In June I obtained an Atik 314L+ cooled CCD camera which I plan to use primarily for spectroscopy (see Shelyak Instruments). As a Linux user I needed a Linux USB driver and also an easy-to-use image capture program.
Three tools need to be set up to use the camera:
- Atik linux driver
- Wrapper interface known as libINDI which is widely adopted for astronomical CCD cameras, filter wheels and mounts. It is based on a client-server model using XML to pass commands between the client (for example KStars) and a server which interacts with the USB device such as a camera.
- KStars, which contains a module named Ekos for image capture. Version 2.2 or later is required.
1. Atik linux driver
Install the Debian or RPM atikccd package from CloudMakers.eu. Both 32-bit (X86) and 64-bit (X86_64) are supported as well as ARM11 architecture used in the Raspberry Pi.
Check the installation was successful by attaching the Atik camera and running:
atik_ccd_test
I've tried Ubuntu 12.04 and 14.04 without any problem.
2. libINDI
On Ubuntu the package libindi0 and libindi-data can be installed from the repository. The latest version (0.9.8 at time of writing) is available by adding Jason Mutlaq's repository.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mutlaqja/ppa
You will also need libindi-dev if you build KStars from source (see below), or if you plan to write your own libINDI client. (Fun project for a rainy weekend?)
3. KStars
You need at least version 2.2 for the Ekos image capture module, which I find easy to use and well-integrated with the rest of KStars. As it's a KDE program you need several support libraries to run on Gnome-based Ubuntu.Ubuntu 14.04
Simply install KStars from the Ubuntu Software Centre (or using apt-get on the command line).Ubuntu 12.04
I have a Dell Mini 10 netbook using the Intel Poulsbo chipset which may not be fully supported in Ubuntu 14.04. As I have OpenGL acceleration working more-or-less well I decided to stick with Ubuntu 12.04 which ships with KStars 2.0. Hence I needed to build the latest KStars (tag v4.14.0 at the time of writing; the tag corresponds to the targeted KDE version) to get the Ekos module.
There are helpful instructions at Building KStars. In addition to the package dependencies listed there, you may need to install.
apt-get install libindi-dev kdelibs5-experimental-dev
Finally you should be able to select Atik CCD from the menu and capture a test exposure which can be saved in FITS format. The image below shows a spectrum of Spica taken on 14th June. Spica was close to the window frame hence the stray light!
