Achieving Quality

In my last blog entry, I mentioned how I was looking into getting a computer with a little more gumption to support my new monitor and video capture functions. I was researching prices and discovered that I could afford something way faster and more scalable than I had originally anticipated. So I ordered a PC from Geeks.com, it arrived, I got it all installed, and golly, did that ever go smoothly. It has an AMD 5600+ dual core processor which is a major step up from the tired, old clunker P4 desktop and (shudder) PII laptop I've been using to get things done indoors. Yeah, you read that right, Pentium two (2!). The AMD system came with no OS, but XP installation went smoothly. A couple of devices posed a small challenge because I was initially unable to determine what they were, but after everything had a name, getting drivers was a snap.

So now, the P4 functions are being moved to the AMD, and the laptop functions are being moved to the P4. So, the old PC's will still be in use, just re-tasked with duties that better match their capabilities. The laptop, for instance will become an off-to-the-side web browser, weather monitor, observation logger, or something useful. It's very convenient having LOTS of screen real estate to spread things out and divvy up resources. If nothing else, the old PC's will retain the ability to perform their old duties, just in case something unexpected happens. I use the freeware program Synergy to share the main computer's keyboard and mouse across all systems via TCP-IP. I just cannot say enough good things about this piece of software.

I mentioned logging observations, I really need to get it in gear and make this happen. I'm notoriously bad when it comes to keeping track of what I've observed, and that needs to change. I've had a couple of thoughts about that recently that I'd like to share. First, the formal log entry idea. During the brainstorming phase of the BEVO project I thought of logging moon phase, weather, and sky transparency conditions to accompany my video image captures. In the future, after many observations have been made, I thought that it would be interesting to compare the images to learn something about what to expect on future sessions with similar conditions. Getting up to find out what it's like outside at two in the morning, is apparently too much for me because it hasn't happened yet. I just have not been able to break out of this lazy attitude toward logging my observations, which brings me to a more recent notion: auto-archival by image name. Turns out the Fly2000 software I use to capture video puts the date and time in the name of the file automatically. I've been modifying the file name, sticking a number at the beginning to denote Messier and NGC objects. I can attach that file to a SkyMap Pro log entry if I want to add descriptive details or environmental conditions to go along with the picture, or I can just leave all those images in a single directory for a sortable list. Either way, a searchable "log" of observations is created.

Finally some thoughts about image quality. Recently I decided, "no more post-processing," It was a tax on my brain late at night so I cut it loose from the project. People write books on this stuff, and while I've decided I cannot justify spending the time to figure it all out, I have continued to think about image quality and making better looking images. That's what we all strive for, right? Or when we go to check out some images someone took of a DSO, we expect it to look like a picture from outer space. Twinkly pinpoint stars in the foreground, the deep dark black of space in the background, and lots of amazing detail in the DSO subject. Oh, did I mention I want to get all of that instantly without having to do anything at all? I know, dream on, Dreamweaver.

Alright, so what can I get instantly? More often than not, depending on how long you expose, you get an image where the blackness of space is more like bright grey. Darken space to the appropriate color, and (whoosh!) there goes the detail in the DSO. Yo! What up wit dat, homey? The answer is in them books which means a whole lotta reading and fiddling with software. This is "better visual observing" not astrophotography 101. So, that leads me back my recent thoughts about "quality" and how to achieve it. One thing we all know, quality is subjective. I believe quality is about achieving expectations. Expectation-wise, as long as I'm getting images with the details I'm looking for, then my expectations (albeit minimally) are being met. Seeing more detail in DSO's is not about a dark, black sky background creating contrast between it and the details in the DSO's. The color of the background is irrelevant. It's the contrast that counts.

So that's kind of where I am right now with this astro-video project. I can produce images with detail in the DSO, but if I darken the background to make it look more "pleasing to the eye" or more "spacelike", those details just kind of slip away. How do I fix it so I can have wispy, nebulous details and astrophoto-like images to save and share? I have no idea, and I'm gravitating toward less fiddling and just capturing the details even if the sky doesn't look all that "spacey." If the image has the goods, it's good enough. Quality achieved.

