Happy new year to everyone !
Alain
Well⊠happy new year to ⊠me.
Anyway, to keep the memory of my work :
New test yesterday. This time, the camera gets a new SDK to solve the offset and gain issue.
I used my small free time to solve some issues in my software but as i said some time ago, software is quite ok so now, i need to make some tests.
So new test with the same setup :
For information, the astrometry result of the movie field of view :
I must say astrometry is in my âtodoâ list for my software.
Good news : i received today a new lens (2nd hand, not expensive). It a Rainbow TV zoom H6X8II 8-48mm F1.0
I made some very first tests (daylight). The lens is promising but the specs are not what they say. At 8mm, F/D is close from 1 but at 48mm, F/D is more likely 1.5 than 1.0
The next video will be made with this lens.
Alain
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Tonight, first test of my new lens, the Rainbow Zoom lens H6x8II 8-48mm F1.0
The camera is ZWO ASI485MC
Still using my software JetsonSky with Jetson Xavier NX (enough power to make live treatments).
The new lens is really cool. Comparing to my previous lens (8mm F1.3), this lens is 2-3 times faster, meaning i can speed up exposure time (200 to 500ms instead of 500 to 1000ms).
The video :
The optical quality of the Rainbow lens is quite good. This lens will be useful.
Even if the camera sensor and the lens are good, live treatment is still a must have. Jetson Xavier NX gives enough power to make live treatment.
The video shows there is too much satellites up there. Too bad.
Alain
2nd test of my new lens.
The result is really interesting. But, i must say that even if the camera gets good sensor (IMX485) and the lens is quite good (but we have to keep in mind this lens is rather low cost, low optic quality and dedicated for very small sensor), the result would be quite bad with the live treatment of the RAW data (Jetson Xavier NX).
So, it is necessary to find the good equilibrium with the sensor, the lens and the software.
The video (quite long, maybe a bit boring) :
I made many setting changes during acquisitions to see how the system perform.
Alain
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Waiting for better sky, i make very short sky survey tests (the clouds love Bretagne unfortunately).
So, an other sky survey, using this time my satellites tracking routine. As the camera is better than my previous one, satellites tracking is a bit easier.
I will star to work on astrometry implementation in my software. If i can make it run, astrometry will be useful.
Alain
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Hello,
bad weather here for weeks. No way to look at the sky.
When i will have free time, i will work on automotive night vision. This subject is really interesting. I will use JetsonSky filters to try to get better automotive night vision. An example :
I used my small stars enhancement filter to get some improvements with road informations. Not that bad.
Alain
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Software like this will be in big demand the day we get inexpensive quality augmented reality glasses! I can just see the day when the average driver of an inexpensive vehicle gets cleaned up night vision along with adding in other interesting things AI can do.
We will see for sure such systems. This will be interesting.
Alain
Hello,
some new deep sky survey test yesterday. A small break with war in Europe. Hope everything wonât went too far (i am very close from French military nuclear base SNLE submarines).
So, some stars, planes and satellites :
Alain
2 nights without clouds !
New test yesterday :
The Jetson Xavier NX manage quite well the live treatment. As exposure time is about 500 to 1000ms and treatment time is about 80ms, there is no problem. Even Jetson Nano could manage the live treatment without problem.
Alain
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Hello,
2 pictures extract from 2 deep sky survey video. It is the result of frames stacking.
Not really easy to make wide field long exposures (classical deep sky astronomy photography).
Alain
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Hello,
still donât have much time to make some tests so nothing new to expect.
My main regret is that Jetson Nano / Xavier NX is not really easy to use with headless configuration and remote controlling. Raspberry Pi was much better for a remote use without screen but the Raspberry Pi is to weak for my application.
As Jetson Orin is not better than my GTX1060 laptop GPU, nothing to expect with this new SBC.
Last chance woult be Jetpack 5 if it can bring some real remote control capabilities. So i will wait for it. If Jetpack 5 brings nothing nez and really interesting, i will stop my work with Jetson Nano / Xavier NX to focus my work with my laptop. Not a drama because my experience with Nvidia SBC was really cool.
My draft EAA system works for sure but there is too much work to make a ârelease candidateâ. If i canât find real improvements in software for the Jetson, i think i will change my mind by the end of the year : i will consider buying a Skywatcher AZ-GTI altaz mount and plug my camera on it (with Laptop control). This would solve many software problems and i will be able to focus my work on sky observation and live filtering (work on software filters).
