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Lacerta M-GEN, User Manual

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LACERTA M-GEN 

Stand-Alone AutoGuider 

 

User’s manual for Firmware 

02.50 

 

Created by Zoltán Tobler

 

Last updated: 27 November 2017

 

 

Table of contents 

 

1 ABOUT THE HARDWARE .............................................................................................................................. 2 

1.1

 

P

ARTS OF THE DEVICE

 .................................................................................................................................... 2 

1.2

 

P

OWERING THE DEVICE

 .................................................................................................................................. 4 

1.3

 

E

LECTRICAL CHARACTERISTICS

 ..................................................................................................................... 5 

1.3.1 Specification of the HC and Camera ..................................................................................................... 5 
1.3.2 Imaging specification of the Camera ..................................................................................................... 6 

1.4

 

T

URNING ON AND OFF THE DEVICE

 ................................................................................................................. 7 

1.5

 

UPDATE

 MODE

 ............................................................................................................................................. 8 

1.6

 

H

ARDWARE TYPES

.......................................................................................................................................... 8 

2 NEW FEATURES IN FW. 02.50 ....................................................................................................................... 9 

2.1

 

P

REVIOUS VERSION CHANGES

 ......................................................................................................................... 9 

3 ABOUT THE USER INTERFACE ................................................................................................................. 11 

3.1

 

B

UTTONS AND 

LED

S

 .................................................................................................................................... 11 

3.2

 

M

AIN CONCEPTION OF THE 

U

SER 

I

NTERFACE

 ............................................................................................... 11 

3.2.1 Menus .................................................................................................................................................. 12 
3.2.2 Variables (parameters) ........................................................................................................................ 12 
3.2.3 Profiles ................................................................................................................................................ 14 

4 PARTS OF THE SOFTWARE, FUNCTIONAL UNITS .............................................................................. 15 

4.1

 

A

UTO

G

UIDING FUNCTION 

(AG) ................................................................................................................... 15 

4.2

 

A

UTO

E

XPOSURE FUNCTION 

(AE) ................................................................................................................. 16 

4.3

 

R

ANDOM 

D

ISPLACEMENT 

(

DITHERING

)

 FUNCTION 

(RD) .............................................................................. 16 

4.4

 

F

ILESYSTEM 

(FS) ......................................................................................................................................... 17 

4.4.1 When is the file written? ...................................................................................................................... 17 

4.5

 

C

OOPERATION OF THE FUNCTIONAL UNITS

 ................................................................................................... 19 

5 MENU TREE..................................................................................................................................................... 20 

5.1

 

S

CREENS AND FUNCTIONS DETAILED

 ............................................................................................................ 21 

5.1.1 AutoExposure (AE) screen ................................................................................................................... 22 
5.1.2 AutoExposure program list screen ...................................................................................................... 24 
5.1.3 Random Displacement (RD) screen ..................................................................................................... 27 
5.1.4 Misc. screen ......................................................................................................................................... 29 
5.1.5 Power off screen .................................................................................................................................. 35 
5.1.6 Guiding menu screen ........................................................................................................................... 36 
5.1.7 Guider setup screen ............................................................................................................................. 37 
5.1.8 Star Search screen ............................................................................................................................... 38 
5.1.9 Live View screen .................................................................................................................................. 40 
5.1.10 Guiding screen ................................................................................................................................... 42 

6 MORE DETAILED ABOUT... ........................................................................................................................ 54 

6.1

 

...

 

CCD

 BINNING

 ........................................................................................................................................... 54 

6.2

 

...

 THE 

NEW

 IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD

 ................................................................................................... 55 

 

Summary of Contents for M-GEN

Page 1: ... INTERFACE 11 3 2 1 Menus 12 3 2 2 Variables parameters 12 3 2 3 Profiles 14 4 PARTS OF THE SOFTWARE FUNCTIONAL UNITS 15 4 1 AUTOGUIDING FUNCTION AG 15 4 2 AUTOEXPOSURE FUNCTION AE 16 4 3 RANDOM DISPLACEMENT DITHERING FUNCTION RD 16 4 4 FILESYSTEM FS 17 4 4 1 When is the file written 17 4 5 COOPERATION OF THE FUNCTIONAL UNITS 19 5 MENU TREE 20 5 1 SCREENS AND FUNCTIONS DETAILED 21 5 1 1 AutoExposu...

