The blog of astronomy society in Saint-Michel Mont Mercure, France - more commonly know as Saint Michel Village du Ciel - has recently published an interesting blog about IC Capture.AS and The Imaging Source astronomy cameras. The article contains a great image of Saturn and a couple of deep sky images. Click through to see them (link below)!

In addition, the author has published the following screenshots of IC Capture.AS in action:

Read the full article at:
http://astromercure8.free.fr/?p=152

Last Spring, we announced that Lucam Recorder was going to support The Imaging Source astronomy cameras. I am delighted to announce that Heiko Wilkens - the author of the software - contacted us recently to let us know that he has just released a new version of Lucam Recorder.

Lucam Recorder 2.2 supports the entire range of The Imaging Source USB 2.0 and FireWire cameras, including all astronomy and industrial cameras. According to his web site, Lucam Recorder is:

Professional image acquisition software for [The] Imaging Source [...] industrial and scientific cameras.

Below is a screenshot of the latest version:

The key features of Lucam Recorder include:

• Full support for The Imaging Source DMK, DFK and DBK camera series (FireWire and USB 2.0)
• Support for all dedicated camera properties, such as
  • 16 bit pixel depth
  • ROI sizing
  • ROI positioning
  • Binning
  • Frame rates
  • Long time exposure
• Invention of the variable frame rate property to provide intuitive one slider access to the camera’s entire range of exposure time
• Full integration of motorized and manual filter wheels including automated acquisition of spectral filters images sequences
• Fully automated image acquisition sessions, including slow motion and quick motion
• Continuing integration of user requested features
• Intuitive and convenient user interface

You can download the new version from Heiko’s web site. You will need this test license before you can use the software. For more information, please take a look at the following pages:

• What’s New in Lucam Recorder 2.2
• List of Lucam Recorder Features
• Support for Lucam Recorder

We wish you all a lot of success with this new version of Lucam Recorder and send out a great thanks to Heiko for writing and publishing this software.

Please note that this blog post has just examined support for The Imaging Source cameras. Lucam Recorder also supports cameras from other manufacturers.

Disclaimer: This text is part of a five part series, which was originally published in the UK magazine Astronomy Now. The text is copyright Pole Star Publications Ltd, the publisher of the magazine and the images are copyright Nick Howes, the astro-photographer. Text and images have been reproduced here with kind permission of Astronomy Now and Nick Howes respectively.

The CD installs drivers (The Imaging Source supply drivers for Windows XP, Windows Vista (fully supported) and Apple Mac OSX, so no imagers are left out in the cold), that are supported by a wide range of popular applications such as K3CCD, Registax and PHD Guiding (both cameras, through their high sensitivity, will make excellent autoguiders as well), along with a really superb and fully featured imaging package known as IC Capture.AS.

The feeling that this is a package that has been crafted with quality at the forefront of the design continues when you launch IC Capture.AS, which is available also as a free trial version download on The Imaging Source website.

At launch, the application allows you to select the camera that you have connected, and then presents you with a wealth of control over your chosen device. A highly intuitive menu structure, which can even automatically configure all of the controls supported by your camera model, makes the configuration of the camera seem like child’s play.

Comprehensive and yet still simple to follow, it has you arming the camera to record video with frame rates ranging from a low 3.75 to 60 frames per second for the DMK 21AU04.AS, and 3.75 to 15 frames per second for the DMK 41AU02.AS.

The image capture can be either uncompressed, or a range of compression video codecs. The video stream output modes are supported in applications like Registax version 4. To maintain the absolute highest quality, most people will opt for either the uncompressed mode, or The Imaging Source’s preferred lossless codec, which is referenced in the quick start guide, though be aware that at 60 frames per second you will need a good, fast hard disk drive and plenty of space, as it will fill up quickly.

My relatively old Pentium 4 Hewlett Packard laptop coped perfectly well at all frame rates with almost no examples of any frame drop-out. The clever thing in this application is not only can you record video, but you can also pause and then resume the incoming video stream, which is perfect for when clouds go by, or the seeing becomes too poor for a while.

Due to the high volume of end users that are having problems with newly acquired PC’s and their not so old programs that they STILL would like to use, I thought I would share a bit of good news to friends of The Imaging Source.

A new DBK 21AF04.AS user from North Texas writes:

Hi Profjohn,

I just got in my new DBK 21AF04.AS. I purchased a new laptop for the sole purpose of using it with this camera. I was a bit worried about the laptop having the Windows Vista operating system, but much to my delight and suprise, I had the camera along with the software completely installed, problem free, in less than 5 minutes. About 3 minutes actually. Couldn’t of went smoother!

Regards, Joel, Amarillo, TX

Additionally, Joel told me earlier today (Tuesday) that he couldn’t have been happier as the Seeing Gods are looking favorably on he and Texas this evening. With the clear skies tonight, Joel will be wrangling his first targets with his new camera from The Imaging Source.

All of The Imaging Source astronomy cameras ship with the camera control software IC Capture.AS.

Using IC Capture.AS, you can:

• Set all camera parameters.
• See the live image data stream from the camera.
• Retrieve singular images from the camera and save them as BMP or JPG files.
• Capture image sequences and save the single images as enumerated BMP or JPG files.
• Capture image sequences and save them as lossless, uncompressed AVI files.

However, IC Capture.AS is not the only software, which can be used with The Imaging Source astronomy cameras. The following 3rd party software packages are also compatible:

• Astro_IIDC
• AVIRAW
• Guidemaster
• K3CCD Tools
• MaximDL
• Metaguide
• PHD Guiding
• RegiStax

And the following packages are being updated so that they will soon be compatible:

• AstroSnap
• Lucam Recorder (available towards the end of 2007)

Please note that only IC Capture.AS is officially supported by The Imaging Source. Please contact the authors of the 3rd party software for support.