Optec Alnitak Astrosystems Flat-Man User manual

Optec, Inc.
199 Smith Street ∙ Lowell, Michigan 49331 ∙ U.S.A.
www.optecinc.com
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Revision 10 –8/31/2012
Alnitak Astrosystems Flat-Fielding Devices
Installation Manual
Software Reference Guide
Alnitak Astrosystems
a division of Optec, Inc.
199 Smith Street ∙ Lowell, Michigan 49331
U.S.A.

Optec, Inc.
199 Smith Street ∙ Lowell, Michigan 49331 ∙ U.S.A.
www.optecinc.com
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Table of Contents
Generic Information......................................................................................................... 3
Choosing brightness settings............................................................................................ 3
Caring for your Product................................................................................................... 3
Flat fielding strategies....................................................................................................... 3
Installing the Drivers........................................................................................................ 4
Windows Alnitak Astrosystems Controller application Installation ........................... 7
Using the command line application, AACmd.exe ........................................................ 7
Using AACmd with CCD Autopilot................................................................................ 8
Upgrading firmware......................................................................................................... 8
Known issues ..................................................................................................................... 8
Flip-Flat Quick Start Guide........................................................................................... 12
Windows Alnitak Astrosystems Controller application using Flip-Flat.................... 14
Using the command line application, AACmd.exe ...................................................... 17
Flat-Man Flat-Man-L Quick Start Guide..................................................................... 19
Windows Alnitak Astrosystems Controller application using the Flat-Man............ 19
Using the command line application, AACmd.exe ...................................................... 22
Mounting the Flat-Man XL............................................................................................ 23
Flat-Man XL Quick Start Guide................................................................................... 24
Remotely powering down the HV supply between sessions........................................ 28
Windows Alnitak Astrosystems controller application using the Flat-Man XL....... 28
Using the command line application, AACmd.exe ...................................................... 28
Support............................................................................................................................. 29
Warranty information.................................................................................................... 29
Trademarks..................................................................................................................... 29

Optec, Inc.
199 Smith Street ∙ Lowell, Michigan 49331 ∙ U.S.A.
www.optecinc.com
Page 3of 29
Revision 10 –8/31/2012
Generic Information
The following information applies to all Alnitak Astrosystems devices.
Choosing brightness settings
The brightness range has been designed to accommodate a variety of telescopes and
filters. The low end should be used for normal wide band imaging filters, and the upper
end for narrow band filter such as Ha, OIII, and S2. Experiment with various setting for
each filter. Current imaging practice is to adjust the brightness level to give mid-range
ADU values (around 30000 for a 16 bit camera) with short exposure times. We suggest a
2 second exposure for wideband filters. Narrow band filters will require longer exposure
times (and higher brightness settings) to reach acceptable ADU values.
Caring for your Product
Very little maintenance should be required beyond gentle cleaning of the diffuser (the
white plastic that the light shines through). We suggest cleaning the diffuser with a soft
optical cloth after blowing off any particles to minimize scratching. Heavy soiling may
require gentle rubbing with a glass cleaner or mild soap and water.
Flat fielding strategies
We have found that it is best to take darks at night so that there is no risk of light leaks in
the optical path. With these devices, there’s no rush to get all your filters exposed at
twilight, so don’t scrimp on exposures. Remember that the noise levels decrease as the
square root of the number of exposures, so a master flat of 36 frames will have half the
noise of a master flats consisting of 10 frames.
Don’t forget to take a set of dark frames of the same exposure length (and temperature) as
the flat frames. No bias frames are needed if the flat and darks are of the same exposure
length. For short flat field frames (<10s) you may find that simple bias frames are
adequate for dark subtraction. In all cases, make sure you dark (or bias) correct your flat
field frames before using them to flat field your images.
You can find out more about flat fielding on our website: www.alnitakastro.com.

Optec, Inc.
199 Smith Street ∙ Lowell, Michigan 49331 ∙ U.S.A.
www.optecinc.com
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Installing the Drivers
When the device is plugged into the PC for the first time, a driver may need to be
installed. If the PC is connected to the web, the driver will be found, downloaded and
installed by Windows. The driver is also installed in the directory where the Alnitak
application was installed. If you don’t have an internet connection you can navigate to the
CDM folder created by unzipping the CDM zipfile in the applications folder. See Known
Issues in section 3 for more detail.
Windows XP ™ :
If connected to the web, click on the Found New Hardware balloon
Under “…search for software?” select Yes, this time only, and Next. If not connected to
the web, select No, and navigate to the driver included in the Alnitak installation
directory.
Click “Install the software automatically and Next
You should see the following screen

Optec, Inc.
199 Smith Street ∙ Lowell, Michigan 49331 ∙ U.S.A.
www.optecinc.com
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Click Finish.
A second driver will be installed in the same way
Now click Finish and the install is complete

Optec, Inc.
199 Smith Street ∙ Lowell, Michigan 49331 ∙ U.S.A.
www.optecinc.com
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Windows Vista ™:
If connected to the web, click on the “Locate and install driver software.
Windows will search the web for the first driver and install it. Repeat for second driver.
When Windows has installed both drivers, the COM port that is being used by the
Alnitak device will be displayed as shown below. Click Close to finish.

