Astrel Instruments AST492 User manual

Astrel Instruments AST492
Astrel Instruments
AST492
GETTING STARTED
rev A
Getting Started 1/11 rev A

Astrel Instruments AST492
Table of ontents
•Getting started with the Astrel Instruments camera………………………. pag 3
•Camera connections…………………………………………………………. pag 4
•Powering up the camera for the first time………………………………….. pag 5
•Powering down the camera………………………………………………….. pag 7
•Using the iFi connection…………………………………………………… pag 7
•Using the vacuum pump……………………………………………………… pag 8
•Filters mounting procedure…………………………………………………… pag 9
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Astrel Instruments AST492
Getting started with the Astrel Instruments amera
Thank you for purchasing an Astrel Instruments CMOS camera. Your new camera is a leading
edge scientific instruments: please take your time to read carefully the following User's Manual
to learn how to get the best out of your equipment.
The Smart Camera philosophy is the concept that the imaging camera could be the real brain of
your astronomical equipment. This is possible thanks to the powerful microprocessor that is in
charge of managing not only the camera itself but also, through the USB ports available on-
board, the other components of your system.
hen you power on the camera, you’re also powering on an embedded PC, which can
substitute the laptop that is needed to operate a classic camera for astrophotography. The
embedded PC comes with the camera and filter wheel ASCOM drivers already installed, so that
every software for astrophotography you will install could access them as usual.
Moreover, instead of connecting your setup (focuser, mount, autoguider, …) to a laptop, you
can connect it directly to the camera, so that, when connecting through iFi, the only cable
leaving the telescope is the main power supply.
To operate the camera without a laptop, you need to connect through iFi with your tablet or
even your smartphone using any Remote Desktop application (of course you can also use an
external PC/laptop using Ethernet or iFi).
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Astrel Instruments AST492
Camera onne tions
The following picture shows the I/O interfaces available:
Figure 1: AST492 connectors
The following connectors are available on the camera:
•12V power in: the camera needs a 12V 5A power supply
•12V power out: 3x 12V power out connections for powering external equipment
•USB2: 6x hi speed USB connectors can be used to connect devices like wifi pen
(included), focusers, mounts, keyboards and mice. Each USB port can drive max 500
mA. Port 5 is dedicated to the filter wheel
•USB3: 1x super speed USB3 connector for faster devices like guide cameras and USB
dongles
•Ethernet: gigabit Ethernet port for PC connection
•EXT I/O: large number of configurable discrete I/O lines
Getting Started 4/11 rev A
12V power
out x 3
12V power in
USB3
Ethernet
EXT I/O
USB2 x6
Filter wheel
connector

Astrel Instruments AST492
Powering up the amera for the first time
First of all, connect the short USB cable to the filter wheel connector (see Fig. 1) and to USB
port 5 on the camera. Connect the power cable to the 12V power in connector on the camera
and to the power supplier, then connect the power supplier to a power plug: the camera’s
internal PC boots the indows 10 operating system. No HDMI or other monitor connections are
available on the camera: the desktop shall be accessed through the Remote Desktop
application available on every indows PC. First of all, connect the camera to the PC using the
included Ethernet cable and open remote desktop on your PC (allow 40s / 1min fo the camera
to complete the boot process before attempting to connect).
In the Remote Desktop application, insert 10.42.0.11 as address, astro as username and
astronomy as password, then click connect to access the camera. After the connection is
established, you will be presented the AST492 desktop, which is a standard indows 10
desktop, exactly like any other PC.
Figure 2: The AST492 indows 10 desktop
The following applications come preinstalled on the camera:
1) ASCOM platform
2) ASCOM drivers for AST492 camera and filterwheel
3) APT (Astro Photography Tool), a very well known astrophotography software, that can be
used to take pictures with the camera and control all your equipment
To test the correct behavior of the camera, start APT using the icon on the desktop. APT should
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Astrel Instruments AST492
start, automatically connect to the AST492 camera and ask for setting the local coordinates: say
no, you could set it later, then click the ‘shoot’ button to take a picture. The camera exposes for
1 second and downloads the image: depending on the light entering the camera, you could
need to stretch it using the histogram tool on the lower left.
Figure 3: Running APT
Then go to the ‘gear’ tab and click ‘connect wheel’. The wheel should connect and show that it
is on the R (meaning Red) filter. The APT filter names are set like the following (see Filters
mounting procedure below):
•Position 1: filter L (Luminance)
•Position 2: filter R (Red)
•Position 3: filter G (Green)
•Position 2: filter B (Blue)
•Position 2: filter Ha (H-alpha)
•Position 2: filter SII (Sulfur II)
•Position 2: filter OIII (Oxigen III)
Click ‘go to filter’, select ‘B’ and verify that the wheel is moving of 1 position counter clock wise.
If you come to this point without problems, congratulations: the camera is working correctly.
Next steps would be to connect your equipment to the ports of the AST492 (autoguider,
telescope, focuser, GPS, …) and read the APT manual in order to understand how to deal with
your setup and start taking pictures!
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Astrel Instruments AST492
Of course you can install whatever software you prefer on the AST492: the camera and the filter
wheel have ASCOM drivers that can be used to interact from a different astrophotography tool.
Powering down the amera
ARNING: avoid powering down the camera by simply disconnecting power supply: your
camera has a true PC inside running indows and, as any other PC, you should shut it down in
the correct way. After shut down the camera will disconnect from the remote desktop: wait for 1
minute before unplugging the power cable to allow the shut down to terminate.
Using the WiFi onne tion
If you connect the included iFi pen to one of the camera’s USB ports before powering up, the
camera will act as a iFi hotspot, creating the ‘ast492hotspot’ iFi network: you can connect
using any iFi enabled device just selecting this network and entering the password
‘ast492hotspot’. After the connection is done, you can use the Remote Desktop application as
described above but using the address 192.168.137.1
If you need to connect the camera to your home iFi router (for example to access the eb),
power down the camera, remove the iFi pen and restart. Once the boot is completed, connect
to the camera (of course you have to connect to the camera using the Ethernet cable as
described in the previous paragraph), insert the iFi pen and connect to your home router as
usual.
To get back to the hotspot modality, power down the camera and restart with the iFi pen
inserted.
As a good rule, try to avoid installing too much non astronomy-related software, keeping in mind
that the stability of the system is of maximum importance when doing astrophotography!
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Astrel Instruments AST492
Using the va uum pump
The camera adopts a low vacuum approach to avoid frosting on the CMOS glass. Using the
included vacuum pump, you can remove the air from inside the camera, so that there's no more
water vapor to freeze. Moreover, reducing the air inside the camera minimizes the heat
exchanges due to convection, so the optical window never get too cold due to the low CMOS
temperature. The included pump is typically able to reach about 25-26 inHg vacuum in less
than a minute of operation, but anything above 24 inHg is enough. The vacuum pump gauges
have a tolerance of about +/- 1 inHg, refer to the “Important Notice” sheet provided with the
camera to get the proper vacuum level to be set before cooling the camera. The camera is
tested to maintain a vacuum better than 24 inHg for at least two days and it's not unusual for
cameras to last for weeks, so there's no need to operate the pump during a photo session.
Always keep the vacuum valve closed even when the camera is not working. hen the camera
is not used for long periods, it is advisable to put it into an air tight envelop.
ARNING: never get the camera below the freezing temperature without evacuating it to an
acceptable vacuum level: you will run the risk of frost creation on the CMOS glass and even
produce a permanent damage to the camera.
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Astrel Instruments AST492
Filters mounting pro edure
This paragraph describes the complete procedure to be followed to mount the filters on the
integrated filter-wheel. The wheel uses standard 1.25” mounted filters or 31mm unmounted
filters.
The AST492 is equipped with a 7 positions filter wheel. Position number 1 is referenced by a
small white arrow near the hole, which points to the direction where position 2 is located.
Figure 4: Filterwheel box internal
WARNING: Do all the following operation in a lean ambient in order to minimize dust
entering.
1. Remove the six screws locking the camera top plate in order to access the filter wheel
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Arrow
indic tor

Astrel Instruments AST492
Figure 5: filterwheel box external
2. Locate the small white arrow to find position 1 filter
3. Screw filters in the wheel holes in this (non mandatory) order:
◦Luminance
◦Red
◦Green
◦Blue
◦H-alpha
◦SII
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Astrel Instruments AST492
◦OIII
This is the order that is preset in the APT application: if you need a different order,
remember to change it also in the ATP application.
WARNING: do not push the wheel down while s rewing to avoid any tilt of the
wheel on its axis: to properly operate, the wheel has to stay parallel to the filter
wheel box floor
4. Before mounting the last filter, remember to check if you have to clean the optical window
in front of the sensor
5. Put the camera top plate back in place and fix it with the six screws.
The positions of the filters are precisely aligned with the camera sensor in factory, but, if needed
, it can be fine tuned by modifying the file filterwheel.dat located in the C:\Users\astro\sw_astrel\
bin\apps folder. This file contains a list of numbers representing the following data:
<position 1 offset>
…
<position 7 offset>
<calibration position length>
where <position n offset> is a number representing the additional number of motor steps in
order to have the filter perfectly centered with the sensor. By changing this number you can
modify the final position of the filter: the bigger the number, the longer the movement.
WARNING: do not hange < alibration position length>, whi h is set in fa tory to the
orre t value, hanging it ould lead to filter wheel operation failure.
Getting Started 11/11 rev A