From: Milton Aupperle <milton@outcastsoft.com>
Date: October 21, 2005 1:46:03 PM MDT
To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] Re: Grid Pattern
Duane;
On 21-Oct-05, at 1:05 PM, Duane wrote:
----SNIPPED
Milton,
In the graph that comes up for choosing the confidence %, what does the vertical axis
represent?
That is the number of frames that are in particular range of sharpness values. If you look on the left side of the histogram, you will see two numbers, the bottom one being 0 and the top number being the "X", The "X" value is the maximum number of frames in the largest sharpness category. The sharpness is broken up into 256 range intervals.
This is from the Astro IIDC Manual on page 16.
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The histogram shows the count of the sharpness of the frames, with the horizontal axis being
the sharpness (least sharp left and most sharp right) and extending from 0 to "N" (15 in this
case) frames vertically. On the right are statistics for the sharpness calculation, the minimum,
maximum, mean, median, standard deviation @ 68% CI (Confidence Interval), standard
deviation @ 96% CI and number of frames processed.
------------END QUOTE-----------
It would be nice... advice is always so easy to give :) ...if Astro IIDC could open the
quicktimes to hand pick out frames (if I didn't overlook that it does already) for stacking.
We don't support that nor are we likely to do it. You can make a copy of the movie, step through the frames of the movie and delete what you "think" is blurry using other apps.
Glad to hear you got your drive going. That would be a pain in the butt. It's bad enough
that my Meade swings back and forth from periodic error. Once I get the mean of the
swing in the center of the frame it's OK as it just swing back and fourth over about a
minute. Until I find that center though, I have to keep nudging it as guide speed until I find
the sweet spot.
that previous shoot of Mars I did using a focal length of 4.9 meters and the original drive, Mars drifted out of the Camera FOV in 17 seconds. So I had to achieve focus in 17 seconds and do all my image capture in that time period too.
The Unibrain also has a vertical bar that takes up about 20% of the screen that has a
different pattern to it. I tend to stay away from that spot.
That is EM coupling interference when the packets of data are transmitted - and it's a problem with the layout of the inexpensive IIDC camera boards (except the Imaging Source ones who have eliminated it completely) It shows up a lot IF you use high gains and IF you enable the "CCD Register optimizations" option. which increase image brightness but at the cost of noise. This has been explained on page 26 of the manual, as listed below.
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The "Enable "CCD Over Drive" register optimizations." check box controls whether special
optimizations are applied to CCD or not and only is available for the inexpensive 640x480 IIDC
cameras. With this option enabled, the CCD image brightness will be increased by
approximately 30%. However this option is not without a cost and at higher brightness settings
noise from internal EM interference will be more readily apparent. We do not recommend this
option be used with "The Imaging Source" cameras which are already have optimized register
settings.
------------END QUOTE-----------
Can't wait to try out the new
camera. I got the color wheel from Apogee. Seems a pretty good deal. I'm happy with the
quality. I had to get a C-mount adaptor because they didn't have a camera in stock with
the 12mm thread.
M12mm Plastic threads are typically used for cheaper cameras. C or C/S Mount are largely used for industrial cameras and support much larger (about 0.9" x 0.9") CCD sizes too.
HTH..
Milton J. Aupperle
President
ASC - Aupperle Services and Contracting
Mac Software (Drivers, Components and Application) Specialist
#1005 - 815 14th Avenue. S.W.
Calgary Alberta Canada T2R0N5
1-(403)-229-9456
www.outcastsoft.com