The default codec for AVI files is “raw”.įinally the capture index size is the number of digits in the index field when it is inserted into the saved filename (see the capture controls for more information). The UtVideo codec can be selected for AVI files for some frame formats if required.
The Windows-compatible AVI file format is required to replay files on Windows and probably should also be set when saving AVI files on MacOS. The “reset counter” button here resets the counter used when saving images where a new file is used for each frame, for example FITS, TIFF and PNG. “Display FPS” allows the frame rate to be set for the preview window. These three options require the application to be restarted. Unchecking it moves all the control panels from the right of the image preview to above it, giving a layout like this:įinally another option that may help on small displays, to split the controls off into a separate window that can be hidden behind the main preview window or minimised to get it out of the way. “Display controls on right” is now the default. This may help with small displays where there’s not much space left outside the camera image itself. “Make controls dockable” allows the control panels in the main window to be detached from the application and moved elsewhere on the screen. “Connect single camera on start-up” allows oacapture to automatically connect to a camera when the application starts, if it only finds one camera present. This contains the camera settings used when the data was captured. “Write capture settings to file” enables writing a file of the same name as the file of captured data, but with a “.txt” extension. Hopefully the reticle and temperature settings should be mostly self-explanatory, but the “Recentre reticle” and “Derotate reticle” buttons restore the original orientation of the reticle should you need to. The “Settings” menu controls configuration of the application behaviour:Īll these options open the same configuration window at a different tab. “Preview on/off” turns the preview image on and off. “False colour” colourises a mono frame image based on the settings from the false colour settings menu.
If your camera is producing raw colour data you may need to configure this in the demosaic settings and then enable this to get full colour. This can be just for the preview image or for both the preview image and the frame written to an output file. “Demosiac” enables conversion of raw colour data from monochrome to full colour.
Flipping raw colour images may result in unexpected behaviour as the original colour mask may no longer be suitable. If the camera supports this in hardware then the flipping will be done that way, otherwise in software. “Flip X” and “Flip Y” flip the image about the vertical and horizontal axes respectively. Unfortunately it’s not too clear in this example because the image is so bright. The Focus aid attempts to give an indication of how well the image is focused, showing a graph over the image varying from red to green, where red is not so well focused and green is better focused. Once displayed the centre of the reticle can be dragged around the screen by “grabbing” the centre with the mouse, or rotated using a mouse scroll wheel when the pointer is in the preview area: A number of different reticle types are available, chosen from the “Settings” dialog (see later). “Reticle” displays a reticle over the captured image in the preview window. “Histogram” opens a new window to display a histogram for the captured data. The “Options” menu enables various components of the application: The next menu option, “Timer”, relates to occultation timing hardware.
Here there’s a Xagyl five-slot 1.25″ wheel attached. This works similarly to the previous camera menu:
In this case a ZWO ASI120MM-S has been found using the ZWO ASI v2 interface.
“Disconnect” disconnects the camera and “Rescan” rescans to update the camera choices after cameras have been added or removed, so it is possible to connect a camera and use it after the application has started. This shows any currently recognised cameras and the interface used to connect to them. The current configuration is saved when the program exits unless configured otherwise. First is the “File” menu:Īt the moment the “Save” and “Reload” configuration options do nothing, so “Quit” is the only useful choice here. Menus for controlling and configuring the application itself appear at the top. The main controls are on the right and there’s a status bar at the bottom with a scrolling area for previewing the image from the camera in between. After starting oacapture you should see a screen like this: