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,