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Major Features:
• Simple and easy to use interface in a single camera control window as shown in the screen snap shot to the right. All camera control adjustments are done with a full size scrollable live preview image so there is none of this modal QuickTime tiny 160x120 pixel image approximations nonsense, pure WYSIWYG.
• Works with most inexpensive monochrome or color FireWire web type cameras (see list at page bottom for details).
• Works with most high end 640x480 to 4096x4096 size, 8 and 16 bit per pixel, monochrome or bayer color FireWire 400 and Firewire 800 cameras (see list at page bottom for details).
• Utilizes ASC's industrial strength, preemptively multi threaded, Altivec / SSE3 enhanced IIDC/DCAM framework code, with no dependency on QuickTime or other FireWire drivers for camera control. "Astro IIDC" directly accesses the FireWire camera and extracts the raw bayer or monochrome CCD data. No YUV color aliasing as we decode the bayer color data using our own custom 2x2, 3x3 and 5x5 kernels.
• For inexpensive FireWire cameras provides extended CCD exposure times from as fast as 1/3000th of a second down to 1.029 seconds, without any hardware modifications. That is 31 times more light gathering capability than anyone else's software and adds a new dimension for lower light imaging.
• For high end FireWire cameras provides CCD exposure times from 1/10000 of a second to 60 minutes (depending on the camera), Region Of Interest and records movies as fast as 240 frames per second.
• Supports user definable Average and Spot Color Balance, allowing you to balance against any color you want, not just white.
• Single click to Grab a frame, Grab a user defined burst of frames and average them (for noise reduction) or Grab a burst of frames and sum them (for enhancing low light imaging). Supports frame grabs in TIFF (Mono8, Mono16, RGB24 or RGB48), PNG (8 or 16 bit), BMP, PhotoShop, PICT, JPEG and FITS (Mono8 or Mono16 bit) file formats.
• Provides Auto Guiding on stars, planets, lunar craters and solar sunspots utilizing KeySpan's USB to Serial Port converter or Shoestring Astronomy's GPUSB ST4 converter for mount control. Supported mounts include Meade compatible (including LXD55, LXD75, ETX90, ETX125, LX200, RX400, SkySensor 2000 PC etc.), Losmady, Celestron, Meade, Temma, Vixen, SkyWatcher and other mounts that have a ST4 type Auto Guider port and hacked hand controllers (Orion EQ2/3, CGE5 etc.).
• Supports Altivec / SSE3 enhanced Flat Frame division and Dark Frame subtraction to provide for real time removal of optical imperfections (i.e. dust, hairs, vignetting etc.) and to reduce CCD noise.
• Provides live Sharpness estimators using pixel edge detection or FWHM / HFD for a focussing aid and can also be used to exclude air turbulence blurred images from being grabbed as frames or recorded in a movie.
• Logs all your camera settings for every frame grabbed or movie recorded to a text file, so that you can easily recall exactly what settings were used when each image image was captured. Also allows you to enter user notes notes for each frame grabbed or movie recorded.
• Records QuickTime Movies at frame rates up to 240 frames per second down to as slow as 1 frame per minute, user selectable. All movies are recorded with a Greenwich Mean Time relative Time Code track, so that the time for each recorded frame can be determined within 1 frame duration.
• Provides a 16 bit LRGB64 bit Altivec optimized real time Image Processing Module, featuring multi radii spatially dependent sharpening, log square root curve stretching, RGB level adjustments, RGB gain adjustments, RGB Saturation, R and B color channel spatial offsets for atmospheric correction, multiple noise reduction algorithms and zoom.
• Provides multi - threaded real time automated alignment and stacking of video, both for live image capture and post with recorded 8 or 16 bit per pixel movies. All Altivec enhanced stacking, sharpening, aligning and processing is done at a full 32 bits per color channel (Mono32 or RGB96) so that no image data is lost or compromised.
• Allows you to automatically or manually select which frames are included for stacking. Provides up to 500 user selectable areas of interest for Multiple Area Processing (MAP).
• Supports display and capture in color, monochrome, binned 2x2 color, binned 2x2 monochrome, binned 4x4 monochrome and individual red, green or blue color channels modes.
• Support external hardware trigger modes 0 and 14, which allows you to externally trigger frame delivery (on GPIO0 or GPIO3 inputs) to the monitor, for frame grabs and recording movies.
S• aves and restores up to 10 user definable camera settings, so you can apply camera specific parameters at a key stroke or via an AppleScript.
• Allows you to measure differential or absolute Photometric magnitudes and generate sub arc second Astrometric positional measurements on stellar objects from imported images or over time from movies. Now you can measure variables star brightness changes, identify positional changes of asteroids or comets and search for extra solar planets on your Mac.
• Provides support for Digital SLR camera users to create RGB48 bit movies from their images, do dark frame subtraction, apply flat frame correction or stack and align your 16 bit movies.
• AppleScript support for starting or stopping Video Play, starting or stopping Movie Recording, Grabbing Frames, Dark Frames, Flat Frames and programatically changes settings.
Downloads and Installation:
Download the English Astro IIDC Installer (version 4.05.00, 8.8 Megabytes released August 10, 2009) disk image, double click on it and then follow the "Read Me First" instructions. Version 4.05.00 is a Universal Binary for both PowerPC and x86 Macs and is both Tiger and Leopard (to 10.5.8) compatible. In the "Legacy" folder is a PowerPC only version of Astro IIDC that is built with CodeWarrior, which supports G3, G4 and G5 Macs and runs on OSX 10.3.9 and higher.
Note that until you purchase an unlock key(s) the "Astro IIDC" application will run in "Demo Mode" which disables some features. This allows you ensure your camera works properly with the software before making a purchase. If your camera does not work in "Demo Mode", then it won't work in the Full version either.
New in version 4.05.00:
• Adds the ability to record and graph the brightness of user defined areas, provides post 2x2 binning while stacking, adds overdrive packet sizes to maximize bandwidth usage over FireWire 800, improves recording speed for 220+ fps cameras, provides new example Apple scripts, provides improved guiding capability and addresses a few bugs.
Before you can place an order for Astro IIDC 4.x, you need to download it so that that Astro IIDC can extract the Mac or Camera serial number(s) you wish to register. You will not find the 17 character serial number on your Mac or on the camera or printed anywhere else, so please let Astro IIDC extract it for you. Once it's installed, double click on the "Astro IIDC" application, then select "Astro IIDC" from the menu bar and then choose the "Registration Options..." menu item.
You can then purchase unlock keys for $110.00 USD each by Credit Card, Debit Card, PayPal, Cheque or Money Order using the Secure Kagi hosted online store
To meet the needs of the majority of our customers, the unlock keys can be specified for particular FireWire Camera or for a particular Mac when you order them.
If you purchase an unlock key for a camera then you can use that camera on multiple Macs, simply by copying the unlock key to those other Macs. This is intended for a Lab situation where you have many Macs with one or a few shared camera. Please note that the Astro IIDC application will need this camera attached to the Mac each time the application is launched to verify the unlock key. Once it's verified, you can unplug the camera and continue using all of Astro IIDC's non camera features until you Quit the application.
If you purchase an unlock key for a Mac then you can use any of the supported FireWire cameras with it. This is intended for people that have access to multiple FireWire cameras and want to use any of them with a specific Mac, such as a work station situation.
For more information, visit:
http://www.outcastsoft.com/ASCASTROIIDC.html
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