Page 2: ...is a graphic 128x64 dot negative LCD with backlight Previous versions have red while the new ones come with amber orange color due to the much better contrast Note that there is a protector film on the display window You must remove it before the first use This is quite invisible in dark when the LCD backlight is on some can let it on to protect the window from scratching and remove only if too mu...

Page 3: ...to attach some filter or dust preventor At the back of the Camera there is the same type of connector as on the HC RJ 45 female The sensor is a high sensitivity monochrome CCD from Sony with ExView HAD technology Due to its exremely low dark current dark noise and the enhanced sensitivity in near infrared it doesn t need cooling and saves energy These with the low readout noise gives the ability o...

Page 4: ...C power source it MUST BE well stabilized or a constant source A battery stabilized DC or switching regulator should be used An unfiltered only AC rectified power which has a heavy transformer in it may not supply the device properly this could lead to sudden reset turn off of the device or even damage the input circuitry For example a 220V input and 12V 800mA output rectified power supply could e...

Page 5: ...s an active Camera autoguiding or LiveView 4 the value changes as some parameters do gain exp time 5 there is a fuse in the HC 6 for a TTL low input level below 0 8V 5V 7 the peak input voltage MUST NOT exceed 20V Values for HC with BOOT version 13 or below Min Typical Max unit Notes DC power supply 9 12 15 V 7 Active input current 110 116 200 mA 1 2 3 4 5 HC only input current 27 mA 1 2 Power dow...

Page 6: ...he User The CCD and its environment heats itself a little bit if active good for anti dew The power dissapated in the HC is also rather useful than problematic 4 typical value mean measured on 22 pieces of random Camera instances The mean of deviation of this value between the instances is only 0 29 e The limits were measured in some extreme instances The gain of the CCD s analog output signal is ...

Page 7: ...cation From Firmware ver 1 21 or later the device starts on the date and time settings screen and the filesystem s screen after that This is needed to make You remember to set or check the correct date and time at every startup and select a file to open if You want to store data about the night guiding events etc If You don t need these functions two more ESC keypresses after startup leads directl...

Page 8: ...can not run Firmware version older than 2 00 due to the hardware change Uploading such an old firmware will succeed but the HandController will display WRONG FIRMWARE in update mode The difference between the two hardvare types are the following the new can be turned on by remote USB while the old can not the new can be used with a supplied 6 wire cable while the old works only with a 8 wire one t...

Page 9: ... fixed When calculating PE day step 23 59 to 0 00 is handled well 2 1 Previous version changes From 02 42 o A factory reset possible from Fw for all the variables in the device at Misc Mode settings o Somewhat better star search results at high binning modes An AutoExposure pause bug has been fixed in 2 41 release meanwhile From 02 40 o The polar alignment feature is now available for mounts witho...

Page 10: ...o Photography Tool is able to inform M Gen about the externally controlled exposure so that M Gen saves guiding positions to create guiding diagrams o Mech star emulation mode is available It has been developed only for testing indoor More on this at the switch s description o After a calibration has failed been stopped the mount is restored to its starting position no backlash is assumed o Fw ver...

Page 11: ...ows Functions select prev next item inc dec digit in editing mode DEC manual guiding Main function navigation between the screen s items red LED indicators DEC axis correction output line s active Shows what is physically on the autoguider output o LEFT RIGHT arrows Functions changing the value of the selected item select prev next item moving the cursor in editing mode RA manual guiding red LED i...

Page 12: ...ton When entering into a subscreen the selected item is memorized to set it as the selected item if You go back with ESC 3 2 2 Variables parameters There are many types of items on the screens If an item holds a value its called variable or parameter Their value can be changed in editing mode For demonstration there are some example Example A variable item is selected on the screen By pressing SET...

Page 13: ...own inverse when selected as above in the example has limits minimal and maximal value If a limit is violated in editing mode by changing a digit s value the value is set to that limit independent of the edited digit The example above shows this type of parameter Real Real value with two digit fractional part Edited the same as for the decimal type Between the integer and fractional parts there is...