Monitor Melodrama.

One of the things I'm in the process of doing right now is upgrading some of my PC equipment and environs. A larger monitor was one of the items on the to-do list. With more screen real estate from the higher resolution, I'll be able to keep more apps open and in view concurrently. This is the kind of stuff that helps preserve that precious "mental energy" resource I mentioned back when I started this blog. For instance, having the remote desktop session to the outside laptop minimized, the autoguiding process is out of sight, and out of mind. So I forget to stop it before moving to a new target which causes tracking issues for the first exposures of the new DSO. It's the mental version of hitting your thumb with a hammer. Most of us can take a hit. No biggie, you just shake it off and move on. After you've hit your thumb the third or fourth time, well... you realize something's gotta change.

So, to kick things off I got a new 22" widescreen monitor. And it's a beaut! Monster size compared to the dim, "fuzzy in the corners" little 17" CRT I was using. This one's got all the bells and whistles. You can even rotate it into a tall, landscape orientation.

And it's killing my system.

Amazing. Everytime I get things going smoothly, if I change one piece of equipment, it seems to dramatically affect the whole process. Suddenly, my little Pentium 4 PC is absolutely choking when I run a video capture program that gets updated once every 30, 60, or 90 seconds. Too weird, but that's the way it goes. After I get this monitor thing under control, I'll get a new PC or something and suddenly the video will look funny or something else won't work right. I've learned not to introduce too many changes at once; it can be a challenge to figure out the root cause.

So, just thought I'd share that.

I'm also looking to upgrade the little old clunker laptop I use indoors for starcharts to something faster as well. Probably, I'll get an inexpensive 3.2 Ghz P4 for the video side of things, and move star charts to the old 1.2 Ghz P4. I'm kind of digging these small form factor PC's because I can stick two of them in the space of one PC. We already have something more up-to-date and costly for the "official home PC", so I'm not spending any more then necessary on my observatory PC's. To date, all PC's and laptops are old clunkers from work and several years old. I'm willing to take more risks with the older equipment, which has allowed me to do lots of experimenting, and I've gotten a lot done in a shorter span of time. If I was only working with our family PC, I'd be "tip-toeing around it" and would not get nearly as much accomplished.

Here are some captures from the first night with the new monitor. I was spending the majority of my time fiddling with the settings and what-not. I didn't really look at anything worthy of capturing. But I was tinkering with the galaxy NGC 7331 and I realized I was getting some good detail. More than I had seen previously.



Earlier in the night, I decided to slew over to the eastern portion of the Veil nebula, NGC 6995 to take a peek and see if I could pull out any nebulosity. The chart on the left shows the entire nebula with a small white box representing the StellaCam 3 field of view. The chart on the right shows the starfield represented in the third image below.





Curiously, the monitor at home shows nebulosity clearly, but here at work where I am putting this blog entry together, I can barely see it without making adjustments to the monitor. Your mileage may vary. These captures are single frames right off the screen with only brightness and contrast adjustments made before capturing. I'll try to do a better job of keeping track of exposure times for the images I post in the future.

Forward Momentum.

I've been promising pictures for several blog entries, so it's time to follow through and catch up. In my last entry, I shared thoughts about how I was going to skip any post-processing of images, and the pictures in this entry are a direct result of that. These images are literally captured right from what I see via the Fly-2000 video software interface (which I finally acquired a license for). I adjust them for brightness and contrast and hit the button to perform the capture. Now, before you think, "Hey! These images don't show hardly anything, " I need to point out that most of the following images are of pretty faint galaxies. I live in the Chicago suburbs with heavily light-polluted skies and a limiting magnitude of 3 or so. While I do enjoy viewing big, splashy Messier objects, my real interests lie further beyond that. I'm much more interested in seeing what kind of detail I can squeeze out of the smaller, fainter NGC objects.

Also consider that fact that I didn't have to go anywhere to do this. It takes a half hour to pack a big scope into the car, an hour to drive out to one of my club's better darksites. More time to set up... and you see where I'm going with this. These views flat-out blow darksite viewing away and cost a fraction of the time (not to mention gasoline!), so this astro-video observing project is really paying off and producing some wonderful views.