I will also concentrate my work on planetary acquisition with live or post processing treatments with my software. In that cas, it will be probably post processing treatment because GTX1060 canât manage very high frame rate with live treatment (i wonât buy a new laptop with new RTX3060/70/80 GPU, the prices are insane).
So, probably a major change in my project this year. Maybe those changes will end this topic. Just have to wait to see if Jetson SBC could be a solution or not.
Have a nice day.
Alain
For those who are interested with a new deep sky survey video (quite long), showing many many things above us.
This time, i used my laptop (same software for Jetson SBC and laptop). Easier to use.
The video is a bit long but it could be interesting to watch it until the end.
Software and live treatments are OK. Still search for a better lens to improve the video quality.
Alain
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Hello,
a small break with astronomy.
I made a new test with live treatment to try to enhance vein system visualisation. Same setup (Jetson Xavier NX, ASI485 camera, 8mm C mount lens).
I am quite pleased with the result :
In my opinion, video or image treatment is not enough developed with medical imaging. I think there is a lot of work to do in medicine domain.
Thatâs all.
Alain
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Hello,
back to astronomy.
Still working on the colours of the Moonâs soils. I use my software (JetsonSky) to manage colour enhancement (classical software donât allow that kind of result).
I must say the result is not a kind of Photoshop treatment. It is based on the colour capture and only uses software processing on video RAW values. If the colour capture is not good, the result wonât be good.
So, 2 examples of very high colour enhancement (it is not just saturation raising; if i only use saturation enhancement, the result would be really horrible).
The treatment is made with Jetson Xavier NX. It also works fine with Jetson Nano.
Alain
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I must say that is spectacular! Not just the âscience visualizationâ, thatâd make a great full wall sized mural or photo.
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Hello Linuxdev,
yes, it could be great on a wall. A bit psychedelic but nice result.
Alain
Hello,
a not so new video about colours of the Moonâs soils. I have already make such treatment with this video.
This time, i was able to get 4K video from NASA (flyover the Moon surface) with quite low compression. The interesting thing is that this video gets quite good colours of the soils.
With this video, i can apply software filters to enhance colours of the soils. This allow me to test my colour enhancement filter, which is a bit more complex than simple saturation raise. If you raise saturation, you get a quite horrible result so you will need extra work to preserve sharpness and details.
I used Jetson Xavier NX to make treatments. Well, i must say he can manage the job but we are very far from real time treatment. Anyway, the Xavier NX can manage the job.
So, the video :
If you can get a 4K display, the result is interesting.
Thatâs all.
Alain
1 Like
Hello,
back to deepsky.
I used a very old M42 nebula picture (acquired with C9.25 & ASI178MC colour camera ; live stacking with Sharpcap) to make a one pass treatment to try to improve image informations.
I used a modified version of JetsonSky (dedicated to one picture treatment). The result is not that bad with Jetson Xavier NX.
Alain
Hello,
last night, i made deep sky survey tests using my motorised mount.
For those who donât know my (horrible) mount :
I did not use it for more than a year. It still works but get some hardware issues (the joystick for manual control is a bit dead and a limit switch is ⊠also dead. I had to change the code of my software at night to be able to control the mount.
I used my old Canon FD 50mm f1.4 lens and my Rainbow lens 8-48mm f1.0 to make the tests.
The sky was free of clouds but the transparency was quite poor.
In the videos, you will see many stars. The difference between the 2 lens is really interesting. 50mm lens brings many stars, even if its F/D is worst than the 8-48mm zoom. In the real life, with my eyes, i was only able to see about 50 stars. With my EAA system, i can see thousands stars. We can also see many satellites (thx Elon). With my eyes, i canât see anyone.
So, the 50mm lens video :
The 8mm lens video :
So, what will be next ?
About the mount, itâs a beta version. It works be it is really crappy. I must build a new one (more simple, strongest quality). I still plan to use a Raspberry Pi 4 with 2 stepper motors and a joystick. The other option is to by a Skywatcher AZ-GTI mount and control it with the Jetson Xavier NX. Still have to think about those solutions.
I wonât look for an other camera. IMX485 sensor is a good sensor and i donât need an other sensor.
The lens : well, i do love my Canon FD 50mm f1.4 lens but i can expect something better. Today, we can find interesting lens like 35mm f0.95 or something like that. My problem is that there is no adapter to plug that kind of lens on my camera. No one wants to make such adapter. My only solution is to make the adapter myself. Not sure i will be able to make one.
Still some work to do !
Have a nice day.
Alain
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