Swansea Astronomical Society Blog

Saturday, September 3, 2016

 

Automatic Colour Alignment processor AutoCAP running in Wine under Fedora Linux

In 2010,  Andrew Sprott and I published an article in Popular Astronomy entitled 'Developments in Imaging software'. (S.Wainwright and A Sprott 2010, Popular Astronomy, 4, 19-20.) It was about a Colour Alignment Processor called CAP that Andrew had coded in Delphi. I produced the statistical algorithms that Andrew used to re-align the three colour channels. The software only uses .BMPs.


This software is able to correct for atmospheric dispersion by re-aligning the colour channels in an image that has had them dispersed by atmospheric refraction. The program can also be used to construct a full colour image from three separate monochrome images captured through red, green and blue filters.
Andrew then coded an automatic version that we called AutoCAP that is able to us one of the colour channels as a reference channel and register the other two channels with the reference channel. Andrew did the hard work of the coding and I produced the statistical algorithms that allowed the registration of the channels.
This software runs perfectly under Linux in the Widows compatibility layer, Wine. The word Wine is a recursive acronym that stands for 'Wine is not an emulator'. Under Wine, Windows API calls are converted to calls compatible with Linux, and the software runs without the overheads associated with emulation.

AutoCAP running under Fedora Linux, showing the effect of atmospheric dispersion on the image. Click on an image to get a closer view

The green channel is chosen, and an alignment box is drawn around the planet

The image of Jupiter after the three colour channels have been automatically aligned.


AutoCAP can be downloaded here: AutoCAP download

Animation showing the effect of AutoCAP. Click on the animation for the best view.

Animation of the whole process. Click on the animation for the best view. The atmospheric dispersed image is loaded, then the green channel is selected and a box placed around the planet, then the red and blue channels are registered with the green channel to produce the dispersion-corrected image:

Andrew coded a number of astronomy programs that we jointly worked on and we shall be testing them under Linux in Wine.

Steve Wainwright and Andrew Sprott

Friday, September 2, 2016

 

AstroCrop for Linux

A static tripod mounted Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72 bridge camera at 60x optical zoom, fitted with a Baader solar filter, was used to image the Sun. The camera was set to burst mode, ISO-100 and 1/1000s exposure at f/5.9. Images were captured in bursts of three. 98 images, precisely cropped and registered in Nicola Mackin's AstroCrop for Linux software were stacked and wavelet processed in Registax 5.1 running in Wine. Post processing of the 16 bit Tiff, was done in The Gimp 2.9, all under Fedora Linux. Click on an image to get a closer view:


Splash Screen of AstroCrop for Linux 

The cropped, processed solar image showing prominent sunspot groups AR2585, AR2581, smaller spots and faculae

Steve Wainwright

Thursday, September 1, 2016

 

New Online Astronomical Magazine: NEW SCOPE

A downloadable online  magazine called NEW SCOPE is being edited by Mike Thomas of Usk Astronomical Society, that outlines the work of the Usk, Abergavenny and Heads of the Valleys Astronomical Societies.

It can be found here NEW SCOPE MAGAZINE

It is commendable that these South Wales Astronomical Societies are producing this magazine which is hosted on the Usk AS website. It is an interesting read.

Steve Wainwright
 

AstroCrop for Linux

Last year Nicola Mackin and I published an article on AstroCrop in Popular Astronomy 62, Vol 6, 16-17. Nicola has now ported it to Linux, and I have tested it with some Bridge camera solar data captured on August 30. The 110 cropped images were stacked in Registax 5.1, post processed and colourised in The Gimp 2.9, all under Fedora Linux. It will be released as soon as all of the tests are completed and an installer made.


Splash Screen


Showing cropping area


Cropping the images; running in 2 threads with 96 images left to crop


Final image showing sunspots and faculae

Steve Wainwright

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

 

M101 plus astronomical sketches

Altair Wave 102 mm triplet, on EQ6 mount, guided with 60mm finder/guider and Altair GPcam.Camera wit PHD2, SX694. Luminance 10x180s and 6x300, RGB 5x90s


Anne Startup

130m refractor with a Watec camera as an electronic eyepiece






Jim Startup

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

 

The Sun in H-alpha light

A DMK 21AU04.AS camera with a x2 Barlow lens was attached to a Solarmax ll, 60, BF15, H-alpha scope. Nicola Mackin's AstroDMx Capture running under Fedora Linux, was used to capture groups of 1000 images, which were then stacked in Registax 5.1, running under Wine and post processed in the Gimp 2.9. Click on an image to get a closer view.

Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture capturing images of a filaprom.

The filaprom snaking across the disk and arching into a prominence on the limb

Prominence arching across the limb. The overexposed disk has been obscured with a black virtual occultation disk

Swirling magnetic activity in an active region

An Opticstar PL-130M monochrome CMOS 1.3 mega-pixel USB camera was placed at the prime focus of a Solarmax ll, 60, BF15 H-alpha scope, mounted on an iOptron Cube Pro, AZ, GOTO mount. 3900 frame AVIs were captured, exposed for the disk and also for the prominences. The AVIs were stacked in Registax 5.1, processed and combined in Photoshop.

Steve Wainwright

Monday, August 29, 2016

 

M13 with a 10", f,4.8 Newtonian, a DMK camera and AstroDMx Capture under Linux

A 10", f/4.8 Orion Europa Newtonian that had not been used for more than 3 years was mounted on an HEQ5 GOTO mount, using a dovetail fitted to the rings by Derek Francis. The scope had very dirty optics which have since been completely cleaned.

The 10" Newtonian and laptop capturing images under Linux with a DMK camera.

Nicola Mackin's AstroDMx Capture software was used to capture 100 x 5s exposures as TIFFs using a DMK camera at the Newtonian focus of the scope.

Splash screen of the Linux software, running under Fedora Linux

Screen capture of the capturing of M13 by AstroDMx Capture

The best 95 of 100, 5s exposures were stacked in Linux 5.1 running under the Wine, Windows compatibility layer, and post processed in The Gimp 2.9, which can work with the 16 bit Tiff produced by Registax.

Nicola is currently re-working the entire GUI and implementing long AVI capture.

Steve Wainwright and Nicola Mackin

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