Arne Caspari has recently published a very detailed article about getting the most out of The Imaging Source industrial and astronomy cameras on Linux.

His preferred distribution is Ubuntu and thus his article is particularly relevant to this blog. We have often talked about deploying The Imaging Source astronomy cameras on Ubuntu.

As he states in his post, Arne is the chief developer of the firmware, which runs on The Imaging Source cameras. He is employed at The Imaging Source here in Bremen, Germany:

The Imaging Source AU/BU cameras are a popular series of USB Video Class compliant cameras for industrial and [...] astronomy vision. If you are wondering about my preference for The Imaging Source cameras, the reason is simply that I am the lead developer of the camera firmware of these cameras.

Before you can use all the features of the USB cameras on Linux, you have to master some hurdles but the installation should be quite easy with the following instructions.

Arne goes on to list the steps which need to be taken. If you are interested in running The Imaging Source astronomy cameras on Ubuntu, please read through his post - it contains a number of very tasty morsels.

Arne Caspari: Installing USB Cameras

Last week, we received the following images from Pierre-Alain Arnaud, an amateur astronomer about whom we have blogged previously. This time, he submitted a couple of Sun images. They were captured with a DMK 31AF03 FireWire camera. Click for the originals:

In his e-mail to The Imaging Source, Pierre-Alain wrote (translated from French):

Please find attached some more images of the Sun. They were captured with a PST, DMK 31AF03 and 2x barlow. The first image was captured on March 29, 2008 at 15:00 from Sigoyer (Alpes de Haute Provence, France). It shows a large protuberance and active zone. The second image, which was captured on February 11, 2008 shows a protuberance on a limb.

Again, I would like to thank you for your blog, which allows me to share these beautiful images. Similarly, I would like to thank you for your great cameras that allow me to capture such images.

Pierre-Alain, thank for your kind words and keep up the good work.

Following his exceptional deep sky images last week, Alberto Mayer has again submitted some spectacular lunar images. The following images were captured with a USB 2.0 DMK 31AU03.AS astronomy camera, manufactured by The Imaging Source:

Arzachel and Rupes Recta

Copernicus

Plato and Vallis Alpes

Tycho and Clavius

Again, we send out a great thanks to Alberto for his work.

Ingmar Glass is an amateur astronomer based in Baveria, Germany. Last week he submitted one of his first images of the Sun, which he captured with his recently purchased DMK 31AF03.

By clicking on the images, you can not only see the original, full-sized version, but also a summary of the hardware and software which he used:

In an e-mail to The Imaging source, Ingmar wrote:

This was my first attempt to combine two pictures that shows solar prominences and surface detail.

This [images were captured at] the ITV 2008 (International Telescope Meeting). I spent some hours to process [them, to achieve these results].

But I am satisfied.

A great thanks goes out to Ingmar for sharing this images with the community. We look forward to receiving more of his work!

Callisto - one of Jupiter’s moons - was discovered in 1610 by Galileo Galilei and is the third-largest moon in the Solar System and the second largest in the Jovian system. Submitted by Mike Salway, the following animation shows Callisto transiting across the face of Jupiter:

Accompanying the eighteen frame animation - covering over 3 hours of rotation - Mike Salway notes:

Finally got around to processing all of the data from last Saturday morning, 30th May UT. Seeing was variable (mostly just above average) but for about 30 minutes it really steadied and I was able to capture probably my best image for the year so far.

Callisto is shown transiting across the face of Jupiter - it’s very very dark!

Captured with 12″ newt, DMK 21AU04. Processed in Registax v5 (beta).

Awesome work Mike! Keep it up!