ImageJ for ASCOM CCD cameras

[Alan Hewat]

I have written an ImageJ tool to control a CCD camera via its ASCOM Windows driver: http://neutronoptics.com/ascom.html 

An ASCOM driver is supplied with several scientific CCD cameras, especially those used for astronomy. ImageJ-for-ASCOM allows such cameras to be controlled directly from ImageJ, setting and monitoring the CCD temperature when possible, exposing the camera for a defined time, and displaying the resulting images in 16-bit FITS format, with programmed image sequences collated as TIFF stacks.  

I would be interested in comments and suggestions.  Alan.

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[Pariksheet Nanda]

On Fri, Dec 21, 2012 at 6:43 AM, Alan Hewat
<[hidden email]> wrote:
> An ASCOM driver is supplied with several scientific CCD cameras,
> especially those used for astronomy. ImageJ-for-ASCOM allows such
> cameras to be controlled directly from ImageJ, setting and monitoring
> the CCD temperature when possible, exposing the camera for a defined
> time, and displaying the resulting images in 16-bit FITS format, with
> programmed image sequences collated as TIFF stacks.
>
> I would be interested in comments and suggestions.

If you have not already, you may also want to consider porting your driver to:
1) AstroImageJ (might not require much work?)
2) Micro-Manager Studio plugin for ImageJ (for your X-ray
applications, this software may be of interest e.g. to MRS) since it
seems you're licensing your plugin under CC BY-ND.

Pariksheet

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[Alan Hewat]

> If you have not already, you may also want to consider porting your driver to:
> 1) AstroImageJ (might not require much work?)

Yes, my ImageJ-for-ASCOM macro tool should work immediately with
AstroImageJ, which is mainly ImageJ plus the Göttingen astronomy
plugins and macros, which I already recommend on
http://neutronoptics.com/ascom.html#capture

> 2) Micro-Manager Studio plugin for ImageJ

Yes, Micro-Manager can be used to capture images from many different
cameras for further treatment in ImageJ, and in fact I use MM with
Andor CCD cameras http://neutronoptics.com/andor.html

One can also mention other ImageJ capture plugins such as the
VideoCaptureTool which I have modified to capture still images from an
integrating video camera using the Windows AMCap application
http://neutronoptics.com/laue.html#acquisition

I wrote my ASCOM capture plugin because I didn't find any other ImageJ
tool that could capture from the many different CCD cameras used by
amateur astronomers.

These cameras are of interest outside that community because they
usually contain high-spec CCDs, yet are relatively inexpensive because
of the market they address. The requirements for astronomical imaging
are similar to those for much low-light scientific imaging.

Alan Hewat

On 24 December 2012 03:51, Pariksheet Nanda <[hidden email]> wrote:

> On Fri, Dec 21, 2012 at 6:43 AM, Alan Hewat
> <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> An ASCOM driver is supplied with several scientific CCD cameras,
>> especially those used for astronomy. ImageJ-for-ASCOM allows such
>> cameras to be controlled directly from ImageJ, setting and monitoring
>> the CCD temperature when possible, exposing the camera for a defined
>> time, and displaying the resulting images in 16-bit FITS format, with
>> programmed image sequences collated as TIFF stacks.
>>
>> I would be interested in comments and suggestions.
>
> If you have not already, you may also want to consider porting your driver to:
> 1) AstroImageJ (might not require much work?)
> 2) Micro-Manager Studio plugin for ImageJ (for your X-ray
> applications, this software may be of interest e.g. to MRS) since it
> seems you're licensing your plugin under CC BY-ND.
>
> Pariksheet

______________________________________________
Dr Alan Hewat, NeutronOptics, Grenoble, FRANCE
<[hidden email]> +33.476.98.41.68
        http://www.NeutronOptics.com/hewat
______________________________________________

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