From: "ChrisB" <chboss@hispeed.ch>

Date: February 7, 2012 5:27:50 AM MST

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: Status update and new Images


The camera seems to be quite something... looking forward to more details. How is the spectral sensitivity?


Multi core support is highly welcome since all the new hardware offers plenty of CPU cores to use.  ;-)


regards

Chris


--- In Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com, "milton_aupperle" <milton@...> wrote:


Hi Folks;


Little status update...


I am testing a new Monochrome low noise Camera and adding support for it to Astro IIDC 4.08.00 (still in progress). I'm under NDA on the camera, so you'll have to wait before I can talk about it :) I plan on writing a review up for it - but needless to say the flat frames I have taken with it uncooled are amazingly uniform and exceedingly low noise - even uncooled.


In any case, here is my first Astro Light with the camera of M42 Core, taken at 1625 mm focal length with AT8RC scope and 30 second Luma, 30 second Red, 30 seconds Green and 35 seconds Blue. Uncooled Camera temp was + 7°C internally and ambient temp was -2°C, so it does not warm up much. I shot no Flats or darks, so this is basically raw out of the camera. Seeing was bad and even guiding at 15 fps on a mag 3 star, I was getting stars jumping +/- 5 arc seconds between guide frames. I under exposed it to preserve the core and then log sqrt stretched it in Astro IIDC to bring out the Crab "arms":


http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Astro_IIDC/files/DSO/M42Core_20120203_MJA.jpg


Here is the original Luma stacks from the Camera without any processing:


http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Astro_IIDC/files/DSO/M42Core_LumaUnprocessed_MJA.jpg 


Lastly, I am in the process of re-writing the stacking code to use all available CPU cores. After a couple weeks of work, I finally solved the last of my bugs (threads going rip van winkle) this afternoon and it looks like this should significantly speed up stacking over the old method - especially if your on a 4 core or higher Mac. Even on a 2 core Mac, I'm getting around a 30% improvement now than the old code, but if your running multiple (maximum 16), core, all of them run in parallel and it screams.


Clear Skies..


Milton Aupperle