Images Plus Camera Control (IPCC) is commercial software by Mike Unsold. It will control your camera and record Live View for high-resolution planetary imaging for most Canon DSLR cameras with Live View, as well as most recent Nikon DSLR Cameras. It will also control many astronomical CCD cameras.

In addition to capturing Live View for planetary work, IPCC will also automate an imaging session for long-exposure deep-sky imaging.

Three great things about IPCC:

• It's powerful and full of features.

• It records uncompressed Live View video.

• It will automate focusing with an absolute-position ASCOM motorized focuser.

Figure 1: The Images Plus Camera Control interface.

Images Plus 4.5 camera control will capture about 23-28 frames per second from Live View on a Windows 7 computer with a fast hard drive. Slower computers will record lower framing rates. Each frame from the Live View video is recorded as an uncompressed 24-bit color image. It will record 1024 x 680 with live view from the T2i to a computer, which gives you a larger field, but a slower framing rate than using 640 x 480 Movie Crop Mode at 60 fps recorded in the camera. Larger fields can be especially helpful for subjects such as large sunspot groups or hydrogen-alpha flares on the Sun, and craters on the Moon.

IPCC records Live View in an Sequential Image Data (SID) file format. You will need Images Plus image processing (a very powerful image-processing program) to open the SID file and align and process it. You can also convert the SID file to a series of single frame TIFFs or BMPs that will open inAutoStakkert!, AviStack, or RegiStax for multi-point alignment, stacking and sharpening.

Note that the SID files produced by recording Live View can become very large very quickly because they are uncompressed. Be sure to have a lot of empty space on your hard drive for a night's imaging.

IPCC also helps you to focus on a star with Live View with Half-Flux Diameter (HFD) focus metrics before moving to your planetary subject. It can also auto-focus if you have an ASCOM-controlled absolute-position motorized focuser on your telescope with Auto v-curve focus or manual graphical focus metrics including HFD, FWHM, and max contrast.

IPCC Step-by-Step Procedure for Planetary Imaging

• Turn off your camera.

• Turn on your computer.

• Connect the camera to the computer with the Canon USB cable.

• Turn on your camera.

• If Canon's EOS Utility launches, just close it. If another dialog box opens asking you what to do, just select nothing, and close that dialog box.

• Launch the IPCC program.

• Go to the Camera Menu and select your camera (Figure 2).

Figure 2. IPCC Camera Selection.

• A settings information box will come up telling you that you need to set your camera so that Live View is enabled and mirror lock up is disabled. Ok it. (Figure 3).

  Figure 3. Settings Info Box.

  
  

• Click the Connect button (Figure 4). The Camera DSLR Control dialog box will come up.

  Figure 4. Camera Control Dialog Box.

  
  

  Here you can select where to save still images. Pick from:

  • Camera
  • Computer
  • Camera and Computer

  You can also select the directory on your computer where the images will be saved, and decide how you would like to handle the images after they have been released to your computer.

  Other information is also displayed in this dialog, such as battery level, and space left in memory.

• Click on the Settings and Live View tab at the top of the Camera DSLR Control dialog box (Figure 5). This is where the main action will take place for recording Live View videos.

  Figure 5. Camera Control Dialog Box.

  
  

• Exposure Control - You can adjust the shutter speed Time Value (Tv), the Aperture Value (Av) for a camera lens, the ISO, White Balance, Size/Quality of still images, and Color Space (Figure 5, Number 1).

• Live View - Start and Stop Live View display inside of Images Plus on your computer (Figure 5, Number 2).

• Save Sequential Image Data - Check Save Live View Video in SID File to start recording Live View to your computer (Figure 5, Number 3). You can name the file and specify how many frames, or how many seconds, of video you want to record. Just uncheck the box to terminate video recording early. After the recording ends, the number of frames per second that were recorded will be displayed.

• Zoom Display - Allows you to zoom the image inside the Images Plus display (Figure 5, Number 4). It does not affect the size of the image that is recorded in the video.

