Advanced observatories specialising in astrophotography require many electronic, hardware and computer software systems to work seamlessly together. We specialise in helping, advising and implementing bespoke solutions to individual problems faced by people setting up advanced astronomy imaging systems.
We are not going to tell you which telescope to use, or which is the best CCD camera to image with, but we can offer services to help get the whole tool-chain up and working as automatically as possible. Some of the areas of astronomy hardware and software that we can help with include:
For further information please contact us.
This is a new version of the software below with filters and synchronised focusing on the slave.
More Info & Download: Camera Sync Contact UsEmail us direct at tomh@tomhow.me.uk
If you want mulitple imaging cameras on the same telescope mount, you need to run multiple copies of Maxim DL on separate computers, each connected to it's own camera. However, it is desirable to synchronise the exposures on all the computers to allow guiding and dithering.
Solution: By networking the computers together and writing a small client-server application we were able to synchronise the exposures on all three computers with the dithered guiding on the master computer.
More Info & Download: Camera Sync Contact UsEmail us direct at tomh@tomhow.me.uk
Similar to the above, but for TheSkyX and CCDSoft
More Info & Download: Camera Sync Contact UsEmail us direct at tomh@tomhow.me.uk
A complete ASCOM telescope mount driver for the custom telescope mount installed in the Curdridge observatory using Maxon motors and a bespoke Arduino GOTO system.
More Info: ASCOM Arduino Contact UsEmail us direct at tomh@tomhow.me.uk
A customer had installed a new Pulsar Optical dome containing a Paramount. Lots of equipment on the mount made the dome aperture quite marginal, meaning a lot of manual adjustments to the dome position. Lots of potential for mistakes.
Solution: A complete dome rotation system based around stepper motors. The computerised system links to the Paramount via The Sky and automatically positions the dome depending on the telescope pointing and tracks the dome around the sky during the night. This now allows unattended remote operation.
More Info: Dome Rotator Contact UsEmail us direct at tomh@tomhow.me.uk
The secret to good narrowband images is a lot of data. At least 6 hours of subs are needed in each channel. I can't stay up all night waiting for the frames to be captured.
Solution:A simple timer application which connects via ASCOM to the mount. The scope is left gather frames and at the preset time (E.g. just before dawn) a park command is automatically sent to the mount. This effectively turns off the mount and switches off all the imaging software.
Contact UsEmail us direct at tomh@tomhow.me.uk
PHD guiding is a great guiding application and works better than Maxim DL with some types of guide camera. For good results we need to dither the exposures. How can we capture in Maxim yet guide and dither with PHD?
Solution: A small application monitors the main imaging camera working in Maxim DL. When the exposure is finished, a dither command is sent to PHD using the PHD server interface. Once the guider has settled, Maxim is allowed to continue with the next imaging exposure.
Contact UsEmail us direct at tomh@tomhow.me.uk
Some ASCOM telescope mount drivers, especially Meade ones, don't work properly with POTH. The CanPulseGuide property is not reported properly.
Solution: A small ASCOM telescope driver which acts as a buffer between PHD guiding and POTH. This driver does report the correct properties to PHD guiding and makes setup much easier.
Contact UsEmail us direct at tomh@tomhow.me.uk
