software

How to plan an observing session with Stellarium

Downloading Stellarium

Stellarium is a free, open source planetarium application which allows the night sky to be viewed from any location on Earth, on any date. The software can be downloaded from www.stellarium.org, together with installation instructions.

When you open Stellarium, it adopts the date and time from your computer clock - the first screen looks similar to the image here.

Blackfin 0.4m Controller

Discipline: 
Engineering

Peripherals

  • Focus motors (3)
  • Auto-guider deployment motor (1)
  • Proximity sensors (8)
  • Fan Control (2 banks, 3 fans each)
  • Fan Tach Input (6)
  • Temperature Sensor ADC (1, 8 channels) 

Design Assumptions

Focus

Startup

  • Assume in position
  • Do not move

Motor Backlash

  • To minimize motor backlash, always approach a new position from the same direction
  • Always approach moving OUT

Drive Characteristics

Tags: 
software
blackfin
0.4m

How to set up Astrometrica

Astrometrica is a simple to use Windows application which will read in raw telescope data (FITS files) for a set of observations, and check to see if there are any moving objects in them. You can 'blink' data files to see the object moving, mark its name if its know about, and even report a new asteroid to the Minor Planets Center.

If you haven’t already, download the Astrometrica software and our customized configuration files (in the Images or Documents section).

How to stack FITS files with Iris

Iris is a free piece of software for Microsoft Windows that allows you to do basic data processing on astronomical data files. Sometimes you won't be able to take a long exposure (for example, there might be bright stars in the field of view which would saturate), and you have to take many shorter exposure and then stack them. This guide will run you through stacking FITS images with Iris.