[Laser] Astronomy frame stacking software

[James Whitfield]

Glen:

>From your reply:

> No sound card, but you do have to build up a CCD detector, including its
control circuitry - not a trivial task.

I concur it is no trivial task, but why build your own CCD detector?  The
units readily available to amateur astronomers would perform quite well for
the task at a price that is within the reach of hobbyists.  The
predictability of the performance may be the biggest advantage to the
homebrewer.

>
> You only need one CCD detector that way. These days, CCDs  are usually in
focal plane arrays. That can be used for pointing the receiver array if the
receiver optics create a real image of the transmitter. The computer then
needs only to locate the pixel that is under the image of the transmitter.
Again, non-trivial control circuitry for the CCD and some moderately
complicated software to use it.
>

Again, I question the advantage of a single detector.  ( This next probably
sounds like a put-down, but I only intend to show the tremendous difference
in what are standards of acceptable performance, as dirived from very
different goals, of the two hobbies. )  From what I have seen of the
description of the optics being used, most experimenters have no clue how
far or in what direction their units are out of focus.  The optical tube
assemblies probably would have so much wobble that small detectors cannot
hold the target if they were in crisp focus.  ( I am sure that even a very
kind amateur astronomer would consider our optical devices and mounts to be
out of the stone age. ) One of the benefits of the readily available staking
software is that it will compensate for the jiggle of the image in the frame
so that you do not have to hold the target on the same pixel.

Some targets may be single pixel, but there may be good reasons to use a
difuse target and average out the whole field.  And for either target you
might get a very pleasant surprise to find that an image may be easier to
aquire and once focused, have a greatly improved SNR.


James
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