First up, M57, the Ring nebula in Lyra. Compare the image with the chart and notice the magnitude 15.3 galaxy PGC 62532 (IC 1296) was also picked up. I can make out the orientation of it's spiral arms.



Here's magnitude 8.8 galaxy NGC 6946 in Cepheus, spiral arms, HII regions, and all. Before capturing it, I was playing around with the brightness level and opted for a darker background. A brighter background increases visibility of the spiral arms, but looks less space-like. The situation is similar with a monitor in the field. You make adjustments to find the best balance between detail on the screen, and an image that looks like a DSO in outer space.



These images of spiral galaxy NGC 7331 and Stephan's Quintet (SQ) in Pegasus were actually captured at the end of August, and I don't think I had the focus quite right that night as these images look a bit soft. With 7331, notice the companion galaxies in the image. The magnitude 12 to 14 companions are visible at a darksite, but NOT with SO MUCH detail in 7331. Similarly, with SQ the 732o "C" component is easily visible, whereas I have yet to see it at a darksite (around here). One thing I am thrilled about in this image of SQ is the faint spiral arm to the east of 7318B.





I have a few more images to share from my August 31 session, in this image of globular cluster NGC 7006 in Delphinus, note the PGC galaxies that have also been picked up. The two lowest ones are magnitude 16 and 17. The cluster itself is pretty neat. With the little trails of stars streaming out, it's like a miniature M13.



In this image of globular cluster NGC 6934, also in Delphinus, I believe I overexposed the core a bit to bring out the fainter stars in the halo.



This was the gem of the August 31 session. Magnitude 13 planetary nebula NGC 6842 in Vulpecula. What a monster! I guess it seems special because this is an image with no filters (something I hope to start experimenting with soon). I didn't expect this to be quite so obvious.



Fast forward to October 3. This was a little gem as well, magnitude thirteen spiral galaxy NGC 6367. It's not special because it is picturesque, but because it is no more or less picturesque than what the NGC/IC Project has on file. I've held the collection of images at the NGC/IC Project in high regard long before I even knew about video astronomy. When I would daydream about simple imaging, I thought it would be nice to be able to collect images like the ones cataloged there. Not glamorous astrophotography, just simple images containing a DSO's most prominent details. It was the standard by which my future efforts were to be measured. So when I made the comparison of what was on the screen to what the NGC/IC Project had on file, I was elated. It felt like a landmark goal had been achieved. Silly ol' me.

It's getting faint in here! Here's another example of how deep you can go with galaxies in the suburbs of Chicago. NGC 6349 is magnitude 13.3, while NGC 6351 and PGC 60047 are magnitude 16 and 15.5, respectively.

Face-on spiral galaxy IC 1249 is magnitude 14.8. I'm very encouraged by results like this and I hope to improve even more via filters and changing the focal ratio. By imaging at f/6.3 the image scale changes and DSO's will essentially be spread out across more pixels, so hopefully in the future, my IC 1249 will look more like its Digital Sky Survey counterpart on the right. I feel like I'm on the right track.

Finally, PGC 59630 on the left is magnitude 14, while PGC 59617 is magnitude 16. It kind of feels like I've got my own little Sky Survey going. There's lots to explore!

So now you know what I've been up to, and see where I'm headed with BEVO. On October 3, I did some serious experimenting with exposure times and discovered that beyond a one minute exposure, the images don't really show more detail. Hopefully the addition of filters will change that. Things are going very much as planned and I look forward to sharing improvements as they occur.

One last thing. The October 3 observing session happened without a hitch. Smooth sailing the whole time. Around 11:40pm I got to thinking about broadcasting. I've seen other astro-video enthusiasts talking about it for almost a year now. I watched some of their broadcasts early on, but was never impressed with the quality of the video feed. I knew that what they were broadcasting actually looked better than what I was receiving, and my project was still in the infancy stages, so I just decided to wait and come back to it sometime in the future when I was ready to share.

