Orion PARSEC 10100C Manual Download Page 8

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arrow button next to the preset name to
manage your presets, including Update
Current Preset, and Save As New
Preset. See MaxIm DL’s

Help Topics

for more detailed information.

readout Mode

In the

Expose Tab

select

Normal for

the best image quality, and

Fast for a

quicker image download.

Frame type

Choose,

Light (Raw or Color for the

8300C),

Bias

Dark, and Flat

Please

read section 5, “Astronomical Imaging”
to determine when and why to take a
dark or flat.

Fan Speed

Select

Camera Settings in the Expose tab (Figure 14.1) to access the fan speed,

High, Medium, or Low (Figure 14.2). High is recommended for the best cooling
performance.
There are a large slew of settings in the

Camera Control Window’s Expose tab.

Please read MaxIm DL’s

Help Topics which covers all the settings in greater detail.

3.2. the Screen Stretch Window

The function of the

Screen Stretch Window (Figure 13) is to properly map the

image brightness levels captured by the camera into corresponding image bright-
ness levels on the computer screen. A typical camera image has each pixel (light
detecting site, over eight million pixels form a single Parsec image) represented
as a number (from 1 to 65535) depending on brightness. This has to be mapped
into the video monitor’s brightness range (from 1 to 255). It is important to set the
screen stretch appropriately, or a great image may look terrible!
When an image is displayed, you will notice a graph in the

Screen Stretch

Window. This is called the “histogram” of the currently displayed image. A histo-
gram is a simple bar graph that shows the range of brightness in an image. Each
bar in the graph represents a level of brightness; the bar to the far left in the histo-
gram represents the dimmest pixels, and the bar to the far right is for the brightest
pixels. The height of the bar is the total number of pixels at that brightness level
in the image. Every image has a different histogram depending on how much of
the image is bright or dark. Directly viewing the histogram of your image in the
Screen Stretch Window provides an easy interface for making decisions on how
the screen stretch should be set.
In Maxim DL, the two parameters entered in the

Screen Stretch Window are

Minimum and Maximum. A pixel that is at the Minimum value is set to zero (black),
and a pixel at the

Maximum value is set to 255 (white). An easy way to adjust the

Maximum and Minimum values is to
move the slider arrows located directly
under the histogram of the image in the
Screen Stretch Window. The red slider
arrow corresponds to the

Minimum

value and the green arrow corresponds
to the

Maximum value. Simply left-click

and then drag each arrow to adjust it
to the desired level. The best results
are obtained by adjusting the arrows
(numbers) until the most pleasing dis-
play appears.
There are also seven automatic settings in the

Screen Stretch Window. Typically,

Medium will give good results for deep sky objects, so the default screen stretch
setting is

Medium.

Instead of using the

Screen Stretch Window, it is faster to use the Quick Stretch

facility. This allows you to modify the image appearance instantly with small up/
down and left/right movements of the mouse. To do this, hold down the Shift key,
then left-click and drag the mouse on the image. You’ll find this feature to be a
great convenience when fine adjusting the screen stretch to get an image to look
its best.
The trick with stretching is determining exactly how to stretch the image for best
effect. Often there are several different possibilities for the same image. Trial-and-
error will be the best way to judge what the best screen stretch setting is. Try

Figure 14.1.

The

Camera Settings is found in the Expose tab.

Figure 14.2.

Adjust the

Fan Speed in

the

Parsec Settings.

Figure 13.

The

Screen Stretch

Window is a histogram that allows you to
adjust the apparent brightness levels of an
image on your screen.