Player one Planetary camera User manual

Planetary Camera Manual

V1.1

High Quality

Use high quality electronic components

Regular Hexagon

Scientific and technological, look luxurious and

cool, highlighting the style of top players

Product Design

Innovation

Focus on independent intellectual property

rights and product innovation

Various Product line

Covers all aspects of astrophotography

Planetary Camera Design

DDR buffer

256MB DDR3 Buffer

It helps stabilize and secure data transmission, it effectively avoids frame dropping and greatly reduces readout noise.

Planetary Camera is first product line we provided

DPS technology

Dead Pixel Suppression

Dead pixels (including both hot pixels and cold pixels) of the image are swept away.

Sensor Tilt Plate

To obtain a flatter image field

When do solar imaging with prominence telescope, the Newton ring is annoying. Smoother solar image without Newton ring could be taken by

adjusting the sensor tilt plate. Besides, when you use a planetary camera for DSO lucky imaging, if you found the stars in corner are not

perfect, you can adjust the sensor tilt plate to obtain a flatter image field. get a much smaller field curvature of the telescope.

Overvoltage and overcurrent protection mechanism

Camera hardware protection

Player One ensures the safety of your camera and other equipment through overvoltage and overcurrent protection mechanisms.

Catalog

Driver and software installation and setup

Familiar with capture through a telescope

How to use ASCOM

03 How to do real astrophotography

How to setup your camera

How to get preview image

Start from Lunar imaging

ASCOM platform and camera driver installation

01 How to setup your camera

Driver and software installation and setup

1. Open Player One website to download:

https://player-one-astronomy.com/service/software/

1.Driver and Software installation

2. Driver installation（Don’t connect the camera before installation）

1) Double-click the driver installation package to enter the

installation page

2) Click “Install” and wait for completion

3)In first installation, your computer will show up Windows

Security window, please click “Install”.

4)Click “Install Finished” to finish installation.

For planetary imaging, Sharpcap 3.3 and upper is supported.

For DSO imaging, ASCOM 6.5 is supported.

Windows 7/8/10 is supported.

Linux and Mac OS will be supported soon.

1.Driver and Software installation

5) After installation, connect the camera to the computer USB3.0 port

through USB cable, and the camera will be automatically recognized.

6) View the camera status in Device Manager

1.Driver and Software installation

3. Install capture software

1) After the installation of the driver, you will need to install

a capture software such as SharpCap.

2) Select the installation path (the default path is generally

recommended).

3) After the installation is completed, open the software.

4) Open Camera: under the Cameras menu, go to Player

One Cameras and select the available camera models.

5) Check FPS

FPS is a very important parameter, if FPS show a normal value such like 99.8fps, means the camera can transmit

data to your computer normally.

1.Driver and Software installation

7) Check the preview. Adjust the exposure, watch the preview, you will see the change of brightness. That means the

camera is working normally.

6) Remove the camera cover

02 Level 1 - How to get preview image

Familiar with capture through a telescope

2. Level 1 How to get preview image

At the beginning, it was very hard to handle planetary imaging. We can start with an object 20 meters away and practice using telescope and camera.

2-1 Connect camera to telescope

1. First find a target through the eyepiece.

2. Level 1 How to get preview image

2. Remove the eyepiece and Diagonal of the telescope and

install the camera

(A refractor may need an extender to reach focus point better.)

1 2

3. Connect camera and PC through USB3.0 cable.

2-2 Preview on your screen

1. Adjust exposure

Open SharpCap and adjust the exposure to make the image bright but not totally white.

2. Level 1 How to get preview image

2. Refocus

Turn the focusing wheel of the telescope to focus again until get sharp previews.

2-3 Detailed explanation of camera shooting parameters

1. Capture Format

1）Capture Area (Resolution): There are several preset

options and you can also customize the resolution. For

the first use, it is recommended to shoot at the default

highest resolution. The lower resolution means that only

part of the area is read out (ROI mode), and the field of

view becomes narrower.

2）Color Space：RAW8, RGB24, RAW16, etc.

RAW8 and RAW16 output raw black and white data (need

to be converted to color via Debayer later), RGB24 can

directly output color data, but the amount of data will be

three times than RAW8.

3) Debayer Preview: Set “On”, you can see the color

preview on the left side.

2. Level 1 How to get preview image

2-3 Detailed explanation of camera shooting parameters

2. Level 1 How to get preview image

2. Camera Control

1) Exposure: the exposure time of a single frame of the

camera can be controlled (32us-2000s).Exposure for

planetary photography is usually around 10-50ms.

2) Gain: similar to ISO of DSLR, the lower the gain, the

more delicate the image looks and the larger the

dynamic range; The higher the gain, the more snow

spots the image looks, the lower the signal-to-noise

ratio, but the lower the readout noise.

2-4 Camera indoor testing（use Mars-C as example）

1. Setup suitable parameters

1) The output is set to AVI video

2) Select the maximum resolution of 1944*1096

3) Color video shooting in RGB24 mode

4) Set the exposure to 25ms

(can be appropriately reduced according to the image

brightness)

5) Gain set to 270

(can be appropriately reduced according to the image

brightness)

2. Level 1 How to get preview image

2-4 Camera indoor testing（use Mars-C as example）

2. Level 1 How to get preview image

2. Start capture a video

1) Find the shooting button in the top bar of SharpCap and click the “Start Capture”

button to pop up the dialog box.

2) Set the number of frames or the capture time limit.

3) Click to “Start” to capture a video.

4) The video will be saved on your computer after shooting

03 Level 2 - How to do real astrophotography

Start from Lunar imaging

3-1 Aim at the moon

3. Level 2 - How to do real astrophotography

Install astronomical equipment and aim at the moon

1) I believe you have some experience in astronomical observation, now the first step is to install the telescope according to your habits, aim it at the moon, and turn on

the automatic tracking function.

2) 2) Use the eyepiece to observe and focus your telescope to get a sharp view of the moon.

3-2 Shooting the moon

3. Level 2 - How to do real astrophotography

The basic process of lunar photography

1) Connect the camera to your PC, open the Sharpcap and start to get the preview. 2) Adjust the exposure and do coarse focusing. Only requires a rough view of the lunar surface.