The other night, I was alert and everything was going great, so I downloaded the broadcast software and gave it a shot. Worked out very well and a few guys showed up to check out what I was broadcasting. Some of whom I recognized from the Cloudy Nights Video and Electronically Assisted Astronomy forum. The one thing I didn't take the time to do was open up a session to view what I was transmitting. I hope what they saw looked as good as what I was seeing. I'll dig into it more in the future. The software I used was SparkCast. Others include Yahoo! Live and UStream. This ability to broadcast is still relatively new and from what I gather, still somewhat buggy but worth checking out if you haven't seen it. I really don't have any plans to broadcast regularly, but others seem to enjoy doing it so it's worth looking into if you are undecided about getting into video-astronomy or are curious about what certain scope and camera combinations are capable of. All of these broadcast tools have chat features built in so you can ask questions and discuss what is being broadcast on the fly.

Change of Plans.

Back when I was brainstorming this whole astronomical video imaging observatory project, the main goal was to accomplish DSO observing in "near real time". My definition of observing in near real time has evolved somewhat, but simply put, it has to be easy and it can't take more than a few minutes to produce an image on the screen that reveals more detail than I could have seen if I had hauled one of my larger visual scopes out to a local dark site.

In a previous blog entry, I posted examples of captured images and how some quick post-processing can be performed to stack them and produce a better image. I've gleaned a lot by performing this process, but the most insightful thing I have taken away is how much I dislike sitting in front of the computer watching it chew on these images. And not only that, but I have so, SO much more to learn about image processing! It's late, I'm tired, and the process is dizzying (and I'm not even doing anything complicated yet). This is probably why astrophotographers do their post-processing the next day, or even days later.

Now with autoguiding, I've captured some nice three minute exposures. With Messier objects and brighter NGC's, my goals are 100% met. Done. Mission accomplished. Adjust the brightness and contrast a bit before capture, stick a fork in it, we're done. But that's not really what this project is about. It's really more about beyond the Messiers. Heck, I can take my 18" dob out to a dark site and get a respectable view of Messier objects. This project is more about seeing spiral arms in the galaxy members of Stephan's Quintet, and other similarly faint NGC's. I really haven't achieved that to my satisfaction yet, but I cannot justify siting there taking several three minute exposures, and then waiting or spending additional time for post-processing. That's not even close to "near real time". If I wanted to do three minute sub-exposures, I might as well do full blown CCD astrophotography. Rather, I'm looking for one, two, or three minutes and "poof" I got an image worth keeping. And based on what I've achieved so far, I'd be willing to broaden my definition of "near real time" to include a five minute exposure if I get an image that reveals more than just a fuzzy shape.

So what am I saying? I'm going to focus my energies on the best tracking, polar alignment, and autoguiding I can muster out of my equipment. I'm not going to spend time or money on post-processing or image capture processes, because I know now that I am definitely not interested in traditional CCD astrophotography processing techniques. It's basically video or nothing.

But there's lots to be done before I get to the nothing part! Now that I have all of the observatory pieces assembled, I can really focus on getting everything to work together as a video image producing machine and start capturing images. As soon as I have a feel for what the machine is capable of, I'll introduce filters and the f/6.3 focal reducer. The change in image scale will double the size of smaller DSO's and the increased exposure time will hopefully reveal more subtle details. With long exposure capability of three to five minutes, I'm hoping this will give me the breakthrough results I'm looking for in a light polluted environment.

I'm sure there are video imagers out there who enjoy stacking video captures, or perhaps there are people reading this blog because they are interested in getting started in video astronomy and want to see or learn about the results of stacking video captures. So what I just wrote about my disintrest for postprocessing probably comes across as negative. But I have to admit that for me, it feels like a large burden has been lifted. It's like knowing you have all of this homework to do after school, and then you find out that you don't have to do it. It's a relief. This immense weight I've been carrying around in my brain, something I wasn't really looking foward to, has been released.

Now I can just focus on making the most of what I've already assembled. I can do that near real time observing and capture and log the results, whatever they may be.

Life Moves On.