Optec, Inc.
199 Smith Street ∙ Lowell, Michigan 49331 ∙ U.S.A.
www.optecinc.com
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Windows Alnitak Astrosystems Controller
application Installation
This application was developed using Microsoft Visual Studio C# 2005. It requires the
user’s PC to have Microsoft .NET 2.0 SP1 installed before it can be used. The Flat-Man
installer will do that for you if necessary. Your PC must be connected to the web for this
to be successful. If Microsoft Internet Explorer™ is your default browser the installation
will be done from within the browser. You can also use other browsers but you will need
to save the .NET installer and then run it outside of the web browser.
Using the command line application, AACmd.exe
This is a command line application for controlling Flip-Flat, Flat-Man and Flat-Man XL.
The Windows application must be closed before the AACmd.exe application can be run.
From the command prompt type "<path>/AACmd" followed by a COM port
number and a command and, optionally a switch (where the path points to the installation
directory).
The (case insensitive) single letter commands are:
A find all Alnitak devices and the COM ports they are associated with
C close (works with Flip-Flat only)
O open (works with Flip-Flat only)
L turn on light
D turn off light
Bxxx set brightness. Can be a 1,2, or 3 digit number between 0-255
G get brightness from device
V get AACmd.exe version number
F get device firmware version number
S silent: issue command and close window immediately after command has
completed. If this command is not used the console window displays for 3 seconds.

Optec, Inc.
199 Smith Street ∙ Lowell, Michigan 49331 ∙ U.S.A.
www.optecinc.com
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For example:
“AACmd” A will list the COM ports of connected devices
"AACmd” 6 o will open the Flip-Flat on COM 6.
A message will be displayed in the command window reflecting the result or an error
message. The command window will remain open for 3 seconds.
“AACmd” b34 s will set the brightness to level 34 and immediately close the console
window. Note: if a number outside the 0-255 range is entered it will be limited to 0-255.
A file named fflog.txt (in the same directory as AACmd.exe) will be generated (and
appended to) whenever AACmd is run.
Using AACmd with CCD Autopilot
AACmd.exe permits access to the device controls from within other applictions.
AACmd can be used with CCD Autopilot. Check the CCDAutopilot help file
for the latest instructions on integration.
NOTE:
As of version 1.1.0.0, the name of this application has changed from “ffcommand” to
“AACmd” and the name of the folder that contains it in your Program Files/Alnitak
Astrosystems folder has changed from Flip-Flat Controller to Alnitak Astrosystems
Controller. For existing customers using the command line program from CCD
Autopilot or other telescope control applications, if you upgrade to version 1.1.0.0
you will need to change the path and filename information in your control
application so your device will continue to work properly.
Upgrading firmware
Alnitak Astrosystems products have field-updatable firmware. Please do not attempt to
update firmware unless specifically instructed to do so by us.
Known issues
1) Some users have reported a timeout is reached before the cover reaches the open or
closed limit when the unit is plugged into a powered USB hub with several other USB
devices connected. We suggest only high quality powered hubs be used with Alnitak
devices. If you do have timeout problems, remove some of the devices from the hub,
plug the device directly into a USB port on the computer, or add another self-powered

Optec, Inc.
199 Smith Street ∙ Lowell, Michigan 49331 ∙ U.S.A.
www.optecinc.com
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USB hub in daisy-chain fashion to the first USB hub that only has the device plugged
into it. Bus powered hubs may not work with the Alnitak device.
2) We use an FTDI USB-to-serial converter in our control electronics that is quite
common in astronomical (and other) USB accessories. The Alnitak Astrosystems
controller uses the latest FTDI drivers and .dll's, and these will be installed automatically
(as per our manual's instructions) when you first plug in the USB cable from one of our
products if you have no other FTDI USB accessories.
If you have already installed other FTDI components on your PC they may interfere with
our product's proper installation. These FTDI problems come in two flavors:
1. Some cameras don’t play nice with early versions of our software. Contact us
if you have an older unit and start having problems with a new (to you) camera.
Our latest software takes care of this and we can let you know how to upgrade
your older unit.
2. We have found that if your drivers are old, you may get an "I/O" error when
you start up our controller application. You should update all FTDI devices on
your PC to the same driver version. Open Device Manager, expand Ports, right-
click Properties, and the Driver tab to check and update each device using an
FTDI chipset. The current version as of this writing is 2.8.14.0. Be sure all
devices are using the same driver version.
If you do get the error, you will need to run an FTDI uninstaller program that we have
included in the Alnitak Astrosystems installation directory. To run the uninstaller,
navigate to the installation directory and unzip the CDMUnistaller archive. Once the
archive is expanded, run CDMUninstallerGUI.exe. You'll get a window like this after
you click on the "Add" button:

Optec, Inc.
199 Smith Street ∙ Lowell, Michigan 49331 ∙ U.S.A.
www.optecinc.com
Page 10 of 29
Revision 10 –8/31/2012
Click on the "Remove Devices" button to remove the old FTDI files.
Now unplug the USB cable from your Alnitak Astrosystems device and reboot your
computer. Once the computer has restarted, plug the USB cable back in and let the
computer check the web for drivers. You should see the "device installed correctly."
We have found that some systems require you to manually select the driver files. We
have included all the necessary drivers from FTDI in our install directory as a zipped file
called “CDM xxxxx WHQL Certified.zip” (where xxxxx is the version number). If
windows prompts you for FTDIbus.sys, you can unzip the folder to a newly created
folder you should call “CDMxxxxx”. Navigate to that new folder and then to the i386
folder inside when Windows asks where the drivers are located.
Once the proper files have been installed, all legacy FTDI USB accessories will still
work.