Related Manuals for Alcor System EUDA-2M
Summary of Contents for Alcor System EUDA-2M
- Page 1 EUDA-2M / 3M “All Sky” Camera Installation and user manual Oct 05th, 2021 revision © Alcor system...
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Page 2: Table Of Contents
Magnitude per square second display image mode ..................44 Telescope control software link ........................45 Trouble shooting ..............................47 Focus ................................47 Dew inside the dome ............................49 Camera maintenance .............................. 50 Sphere cleaning ............................... 50 Product terms of use ............................... 51 © Alcor system... -
Page 3: Camera Installation
Both sensors can be cooled down. EUDA-2M has Iris, that can be set from f2.8 to f22 by means of remote software. Lens focal length is 4.5 mm EUDA-3M has Iris, that can be set from f4 to f32 by means of remote software. Lens focal length is 8 mm The heat from the Sun does not cause daytime stops operation of the camera. - Page 4 Connector Role Genre (on camera) see fig. 1 EUDA-2M Temperature sensor Female BLUE Power connector and RS232 link Male PINK USB 2.0 link to camera Male © Alcor system...
- Page 5 Excessive force applied to connector can cause the destruction of the connector or a bad connection can damage the camera. In case of damage, due to trials to attach cable to the wrong connector kind, this will cancel warranty. Please PAY ATTENTION. © Alcor system...
- Page 6 Key one of the three connectors (24V power connector). Fig. 3 Push the connector straight Fig. 4 © Alcor system...
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Page 7: Camera Optical Settings
It is a 5-pin connector. The probe located at the end of the cord will be placed preferably in the shade, as far as possible from the camera, and always with two set Ø4mm screws with the direction given in the next frame and horizontally. It put upside down, this can destroy the sensor and warranty will not apply. © Alcor system... -
Page 8: Power Connector And Rs232 (#2)
By a RS232 – USB converter (very moderate cost, FTDI, ATEN devices, avoid Prolific, there are not reliable) By RS232 PCI card (Low-cost device, not suitable for laptops) By Serial to Ethernet (MOXA devices, very reliable and professional device http://www.moxa.com/product/nport_device_server_1.htm ) Product type is Nport. © Alcor system... - Page 9 Skywatch software on startup (otherwise blurry images will be obtained). This is a mandatory way to control the camera. Please connect the RS232 link to your PC. © Alcor system...
- Page 10 RS232 to USB link. Fig. 8 RS232 to USB converter COM port under Device manager, Fig. 9 warning it can be another number than COM24 The device manager properties for this COM port should be seen as follows once connected: © Alcor system...
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Page 11: Usb Connector (#3)
Alcor-System has a long experience connecting USB devices using a 20m extender, and when it fails, it is always due to PC issues, with USB chipset drivers, USB hub badly powered, USB port been jeopardized by several Electro Static Discharge (ESD). © Alcor system... -
Page 12: Software
This is updated every 2 months and this is the software used to control the camera, click on "setup_skywatch.exe" Select language Fig. 11 Select language. Then select camera, in this case EUDA 2M/3M camera Select EUDA (2M or 3M) Camera Fig. 12 © Alcor system... - Page 13 Xvid setup, this allows to build time-lapse Fig. 13 Then comes the camera driver low level installation. Please install it ZWO ASI camera low level driver installation is MANDATORY Fig. 14 Then accept driver to be installed, click “Install” © Alcor system...
- Page 14 ASI 6200MM (EUDA 3M) or ASI 294MM (EUDA 2M). Device manager Fig. 16 The installation software creates an icon to your desktop. To start it, double click it, the camera control software will start. Fig. 17 © Alcor system...
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Page 15: Using The Camera Software Control
Then comes the filter wheel setup, assign/enter filter names (as ordered) and then put focuser encoder offset steps that can change filter to filter, if filter thickness is not the same. For EUDA-2M, the focus range is 1200 to 1400 ADU, for EUDA-3M the offset focuser range is from 4000 to 4500 ADU. - Page 16 Filter’s name and focus offsets Fig. 19 Select "EUDA-2M/3M Camera" Inside the “Select among available camera” group box, the camera name must be visible, if not the camera is not recognized by the system (check cables and power). Fig. 20 The USB camera bandwidth can be set from 40 to 100%.
