Solar Eclipse Maestro Icon

Setting the SBIG CCD Cameras

To setup the SBIG CCD cameras in Solar Eclipse Maestro you have to open the SBIG CCD Configuration dialog.
However before doing so the SBIG CCD camera driver must already be installed.

  1. Choose Setup > SBIG CCD Cameras Configuration…
  2. Fill in the required fields.
    When a CCD camera device is connected through the USB or Ethernet port and powered it will appear in the dialog once the Refresh button has been clicked. Chasing arrows will be displayed while waiting for the CCD camera’s answer. If this button is deactivated, then a CCD camera search is running and you must wait a bit more.
    SBIG CCD Configuration Dialog
  3. You can now check that the information returned by the CCD cameras and especially the imaging CCD temperature or the current filter wheel position.
    To do just that select the camera in the CCD Camera Information pop-up menu.
  4. Give a name to the CCD camera: it must be identical to the name used in the script.
  5. You can now check that the CCD cameras are functioning.
    After selecting the checkbox of a camera, clicking on the Connect button will commands the CCD camera to take a one second exposure. Check that the CCD camera took the exposure by looking at the file created in ~/Documents/Solar Eclipse Maestro/SBIG/.
    The file type is chosen using the File pop-up menu: it is recommended you either select FITS or SBIG.
  6. The connection type indicates the port used by the CCD camera. When set to Ethernet the IP address of the CCD camera can be entered.
  7. The serial number of a CCD camera is displayed in an help tag when hovering over the content of the Detected column. It can help you distinguish multiple CCD cameras of the same model.

These settings aren’t saved when the application quits because there is no way to guarantee that the CCD cameras will be connected in the same order the next time. However, once the SBIG CCD camera script name is associated with a serial number it’s automatically used upon next startup.

Note: the digitization process with SBIG CCD cameras is atomic, that is to say indivisible. This means that on multiple cameras configurations while a readout is in progress no other operations can be executed on another SBIG CCD camera.
A full frame download can generally takes up to ten seconds, but with certain CCD cameras you’ll need thirty seconds (refer to SBIG CCD cameras at a glance for more details).