Goodness gracious! It all came together in a hurry. On Wednesday, I get the JMI motorized focuser and on Thursday, the StellaCam wireless hand controller shows up! I had also recieved the Shoestring Focus Controller earlier on Monday.

So I installed the motorized focuser on Wednesday. I test it all out by hooking it up to a laptop and everything works well. Laptop talks to the focus controller and the focus controller sends signals to the motorized focuser. Get that all rigged up by placing the USB focus controller on the SCT OTA, right underneath the 80mm guidescope. I love that blue painter's tape, BTW. Works great for sticking all these little boxes all onto the OTA. I ran the USB cable down with all the other cables, and have them all grouped together to hook up to the laptop.

On Thursday, the StellaCam wireless controller took like 2 seconds to install. I just stuck the little receiver into the hand controller port on the back of the camera and I was done. Whew! Time for a beer. Here is a picture (on the left) of the wireless receiver and behind it, the motorized focuser. The picture on the right is the same thing at a different angle.



The reciever is very tiny. Note in the picture, there is a 90 degree BNC connector right next to the receiver. The receiver's profile is more shallow than the BNC connector! I had to brighten up the pic a bit because it turned out a little dark and all that black hardware just kind of blended together making the little reciever hard to see.

Here's a pic of the USB focus controller. It's mounted right below the guidescope, just above the dew heater controller. A little black box with a red LED. How exciting! And a poorly focused shot of the StellaCam wireless hand controller sitting next to the Celestron NexStar hand controller for scale:



Here's a pic of the laptop with lots of cables sticking out of it:



The Meade DSI camera I use for autoguiding is plugged into the USB2 card sticking out on the right. From the back of the PC, a hub (on the left) is plugged into the PC's native USB1 port. The hub hosts the wireless network card, the focuser controller, and a little webcam (not shown). The parallel port has the autoguider interface attached, but the cable to the mount was not plugged in at the time the picture was taken. I didn't plug anything into the USB2 card because previously, I discovered that the DSI is greedy and likes to be all by itself. So I tried the hub and found that as soon as I started autoguiding, the focuser controller would power off. Just another problem to sort out! Hopefully all I need to do is attach power to the little hub and I'll be back in business. The motorized focuser works like a charm and will save me lots of time and hassle. Pretty soon, I'll start experimenting with filters and an f/6.3 focal reducer which will require several focus changes throughout an observing session. What a great value!

And how did the StellaCam wireless controller work? What, that ol' thang? It worked like a charm. Not a lick of trouble. Unfortunately, by the time I got other stuff sorted out, fog rolled in and transparency was horrible. I fiddled with the wireless controller for hours, tinkering with the dials and watching the countdown timer. I couldn't be happier.

The Next Big Thing

That's what I'm waiting for. There are a few things I'm waiting for, actually. And hopefully, they'll all show up in the mail this week so I can install them and move on with my life. Here's the list:

1. The StellaCam wireless remote. Should be here soon, unless I'm way down at the bottom of the pre-order list. I sure hope that's not the case! As much as I have enjoyed the three minute exposures I've captured walking back and forth to the scope, I would much rather do it all sitting down. Once the controller arrives and is hooked up, I plan to post more captures. Hopefully awesome ones that will inspire more astronomers to get involved in video astronomy!

2. I got a neat little USB camera that should allow me to keep an eye on the scope from inside. It has infrared LED's so I can see in the dark and should allow me to see if the scope is pointed too far to the west and/or is in danger of hitting the wall of the observatory. It will save me from having to get up and turn on the yard blasters to have a peek, or worse - actually go outside! More of an impulse project, I thought it may come in handy. Next time I'm out I'll hook it up to see how well it works. It will be hooked up to the laptop outside and viewed from indoors via Microsoft Remote Desktop (RDP).

3. I pulled the trigger and ordered the motorized focuser. I really put some thought into this, and as I've stated before, this is going to save me many trips back and forth tweaking the focus. Now I can tinker with it when I want, and as much as I care to. Again, one of the things I've been concerned with are tasks that are so burdensome, I may not want to open up the observatory and observe. So this is just one more excuse that has been removed, and it will be a major plus in the dead of winter. Additionally, I plan to tinker with an f/6.3 focual reducer so there will be focus changes going from f/3.3 to f/6.3 and back. This convenience more than covers the cost of the focuser. More details will follow once it's installed and I've had the opportunity to use it. This will also be hooked up to the outside laptop and controlled via RDP.