- Page 17 If not input properly set to the correct figure, focusing and auto iris will not be possible to achieve, not any access to the weather board control. Open then “Options/Dome Heating control / CMOS cooling” Fig. 21 © Alcor system...
- Page 18 If the RS232 link is not working, camera focus, and iris control will not be possible and camera will provide blurred images! Fig. 22 If an error occurs (not cable tied, or wrongly set port COM), this message will be displayed: Fig. 23 Otherwise, the window expands and information is displayed as follows: © Alcor system...
- Page 19 The humidity tab, shows the outdoor relative humidity level and inner camera relative humidity. This is not the humidity that sees the CMOS image sensor, this later is enclosed inside a very tight chamber. © Alcor system...
- Page 20 On delivery, the camera inner humidity can be very low, less than 5% because of desiccant presence inside the camera. The control/setup tab allows to setup threshold temperature and humidity to allow dome heating to be turned on or off. © Alcor system...
- Page 21 Beware, if this window is closed, recording data cannot occur anymore. We recommend that you simply hide it. Nevertheless, dome heater activation is achieved by the camera alone, without any link to the PC. Finally, it is possible to transfer these plots to website for remote checking. © Alcor system...
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Page 22: Cooling The Cmos Image Sensor
During the night, the temperature to reach can be entered by the user, and during the day, it is set to 30°C, that will never be reached because the system cools the CMOS image sensor, and cannot warm it up. The CMOS image sensor temperature will be let to follow then inner environment camera temperature. © Alcor system... - Page 23 Fig. 28 Fig. 29 The Focusing, iris and Filter wheel control can be accessed this way: © Alcor system...
- Page 24 The “Iris” tab allows to set the F ratio of the lens as required. During night, it is advised to open it to the maximum aperture, i.e F2.8, and during the day it can be set to any other figure. © Alcor system...
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Page 25: General Software Setup
The maximum focus range is from 0 to 1800 encoder’s steps. If you want to save the new figure, please go back to the “filter wheel” tab. Fig. 33 General Software Setup The get it, please check the next menu © Alcor system... - Page 26 So another filter or neutral filter can be used. Fig. 35 For information at F5.6, the exposure time during the day with the Neutral filter is around 1.5 sec. Using F5.6 lens stop during the day is a good trade-off. © Alcor system...
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Page 27: Camera Control Panel
G’2, R’2, I’2 and Z_S2 filters for accuracy photometry study of the all Sky images. During the day Fig. 37 During the day, images can be achieved with the U’2 or the Z_S2 filter. Camera Control panel The control Panel is always visible on the right side of the screen. © Alcor system... - Page 28 The minimum exposure time is 0.25 sec If the camera is cooled, it is not necessary to check “Remove dark frame”, “Hot pixels removal”, and “Automatic hot pixels removal” Fig. 38 © Alcor system...
- Page 29 The automatic exposure time will use the inner circle area to compute the level for the next exposure time. Do not put more than 25s exposure time, otherwise star will trail due to the Earth rotation. © Alcor system...
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Page 30: Storage Of Files Produced By The Camera Control Software
Fig. 41 Storage of files produced by the camera control software The software stores all the files it produces into a directory that is specific to the user. This directory (and subdirectories) is created automatically by the software. © Alcor system... - Page 31 The subdirectory FTPData: contains the final JPEG image produced to be uploaded on user’s website © Alcor system...
- Page 32 This is for debugging purposes. A new file is created each time you start up the camera control software. The log file is enabled into the main’s software setup panel. Just enable it in case of issues, because log file can make large files. © Alcor system...
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Page 33: Image Hot Pixel Removal Using Dark Frame Image
More the camera is being used under conditions of high temperatures, more the number of hot pixels. Exposure time also affects strongly the number of hot pixels: the higher the exposure time, the higher the number of hot pixels. © Alcor system... - Page 34 / and "Automatic hot pixel removal" The master dark frame is located in this folder and can be a CPA or a FITS file, later the software can produce these files for you: © Alcor system...
- Page 35 As there are still hot pixels that have non-linear behavior and cannot be corrected by the dark master frame, correction using hot pixels list can be achieved, cleaning the image of hot pixels by its neighbors. Just check the box highlighted in the screenshot below. © Alcor system...