Page 14: ...r off At the next power on they are initialized from here 3 2 3 Profiles Profile means the value of a set of variables parameters these are called profile variables The value of these can be set in each profile independently Changing the active profile will change the value of all these profile variables There are 3 separate profiles number 0 1 and 2 The active profile can be changed in the misc m...

Page 15: ... is a star in its guiding window an area on the CCD field it will follow the star with repositioning the guiding window even if the autoguiding is not started Because of this the monitored image of the guiding star within the 48x48 pixel window may be shown as replaced immediately but this does not affect anything it is only made by display This star following is a part of the software can t be tu...

Page 16: ...alled AstroTimer but other external device may be used In this mode the device does not generate shutter signals but other the shutter output is only active when the Random Displacement function is moving the telescope so it indicates the time when the external shutter device must wait In this mode there is only one parameter that can be set the time period between two RD movements It is shown as ...

Page 17: ...arameters offline The files have their own menu where details can be seen size dates downloaded state new file can be created file deleted opened or closed It is advised to download these files to PC as frequently as possible with the PC application to make enough free space for the forthcoming nights There is a date and time settings screen where the realtime clock with date is to be set This is ...

Page 18: ... 18 AutoExposure state changes Some variable value s change ...

Page 19: ...Autoguiding works in a special mode when a displacement is in progress It starts to autoguide to the new position automatically with the current parameters but the guiding is stopped right after both of the correction signals axes got inactive at least for a moment since the start of the movement The new star position that is not the exact calculated position is then measured for max 2 seconds and...

Page 20: ...subscreen while ESC is to exit the current one The previous screens and their selected items are stored in a stack by going back to them will hold the previous selection By entering a new one will have the default item selected on it Blue arrow shows an extra possibility to change directly between Guiding and AutoExposure screens This is called long ESC ESC button pressed continuously for more tha...

Page 21: ...its minimum and maximum after the caret information about the storage behaviour o if nothing stays here the item value if any is not stored anywhere o global the variable item is stored but independent of the profiles o profile the variable item is a stored profile variable and changed by a profile change For each screen description section there is a screenshot from the device right to the sectio...

Page 22: ...ror lockup option and is active it will only move the mirrors out of the optical path for the first shutter signal and the next signal will start the real exposure The lockup of the mirrors can cause the telescope mount to oscillate for a short time If ML is activated in the DLSR this must be also set up in the device to be in synch This item is to do this The mirror lockup time is always 0 2 seco...

Page 23: ...wed The remaining time will stay at 1 second at paused state Activating Continue will clear the paused state or the signal to pause before the next exposition If it was in paused state the next exposure starts immediately Note if the RD function is enabled the next movement is started before the program reaches paused state The currently shown program slot number is displayed at the right top in t...

Page 24: ...You can change or check the current AE program slot and its mode or start a multi type exposure program set From fw 2 03 there are 4 individual AE program slots Below 2 03 it s like there was only the 1st slot Each has its own settings like AE state Exposure line Focus line Events wait expo 1 sec exp sec wait expo wait sec exp sec Req new position New position set Req new position New position set...

Page 25: ...slot and start it with Start from item The previous AE screen is shown where You can see what the AE is doing The following behaviour is used for each program slot mode all take all the exposures in this slot then go to next slot single take a single exposure by this slot and go to next slot do nothing go to next slot means slot not used Go to next slot says that the active slot number is increase...

Page 26: ...e rest and finished The list of taken expos looks like 1st 2nd 3rd 20th 21st 22nd 23rd 24th 39th 40th 41st 50th 1 2 2 2 2 3 1 3 1 3 3 3 Pause can be used during a multi type program set as well The program will be suspended in the last second of the wait time You are able to edit the program slots this time If You are editing an other program slot than the active one it is displayed separately Not...

Page 27: ...pixels are not exactly square shaped so the Y coordinates size are scaled to be equal to X which is the horizontal axis For example width 16 means a 8 8 pixel interval for each axis relative to the autoguiding center where the AG has been started Square snake mode This pattern is not random but the pattern shown at right It steps on a square grid the step size is always the same The first step is ...

Page 28: ...You stop the autoguiding and restart again remember that the star may be located somewhere but not where it was at starting the autoguiding In this case the autoguiding center changes and the new RD movements are done around that point The RD movement is not done exactly The new position may differ from the calculated one a little bit This behaviour is to save time at RD movement leaving more time...

