Moravian Instruments C1x/C3-61000 and 26000

[admin]

Hi Robert,

thanks for testing that and reporting back. I will try to get the new Moravian SDK version into SharpCap very soon so that you will no longer need to copy the DLL file.

cheers,

Robin

[MMys]

Hi, Robin
I´m glad to inform you, so Moravian Instruments Cx cameras supports GPS receiver.

There is updated SDK with documentation here:
https://www.gxccd.com/cat?id=164&lang=409

The feature will be great for asteroid transits, etc... when implemented in SharpCap. The task looks quite simple. At first, you must check if the camera has GPS. Use:

BOOLEAN __cdecl GetBooleanParameter(
CCamera *PCamera,
CARDINAL Index,
BOOLEAN *Boolean
)

Where Index is 16 for GPS feature. See page 9 in SDK documenation PDF.

Then, after each image transfer, call:

BOOLEAN __cdecl GetImageTimeStamp(
CCamera *PCamera,
INTEGER *Year,
INTEGER *Month,
INTEGER *Day,
INTEGER *Hour,
INTEGER *Minute,
LONGREAL *Second
);

More at page 24 of the SDK doc.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Now there is a question, what to do with the timestamps:

For FITS, there is no problem. Timestamp will be in FITS header.

For SER, there is trailer block for that purpose. Description is such:

Trailer contains Date / Integer_64 (little-endian) time stamps in UTC for every image frame.
According to Microsoft documentation the used time stamp has the following format:
“Holds IEEE 64-bit (8-byte) values that represent dates ranging from January 1 of the year 0001
through December 31 of the year 9999, and times from 12:00:00 AM (midnight) through
11:59:59.9999999 PM. Each increment represents 100 nanoseconds of elapsed time since the
beginning of January 1 of the year 1 in the Gregorian calendar.

For AVI, probably not any standardized way to store data in AVI container exist. In such case, you can render timestamps into bitmap, or create additional TXT file with timestamps for each frame of AVI file.

As you may know, there is occultation of Betelgeuse by the mag. 14 asteroide (319) Leona, on 2023, December 12, in Mediterranean. We plan to take some cameras including C3-26000 and C3-61000 for that purpose, and functional timestamps will be greatly welcomed.

Can you take a quick look for that please ? Only FITS and SER are essential, do not solve AVI now, it is useless for photometry of transit.
I will help you with testing, having upgraded camera with GPS next week.

Thanks,
Martin

[admin]

Hi Martin,

as far as I can see, almost all of this is already done in SharpCap 4.1, which has had support for the GPS features on Moravian cameras since June. Currently SharpCap is on SDK 4.15 and I see that the latest download is 4.16, so I will try to update that for next week. I also noticed that the status info was not being set unless the GPS has a fix, so I will correct that too.

A lot of the features build on the work previously done for the QHY GPS cameras, so the timestamping for FITS and SER is already done, and the overlay is available for AVI.

cheers,

Robin

[MMys]

Great,
when I get the camera, I will make some test and inform you.

[MMys]

Hi Robin,
We have upgraded Moravian Instruments camera with GPS now, but 4.1 SharpCap does not show us GPS support. (I downloaded latest public 4.1.11388)
Can you send me something that will recognize GPS ? The Betelguese occultation is approaching - at 12.12.

Thanks
Martin

[admin]

Hi Martin,

not good The latest version has SDK 4.16 (which I think is still the newest - you can copy in the SDK dlls from newer versions if there are any).

Beyond that we will need to turn on additional logging for 'Camera hardware communication' in SharpCap, then open and close the camera. Near the start of the log of camera communications, it should query for GPS support. With my (non-GPS) camera, I get

Code: Select all

Verbose 21:22:34.910191 #1  Camera : SharpCap.Cameras.Moravian.IMoravianCamera.get_HasGPS :: Starting get_HasGPS()
Verbose 21:22:34.910250 #1  Camera : SharpCap.Cameras.Moravian.IMoravianCamera.get_HasGPS :: Completed (returned False) get_HasGPS()

If yours is detecting GPS OK then it should have 'returned True' in the second line. The result shown here comes pretty much directly from a call to

GetBooleanParameter(...) for gbpGPS on CxUSB.dll

This is a CX camera, not a GX camera, right? I have only implemented GPS in the CXUSB code base.

cheers,

Robin

[MMys]

Ok, we will try to investigate that.

SDK you have is latest, GPS is implemenetd only in Cx, not Gx, you are right.

The camera which does not show GPS is placed in my colleague, who is not much technician type.
But I will have upgraded next piece on my table within two, three days, so I will figure out what is wrong.

Martin