Starlight Live Image Capture with the Slim USB Camera

Starlight Live automatically collects a series of FITS images and sums them if required.
The 16-bit images can be opened with ImageJ to remove noisy pixels and de-interlace.
These instructions apply to non-astronomical use of SSL; FOV shifts are not corrected.
  • Download and install the free Starlight Live camera capture application
  • For Macintosh systems, use the OSX version of Starlight Live
  • Launch Starlight Live to automatically connect to the Lodestar/Ultrastar camera.
    Connection is indicated by a tick at the bottom left
  • There are 5 tabs on the left to allow various settings and image display
  • Click the images to enlarge them

The Exposure Tab

  • The green button starts exposures, the red stops, and the red/green arrows reset
  • First set the Exposure Seconds or use Presets for a Mono camera with Binning
  • The Lodestar has no temperature control, and use Image Acquisition mode
  • Progress and the number of stacked (summed) exposures is shown on the bottom bar


The Display Tab

  • Set the Image Modifiers Intensity and Contrast mid-course
  • Bracket the white intensity Histogram with the Black and White Levels
  • Channel Selection and Colour Modifiers are irrelevant for this mono camera


The Export Tab

  • You can choose to automatically Export Raw 16-bit FITS Images to a folder
  • You can also manually Export Current Stacked Image (or the Processed Image)
  • Finally you can add Target Information about the exposure and conditions


The Stacking Tab

  • You can Enable Live Stacking so that repeated exposures are summed or averaged
  • IMPORTANT ! Set the Max Pixel Displacement and Max FWHM to ZERO (0)
    i.e. don't try to register the image against the average by tracking stars.
  • Don't use Defective Pixel Removal and don't use a smoothing Filter (use imageJ)


The Settings Tab

  • You probably want to choose Fast Display, since this has no effect on saved images
  • You may want to Flip the display to correspond with your sample orientation


A PDF version of these instructions is available,