Page 29: ...al units Time Date submenu The realtime clock with date in the device can be set up here The filesystem uses this for timestamping or e g the auto shutdown function File menu submenu Handling the files in the DataFlash memory is done from here Active profile decimal 0 2 global The currently active profile s index Changing this value will replace all the profile variable s values The current settin...

Page 30: ...ns red the RA autoguiding signals horizontaly left right the DEC signals vertically up down Each brightness can be next to the bright item in percentage of the full light Idle bright mean the value to be used for all the indicators when they are not active 5 1 4 2 Mode settings screen Here are some switches for the behaviour of the functional units These are AstroTimer mode switch profile Used to ...

Page 31: ...own as a single dot in the guiding window A cross mark shows the current guiding center position The guiding window does not folow this star it is held constant This mode is very useful at testing and getting acquainted with the functions in room Some latency by the mount seeing and the effect of the integration time is also emulated There are no backlash in this system The emulated setup is the f...

Page 32: ... 32 working modes are reset off including mask warning active profile is set to 0 LED and LCD brightness and contrast is also reset ...

Page 33: ... If You don t want to store data into file press ESC again to exit into main menu The meaning of the files can be found in 4 4 Files list screen the screenshot above There can be 16 file entries at a time The list of the used file entries is shown in the first 6 rows of the screen If there are more than 6 of them the list could be scrolled an up or downward triangle shows on the left where the lis...

Page 34: ...use one file for each night if possible If a file entry s row is selected the following options appear for the buttons SET button display the file s details new screen LEFT button delete the file with confirmation This question is shown With pressing SET You can confirm the deletion while ESC cancels it If there is an open file then this screen at right can be seen there is no create new option Th...

Page 35: ...r off screen This asks for power the device off SET or not ESC Power off makes everything go inactive This is the advised mode to stop the device before plugging out power cable s because it closes the open file if any saves the parameter settings stops the Camera properly etc There is a half a second dead time before the device gets any button press to avoid unwanted power off With ESC You go bac...

Page 36: ...n 5 1 10 1 Live View subscreen To enter LiveView screen where the full CCD surface can be monitored in realtime Star search subscreen Leads to the automatic star searching function s screen Compared to the LiveView this is more immune to single hot pixels and finds faint stars Guider setup submenu Holds the parameters of the guiding optics and the mount s autoguiding settings ...

Page 37: ...2 4x4 6x6 profile The used physical CCD binning size Change its value with LEFT and RIGHT buttons CCD binning change takes place only if You altered the value and You are leaving this screen with ESC Then the device will pop up a question to ensure If the anser is Yes the Camera changes binning mode immediately current autoguiding and star following must be stopped and lost Changing the values tak...

Page 38: ...fter each new search Hold valid information until some other Camera function was not used The search result screen appears after a star serach which can be seen at right The top left big rectangle shows the entire CCD area Every active point pixel on it represents a found star these are the hits At top right is the index of the currently selected hit and the number of them The first 16 are memoriz...

Page 39: ...xel width window Stars having this huge image or defocused spots may not result in a hit point or more points close to eachother though a minimum of 8 pixels limit is used to avoid multiple detection Double stars within this size may be identified as single stars ...

Page 40: ...ime in LiveView is always shorter than the desired value but shows the same sensitivity as would at autoguiding thr decimal 1 99 Threshold value to discriminate the resulting pixels for display The percentage is meant to the 8 bit depth 50 will mean 128 The used threshold value is calculated by an addition of the minimal value of the full LiveView image and this thr variable s value Generally a lo...

Page 41: ...w Guiding goes to the latest guiding screen and page while Pol algn goes to the polar alignment screen The LiveView function is especially useful to roughly focus the guiding optics If a star s big spot is made to be small enough selecting it will allow the focusing to be finalized on the Guiding screen s window in normal resolution The LiveView can be used for manual star search in some cases it ...

Page 42: ...he calculation of the star position In NEW image processing mode thresh is only used to display the star This display mode can be seen at the screenshot above showing only a background noise Note due to noise suppression single hot pixels are not visible on this image profile A vertical profile of the raw image The maximum pixel value of the columns of the raw image is calculated and shown in a di...