So, some of these items are cornerstone features of the observatory and will keep me indoors almost full-time. I can't wait to get them so I can put more image captures up here. I've really just been playing this waiting game, not doing too much observing. You know the saying, "Get a life"? Well, I have one on order and as soon as it all shows up, I'll start living it.

In and Out.

I've mentioned before my disdain for going back and forth to the scope, indoors and outdoors. Having the controls and monitors indoors is a great idea for all the obvious reasons, but when something has to be done outside, I don't enjoy having to make all the trips back and forth when I'm already tired late at night. The setup process requires a few inevitable trips in and out to get things squared away as well. For instance, I power on the scope outside, but the hand controller is inside, so I have to go in to wake it up from hibernation and rotate the scope up from it's sleeping position to attach a dew shield, so back out I go. Thinking ahead to winter cold and snow, I decided to really examine my setup process to see if I could cut down the number of trips in and out related to opening the observatory. Here's something else, just to give you an idea of the logistics involved. I need to uncap the guide scope so I can calibrate it with a guiestar, but I also need to take a dark frame with the cap on. Of course, those things can only be done after the laptop is installed outside and hooked up. If I do things inefficiently I'll be slipping in and out of them winter boots over and over needlesly, wasting time, and tracking in more snow all the while!

I was making at least four or five trips in and out during the setup process and cut that down to a solid three trips just by making a list to help keep track of what supplies need to go back and forth and detailing the tasks I need to perform. I was pretty happy with that, but I wondered if I could tweak it down further. I discovered that by taking the laptop outside with me on my first trip, I could get the trips outside down to two. The problem resides in where to put the laptop while I'm opening up the observatory. In the summertime, it's no big deal, I have some patio furniture nearby to set it on. But what about in winter when there is snow on the ground, or ice all around? Once again, poorly planned or inefficient processes mean extra trips in and out.

In any case, one of the things that I was concerned about when I decided to build this lift-off roof style of observatory was the possibility that the amount of time and effort to get the observatory opened up would deter me from wanting to use it (particularly in the wintertime). The weight of the roof is a non-issue thankfully, and I've done lots to simplify other processes, like cut the four bolts that hold the walls together, so I only have to turn them 5 times to remove them. Each one used to take 16 turns because the stock bolts were longer than they needed to be. Likewise, cutting the amount of trips in and out will make the decision of whether or not to observe an easier one as well.

I'm so tickled with the shorter bolts, by the way. It's little things like this that can make a significant impact on one's perception.

If I haven't mentioned it previously, I have FINALLY taken the opportunity to clean the RA/Azimuth track inside the NexStar SCT mount. It was very sticky and gunky with lots of little black, bumpy particulates on the three roller bearings that ride along the track. The track was MUCH smoother to the touch after cleaning with alcohol. I'm really hoping to see smother tracking and less autoguiding adjustments with this task taken care of. Time will tell.

I've also taken some time to rework my observing control center. I removed the CRT monitor since the Fly2000 video capture software is working so well with video input from the StellaCam. And I decided that I needed to get another computer to host the Remote Desktop (RDP) session with the laptop outside. Not because of performance issues with doing RDP, video capture and processing on the same computer; it's more about the lack of screen real estate and the hassle of switching things back and forth (a recurring theme with me, if you haven't noticed). So I reworked another clunker PC to solve this dilema and have tied it all together with Synergy to share the keyboard and mouse across all systems. From left to right I now have screens for, 1) a PC to host the RDP connection to the autoguiding laptop outside, 2) the main PC screen for video capture, simple image processing, and pulling up internet images of DSO's for comparison purposes, and 3) the laptop with SkyMap Pro star chart program which is connected to the SCT hand controller. The laptop is also used for PEC training. A very nice ensemble if I do say so myself.

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog!