exposure of some interesting deep sky astronomical objects As most drives are not very accurate beyond a minute or two of exposure time I suggest that you find a fairly bright object to image such as M42 M13 M27 or M57 There are many others to choose from but these are good examples Use the finder to align on your chosen object and then centre accurately by using the focus frame and a short exposure of between 1 and 5 seconds The 12 16 bit slider in the focus frame allows you to adjust the image contrast if you find that the object is too faint with a short exposure Once properly centred and focused take an exposure of about 60 seconds using the Bin 1x1 mode and observe the result Initially the image may appear rather barren and show only a few stars however there is a great deal of data hidden from view You can get to see a lot of this without affecting the image data if you go to the
35. tuation but it needs a lot of imaging time to be devoted to gathering the required dark frames Some software such as Maxim DL has the ability to scale dark frames to match your light frames accurately without the need to have equal exposure times so a library master dark can be used many times over and this will save you much time The SX software does not currently do this but you can subtract a matched dark frame by using the Merge option 12 Handbook for the SXVF H35 Issue 1 August 2007 Warm pixels removed by the application of a 3x3 median filter A second option is to run a 3x3 Median filter on the image This simple method will remove isolated hot pixels and replace them with the median value of the pixels adjacent to them The isolated nature of the warm pixels allows the median filter to work very well and most imagers will be quite happy with the results of this simple procedure Another excellent way of removing the warm pixels is to generate a hot pixel map and apply this to the image This is not available in the SX software at the time of writing but Maxim DL can use this method The basic procedure is to capture a long exposure dark frame and then slice off all values below a threshold level which is selected so as to leave only the warm pixels in the resulting image This map is then applied so that every warm pixel co ordinate in the map causes that pixel in the image to be replaced b
36. y indicate that the CCD plane needs to be adjusted The front plate of the SX VF H35 incorporates three sets of antagonistic screws that allow the plate to be tilted by up to about 1 degree relative to the CCD surface To make an adjustment slacken the appropriate set screw and then turn the adjacent cap head screw in the required direction Complete the adjustment by re tightening the set screw Avoid raising the plate by more than is necessary to level it as a slight light leak may occur between the disk and camera body if the gap is large 24 Handbook for the SX VF H35 Issue 1 August 2007 FAS FAS 28 2g 2g KE E ig E E K E E K E K K is K FAS K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K ok Some details of the camera and the CCD characteristics CCD type Kodak KAI 11002 interline CCD imager CCD size Active area 36 3 x 24 2mm Pixel size 9 x 9uM QE peak approx 52 at 500nM Spectral response Quantum Efficiency Monochrome Quantum Efficiency with microlens 0 60 2 0 50 Measured with 0 40 glass 0 30 amp 2 0 20 2 0 10 0 00 T T r r r E 300 400 500 600 700 300 900 1000 Wavelength nm Figure 10 Monochrome Quantum Efficiency Dark signal Typically 0 01 e per sec at 10C body temperature Power consumption 220v 110v AC 12 watts max 12v DC 750mA 25 Handbook for the SXVF H35 Issue 1 August 2007 Dear User
37. y the median of those pixels around it The result is similar to that of using a median filter but only the warm pixels are modified the rest of the pixels are unaffected Yet another option is to sum several images that have a small degree of dither in their star alignment If the images are realigned on the stars for summing the warm pixels will not now be aligned and will average down to a lower level If the summing 13 Handbook for the SX VF H35 Issue 1 August 2007 is done by using a statistical summing technique such as median or sigma combining then the warm pixels will be removed altogether This method needs more powerful image processing than is available in SX V_Hmf but both AstroArt and Maxim DL can do it The result of applying a median filter and contrast stretch to the raw image Another thing to try is the summing several images for a better signal to noise ratio Summing can be done in the Merge menu and involves loading the first finished image selecting a reference point a star then loading the second image and finding the same star with the mouse Once the reference is selected you can either add directly or average the images together Averaging is generally better as you are less likely to saturate the highlights of the picture The signal to noise ratio will improve at a rate proportional to the square root of the number of summations summing 4 images will double the signal to noise
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