• Camera Zoom - Allows you to select between 1x and 5x magnification. This setting does affect the size of the image that is recorded in the video (Figure 5, Number 5). You should select 5x to get you as close as possible to 1:1 pixel resolution for high-resolution planetary imaging. The arrowed buttons will allow you to move the box around to center the image in the step size specified.

• Lens Focus - Will focus a camera lens if it has autofocus capability and it that is activated on the lens itself for Canon cameras (Figure 5, Number 6). For Nikon cameras, the autofocus switch is on the camera body. Single-arrowed buttons move the lens in small focus increments. Double-arrowed buttons move the lens in larger increments. The bottom buttons move the lens to its farthest settings on each end of the focus range. Generally we will not be using this for high-magnification planetary work because we will be shooting through a telescope, but it might be useful for lunar work with a long telephoto lens.

• Star HFD and Collimation Flux Center - Check the Display Star HFD (half flux diameter) and Flux Center to place a cross hair around the star and to see the HFD readout (Figure 5, Number 7).

Focusing

• Before recording a Live View video of a planet, or the Moon, we need to first focus on a star. See the section on focusing for a more detailed discussion on focusing. Find a bright star as close to your planetary subject as possible.

• Click on the Start button under the Live View section (Figure 5, Number 2). The Live View window will now display the Live View image on your computer that is normally displayed on the LCD on the back of the camera.

• Depending on the brightness of the star you have chosen for focusing, you may need to adjust the brightness in the Exposure Control section at the top (Figure 5, Number 1) so that your planetary image is correctly exposed. The star that you use for the HFD readout should not be overexposed.

• Under Camera Zoom select 5x to magnify the image to give you 1:1 pixel resolution (Figure 5 Number 5). You can also enlarge the image with the display (Figure 5, Number 4).

• Under the Star Size HFD and Collimation Flux Center set a number of frames based on the seeing. Then check on Display Star HFD and Flux Center (Figure 5 Number 7).

Figure 6. Metric-assisted focusing. The Star Size HFD section is enlarged here at left for clarity.

• Adjust the focus until the star's size and HFD numerical readout is as small as possible (Figure 6). Use a star that is not saturated. Adjust the exposure or ISO if necessary. Focusing is covered in more detail in later in this chapter.

Imaging Your Subject

• Go to your planetary subject and center it in the field.

• If you are using a higher-end Canon camera, be sure that exposure simulation is turned on in the menus. On Digital Rebel models such as the T2i (550D), T3i (600D), T4i (650D), exposure simulation is always turned on by default and there is no menu setting for this.

• Depending on the brightness of the object, you will need to adjust the brightness in the Exposure Control section at the top so that your planetary image is correctly exposed. You can adjust the shutter speed Time Value (Tv), the Aperture Value (Av) for a camera lens, and the ISO. While shooting through a telescope, you will only be able to adjust the shutter speed and ISO (Figure 5, Number 1). Remember that some laptop display's brightness and color will vary with viewing angle, so do some tests so that you learn the display characteristics of your screen. It is generally better to adjust so you have a bright image as underexposed images will be more noisy.

Figure 7. Recording Live View video as an SID file in Images Plus Camera Control. The Save Sequential Image Data section is enlarged here at bottom for clarity

• Name the file under SID File Name (Figure 7, Number 2).

• Under the Save Sequential Image Data section, select how long you want to record the video. You can specify a certain number of seconds or a certain number of frames (Figure 7, Number 3).

• Check Save Live View Video in SID File (Figure 7, Number 1) to begin recording the specified number of seconds or frames. You can uncheck this box to terminate a recording before it is finished.

• Be sure to record your video at 5x Camera Zoom to get as close as possible to 1:1 pixel resolution for high-resolution planetary imaging.

Other Tabs

There are two other tabs in the Canon DSLR Control dialog box (Figure 5).

• The Focus Metrics tab is used for automated focusing with a absolute-position ASCOM motorized focuser.

• The Capture tab is used for automating capture of a series of still images for long-exposure deep-sky astrophotography.