being most compression and worst image quality and 100 being least compression and
best image qualiy).
If the camera is streaming in MJPEG format and NO multi-frame averaging is being done
then the frame grabbed from the MJPEG stream will be saved directly as a JPEG image
(libjpeg will not be used and the user-supplied JPEG save quality value will be ignored). In
this case also there will be no ability to save a raw doubles or FITS image, and no
masking, dark field or flat field correction regardless of whether the user has specified
those processes or not. This is a very quick and direct way to just grab a JPEG still from
the camera stream.
The ‘
File name root for saved images
’ is a string that is used to construct the file name
for the saved images. It should not contain any full-stops, spaces or other special
characters that might cause issues with file names. The program does not check for these
things so it is up to you to ensure the root string is compatible with your system. This
forms the first part of the file name and will not change from capture to capture. The
complete file name will be constructed as described below.
The ‘
File name frame number start from
’ is an integer that will form part of the file
name for a saved image. This integer will increment each time an image is saved and will
only reset when the user clicks the ‘Apply All Settings’ button (when it will set to whatever
the user has put in this entry box).
The complete file name used to save an image is constructed in the form:
root_####ending
where ‘root’ is the string supplied for the ‘
File name root for saved images
’ setting,
‘####’ is an integer that starts with the value supplied for the ‘
File name frame number
start from
’ setting and ‘ending’ is the ending described under each format of the ‘
Format
to save the image files to disk as
’ setting described above.
The ‘
Frame averaging (number of frames)
’ is an integer which specified how many
frames are to be captured and averaged together to form the output saved image. The
default when you start the program is 1 meaning that no multi-frame averaging will be
done. During a multi-frame average capture the current frame being accumulated into the
average is shown on stdout (the console) and you will hear a beep for each frame as it is
accumulated if you have set ‘Use beeps’. Some averages of many frames, especially high
resolution frames in dark conditions, may take a long time to complete. While the program
is performing an average you will see a new button appear on the main window labelled
‘
Cancel Averaging
’ (figure 6.5, left). If you click this button the current multi-frame
averaging sequence will be terminated and whatever frames were accumulated up to that
point will be output as an average of that many frames. During a series capture (described
below) if you press the ‘Cancel Averaging’ button it will only cancel the current multi-frame
averaging sequence, it will NOT cancel the series. The partial average will be saved and
the next image in the series will commence its capture.
OptArc AF51 Camera Page 76 of 99 User Guide v1.02