FIT file from Starlight Xpress Oculus Sky Camera

[martin farmer]

Hello Group,

I have recently obtained one of these camera's and it produces a FIT file that Maxim DL can load and display.
But when I load it into Pixinsight and use the screen transfer function nothing is displayed within the image.
The only thing that seems to happen is the image goes from a grey rectangle to a white one.
I have tried manually playing with the histogram but cannot get anything from this FITS file.

Anyone with any idea's

I wanted to load and hopefully use the annotation function to its full potential.

Thanks for reading this

Regards All

Martin



Further experimentation by loading into Maxim DL and saving out FITS file under a different name and subsequently loaded into Pixinsight
gives the following:-

*** PCL Exception: PCL FITS Format Support: Unable to open FITS file:
/Users/me/Desktop/IMG00275M.fit
CFITSIO error message stack:
01 : Extension doesn't start with SIMPLE or XTENSION keyword. (ffrhdu)
02 : SIMPLE?=?T/°BITPIX?=?16/°NAXIS?=?2/°NAXIS1?=?1392/°NAXIS2?=?1040/°OBJECT?=
03 : ffopen could not interpret primary array header of file:
04 : /Users/me/Desktop/IMG00275M.fit
05 : This does not look like a FITS file.

[pfile]

almost seems like a dos2unix problem - wrong type of carriage returns.

however, some fits files are compressed in some format that cfitsio can't read. it could be that too, but not sure if the header would show up as ascii text in that situation.

rob

[martin farmer]

Here is what Pixinsight says about the FITS header

* Start time: 2014/06/22 18:48:58 UTC
* Execution time: 1.018 s
*/
var P = new FITSHeader;
P.keywords = [ // name, value, comment
["SIMPLE", "T", ""],
["BITPIX", "16", ""],
["NAXIS", "2", ""],
["NAXIS1", "1392", ""],
["NAXIS2", "1040", ""],
["BZERO", "+3.2767000000E+04", ""],
["BSCALE", "+1.0000000000E+00", ""],
["OBJECT", "\'\'", ""],
["TELESCOP", "\'\'", ""],
["INSTRUME", "\'Starlight Xpress CCD\'", ""], // row 10
["OBSERVER", "\'\'", ""],
["ORIGIN", "\'\'", ""],
["DATE-OBS", "\'2014-06-21\'", ""],
["TIME-OBS", "\'01:22:16\'", ""],
["HISTORY", "", "= \'\'"],
["HISTORY", "", "= \'\'"],
["HISTORY", "", "= \'\'"],
["HISTORY", "", "= \'\'"],
["HISTORY", "", "= \'\'"],
["HISTORY", "", "= \'\'"], // row 20
["HISTORY", "", "= \'\'"],
["HISTORY", "", "= \'\'"],
["HISTORY", "", "= \'\'"],
["HISTORY", "", "= \'\'"],
["HISTORY", "", "= \'\'"],
["HISTORY", "", "= \'\'"],
["HISTORY", "", "= \'\'"],
["HISTORY", "", "= \'\'"],
["HISTORY", "", "= \'\'"],
["HISTORY", "", "= \' \'"], // row 30
["HISTORY", "", "= \' \'"],
["HISTORY", "", "= \' \'"],
["HISTORY", "", "= \' \'"],
["COMMENT", "", "= \' \'"],
["COMMENT", "", "= \' \'"],
["COMMENT", "", "= \' \'"],
["COMMENT", "", "= \' \'"],
["PIXWIDTH", "6.4500000000E-03", ""],
["PIXHEIGH", "6.4500000000E-03", ""],
["SATURATE", "32768", ""], // row 40
["EXPTIME", "2.0000000000E+01", ""],
["FOCALLEN", "0.0000000000E+00", ""],
["APERTURE", "0.0000000000E+00", ""],
["FILTER", "\'Blank\'", ""]
];

[Philip de Louraille]

I too use a Starlight Express Oculus All-Sky camera.
I use PI every day to process the 900+ pics I take during a night.
No problems...

[martin farmer]

Hello Phillip,

There is obviously something I am not doing then.
Would it be possible to discuss in a PM off the forum.

Regards

Martin

[RobC]

Hi Martin,

I have a  Starlight Xpress SXVR-MR25C and the capture software that comes with it writes none compliant fit files that cannot be read into PixInSight.  MaximDL will read them but not PIxInSight.

I wrote a small program to patch the SXVR-M25C fit files and make them fit compliant. Fit requires fixed length records ( from memory 2550 bytes ) . The StarLight Xpress capture software for my camera does not pad the last record out to correct number of bytes. My program pads the last record out to the correct size.

If you PM me I can send you the program.

Cheers

Rob

[Philip de Louraille]

Hi Martin,

Come to think of it, since I use a Macintosh, I do not use the native program that comes with the camera. Sorry for the confusion.