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Page 36: Achieving Master Dark Frame
How to make a master "dark" frame for a given outdoor temperature? This is easy. Under “Camera” tab, uncheck "Auto Exposure time" and select an exposure time corresponding to the longest exposure time used during night, for example 30s and then do "Apply" © Alcor system... - Page 37 The software switches into a particular mode that allows it to produce "dark" frames and performs the median stack when the amount of required dark frames have been reached in order to achieve a dark master frame and a list of hot pixels. © Alcor system...
- Page 38 More k is close to 1, the better. In the following scenario, k = 0.95, which is a good value. Fig. 55 If k> 1.5 or k <0.5, it means that the master dark frame is not well appropriate to the current outdoor temperature conditions. A warning message will be displayed as a red sentence. © Alcor system...
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Page 39: Residual Hot Pixels Repair/Fix
To test this feature, use a moonless night, and be careful not to remove some stars of the picture by setting a too low maximum gap and too high standard deviation! You can see how these fixed pixels are spread over the image, by enabling the following checkbox. © Alcor system... -
Page 40: Setting The Overlay Grid
Here is the recommended way to set the grid that is used to identify stars on the image: this is not an automatic procedure; this setting shall be performed manually. But once set, this will be set forever (expect the camera is being moved or rotated). In the Control Panel, set the location, latitude and longitude, © Alcor system... - Page 41 Get to "Enable grid display" and "Show Main object" (Check “Only horizon”) Find the star that passes nearby zenith and move the cross indicating zenith towards it. Change “X center” and “Y center” figures so that the cross position matches with the star. © Alcor system...
- Page 42 The grid scale can be changed also. The grid (or set of stars position) is changing according to the time and geographical coordinates. Be sure to have set theses parameters correctly. © Alcor system...
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Page 43: Cyanogen Boldwood, Or Sentinel Cloud Sensors Link With Camera Control Software
The amount of information depends on the system that is measuring cloud cover. It will be the most complete using Sentinel Shelyak system (wind direction and zenith magnitude per second squared). Group of information to provide to connect with cloud sensor system control software. Fig. 64 © Alcor system... -
Page 44: Magnitude Per Square Second Display Image Mode
Tab used to set magnitude image mode display Fig. 66 The calculation is based on a reference image, with reference parameters. To perform this, a reference image is achieved with: An exposure time reference A camera gain reference © Alcor system... -
Page 45: Telescope Control Software Link
The image pixels are expressed in magnitude per square second, a false-color palette is applied and a color scale indicates the color to magnitude correlation. Map of the sky expressed as magnitudes per arcsec square with false colors. Fig. 68 Telescope control software link © Alcor system... - Page 46 1899 at 12 o’clock, the second line is RA as radian, the third line is DEC as radian: 40307.9796818056 4.3461698620 0.9539777407 UTTime = 09/05/2010 11:30:44 p.m. RA2000 = 16h36m04.126s DEC2000 = +54 ° 39'32 .03'' The other remaining lines are not read and are just provided for information. © Alcor system...
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Page 47: Trouble Shooting
Below is a small 250x250 pixel screen capture of the image center. Star must be very sharp (like 1.5 pixel max) like this image below: Fig. 72 Good focus The next images show poor focusing. It must be absolutely adjusted! © Alcor system... - Page 48 Once a good value is found, do not forget to update it into the filter control. For instance, with the red filter, the correct figure is 1225 encoder’s steps, change the Red filter focuser position figure from 1250 to 1225. Fig. 75 Focus position updated. © Alcor system...
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Page 49: Dew Inside The Dome
This may happen after several year of operation, if the internal desiccant is exhausted. Please check the internal humidity figure. It should be less than 20%, above 60% dew can form easily. To replace the internal desiccant, please contact us to get the procedure. © Alcor system... -
Page 50: Camera Maintenance
8 screws must be put together with their washer and all tightened the same way. Incorrect reassembly can cause loss of sealing, allowing rain to enter and de facto guarantees no longer apply. If you feel confident with dismounting sphere, please do not do it. © Alcor system... -
Page 51: Product Terms Of Use
Use of this product involving people's lives is the responsibility of the user and in no way ALCOR SYSTEM will be held liable for injuries to persons or property theft as the use of this camera described in this manual.
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