Control

Description

Choices or options

Minutes

Minutes portion of the exposure duration.

Enter duration as short or as long as your camera permits.

Seconds

Seconds portion of the exposure duration. Use the shift and control keys to modify mouse left-click behavior:

SHIFT+CLICK: tenths CONTROL+CLICK: tens SHIFT+CTRL+CLICK: hundredths.

Enter duration as short or long as your camera permits.

Delay (s)

The delay before exposures. The delay will also occur before the first exposure.  Use shift and control keys to modify mouse left click behavior:

SHIFT+CLICK: tenths CONTROL+CLICK: tens SHIFT+CTRL+CLICK: hundredths.

You can use a short delay to allow autoguiding to re-center a star after an image download, or use a long delay to monitor changing weather conditions.

Series of

How many images to take in a series.

From 1 to 500.

Filter

The filter to set on the color filter wheel. If filter wheel is not present, this will be disabled.

Depends on which color filter you have installed, if any. Typically, includes at least Clear, Red, Blue, and Green.

Subframe On

Indicates whether the image will be the full frame of the CCD detector, or a partial frame.

None.

Subframe Size

Click this button to manually enter the subframe coordinates and size. Most of the time, you will create a subframe by clicking and dragging in an image window.

Up to the full size of the CCD detector in pixels.

Bin

Sets the bin mode.

Will vary with CCD detector, commonly:

1x1

2x2

3x3.

Can be specified up to 255x255.

Frame Type

 Determines whether you are taking a light image, or creating a reduction image.

Light, Bias, Dark, or Flat-Field.

Reduction

This is active only if you chose Light as the frame type. It determines whether image reduction occurs automatically as you are taking images, and if so, what type of reduction.

None – no image reduction is performed.

AutoDark – automatically take a dark frame after the light frame.

Bias, Flat, Dark – use a reduction group created prior to taking the image.

Reduction Group

This is active only if you choose Bias, Flat, Dark as the reduction setting. You use it to apply custom bias, flat, and/or dark frames to each image as it is downloaded.

You will see a list of reduction groups you have created. The default groups are Imager and Autoguider.

To new window

When checked, each image will be downloaded into a new window. When unchecked, a single window is used for all downloaded images, with the most current image replacing the previously downloaded image. If AutoSave is off, images are lost when they are replaced by new images if To new window is not checked.

None.

Display image in color

Mark this option to show images acquired with a single-shot color CCD camera in color. Clear this option to display the image in grayscale only.

Critical Note: The Display Image In Color checkbox is only visible when CCDSoft is connected to, and communicating with, a color CCD camera.

In other words, when the Connect button on the Camera > Setup tab is clicked, CCDSoft asks the camera driver whether or not the camera supports color, and then shows or hides this checkbox accordingly.

This option applies to single-shot SBIG cameras only (such as the ST-2000XM), and is on by default.

Imager

Selects the Imaging detector as the active detector for focusing and imaging, when a dual-detector camera is present.

None.

Autoguider

Selects the Autoguider detector as the active detector for focusing and imaging, when a dual-detector camera is present

None.

Take Image/Series

Click this button to take one or more images using the current settings. Take Image appears if Series of is set to 1; Take Series appears if it is set to more than 1.

None.

Abort

Click to abort taking an image. Active only while an image is being exposed or downloaded.

None.