Page 43: ...some edge of the window the window is relocated to center the star in it This star centering happens some time ie during the calibration procedure Don t bother with it it has no effect on the guiding This star following behaviour is only active if the star could move off the current window ie calibration In other cases it remains in the same position ie guiding active 5 1 10 1 Main imaging page 1 ...

Page 44: ... react on the autoguider signals and know how the guiding star will move on the CCD This screen contains the main elements of setting this camera orientation data The screen items are the following Invert RA invert DEC switches When enabled they invert the apropriate axis autoguider signal direction It is important to know that these inversions are made just before putting them physically to the o...

Page 45: ...ent the star may drift some due to polar misalignment or due to the periodic error of the RA axis The constant speed drifts are mostly corrected by the measurement method After the calibration the orthogonlity measure is displayed on the screen as ortho in percent The interpretation of the resulting value is described later The calibration procedure can be interrupted any time by pressing ESC The ...

Page 46: ... polar misalignment error and the method In the case that the celestial polar axis pole is equal to the mount s RA axis Your pole is precisely aligned Any star in the telescope s view will stay at the same DEC position for any long time Nowt considering the air refraction etc If Your pole is misaligned ie Some say X arcminutes off from the pole a star on the celestial equator in the telescope s vi...

Page 47: ...o move the mount with the autoguider signals but be sure that the mount goes to the proper direction and not to the opposite For RA options the proper direction is when the tracking is stopped or slowed down In short words use with RA inv option only if there is a diagonal mirror in the guiding system ie for refractors using an off axis guider ie for Newtonians any other case where the image is mi...

Page 48: ... mount during a full alignment procedure with the same DEC direction calibrated If You change from an eastern star to a western one for example and do a flip a new calibration has to be done before measuring Else the opposite error direction will be displayed Don t forget to have the proper focal length value entered on Guiding Guider setup screen This is essential to calculate the right misaligme...

Page 49: ...t and so giving always 100 ortho value If DEC is disabled it is indicated as shown here The DEC drifts are not shown but are still being measured tol real 0 01 9 99 pixel profile Abbreviation for tolerance This is a threshold value in both directions to the center zero drift that means an interval in which the device handles the drift with tolerance There are more modes of behaviour inside the tol...

Page 50: ...ial backlash screen shown right There are two ways offered to deal with backlash Dsbl dir and Compens Dsbl dir switch profile Disable direction This method is the following You setup the mount depending on the object s position so that polar aligment is not correct and there is a slow drift in DEC of the guidestar due to this The mount has to follow the star in only one DEC direction With disablin...

Page 51: ...mgProc special Selects the image processing method OLD and NEW are the options OLD is fully identical with the one used in the previous Firmwares below 2 10 NEW is a more complex method of measuring the star It does not require a threshold value and behaves always as partial see at the next item Full wnd Partial switch This sets the image processing details of the OLD mode Full wnd full window pro...

Page 52: ...es automatically Output behaviour into the file is undefined but not invalid if leaving the switch on and using the autoguider s other functions wait decimal 0 250 ms profile Wait time between the guiding exposures The mounts reaction time is never ideal for the autoguider signals If there is a bright enough guiding star this wait time can be used to wait some until the mount can react and before ...

Page 53: ...buttons we select a starting point for the partial method we show the device which star we want to use for guiding by pressing SET From now the star is choosen and the guiding frames will be processed only partially starting from the previous positions Check out the four position indicators The bottom star is followed processed and the upper one does not affect the guiding Note that if there is on...

Page 54: ...tiplied with the binning block size N N but the total sensitivity of the binned pixel changes the same way There is some amp glow at left top due to the CCD construction You could see this in LiveView with long exposure time This also increases with the binning as a part of the increased sensitivity The left top area of the CCD may be not used if the glow seems to be too hard Due to the increased ...

Page 55: ...ndredths of a second and does not affect guiding accuracy If only background noise is present eg got cloudy it takes tenths of a second to find no star So this is only a tiny drawback When the star gets way too dim the method could find portions of the background noise as a star and could give false position sometimes instead of no star found Under some circumstances even a warm pixel surrounded w...

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