You've waited... you've pondered... you've wondered: when will SkySight be released?
Wait no longer— SkySight is here!
After more than a year since our original announcement, Southern Stars Systems is releasing the current version of SkySight as a free public beta. We haven't yet implemented all of the features we'd have liked, and there are still a few kinks that need to be worked out. But even so, SkySight— right now— is such a useful product that we couldn't justify keeping it from the astronomical community any longer.
And best of all, it's free!
But that's not all: we have released a large portion of SkySight's source code as well. We're making SkySight an open-source project, and invite astronomical-imaging enthusiasts to actively participate in its development. With the source code to SkySight, anyone with a knowledge of C programming will be able to do things like add support for their own cameras, add custom image-processing routines, extend the list of supported file formats, or even port the entire program to other operating systems! Click here for more details.
Can't wait to try it? Just click to go to our SkySight download page. Otherwise, read on to learn more about what's in store.
SkySight is a new program from Southern Stars Systems for CCD camera control and astronomical image processing. It can control many of the astronomical CCD cameras currently on the market, and it makes the image processing tasks commonly required for astronomical images straightforward and automatic.
SkySight is intended to be used as a companion to our sky simulation and telescope control program, SkyChart III. SkyChart III helps you find your way around the sky. SkySight lets you see what's in it. Together, SkyChart III and SkySight provide a complete solution for sky simulation, telescope control, CCD camera control, and image processing. They represent an unprecedented combination of features, ease-of-use, and value for serious amateur astronomer.
It's free!
However, Macintosh users will need to purchase a parallel-port card in order to communicate with the cameras that SkySight supports. Right now, SkySight supports several parallel-port cards, both PCI (for desktop Macs) and PCMCIA (for PowerBooks). The PCI cards cost $30-$40; the PCMCIA cards cost $130.
Please note that Southern Stars Systems does not sell any parallel-port cards directly, either PCI or PCMCIA! However, you can find other vendors who will sell you those cards on our SkySight download page.
Due to a number of factors, SkySight's development proceeded more slowly than we'd anticipated. Some of the issues were technical; others were legal and financial. It also became clear that the market for astronomical imaging software was smaller than we'd anticipated— you CCD owners out there are an elite bunch!
However, too much good work went into the program for us to feel comfortable abandoning it altogether. We've decided that releasing the current program as a public beta, and continuing its development as an open-source project, would be the best way to bring the result of our efforts to the astronomical community, and ensure that the product has a future.
SkySight currently supports the following CCD cameras:
Note that all of these cameras are supported on both the PC and Macintosh. We are working with other CCD manufacturers to support additional cameras in future versions. Support for the following cameras is currently under development:
If you're a C programmer, and would like to help us add support for the cameras listed above, or if you have another CCD camera you'd like SkySight to support, we'd be very interested in talking to you. Send us an e-mail or call us toll-free at (866) 887-7827.
No. Even if you don't have a CCD camera, SkySight will still work perfectly well as an image-processing program. It can read and write image files in a number of commonly-found formats, like JPEG, GIF, TIFF, PICT, and BMP. It can be used, for instance, with scans or Photo CDs of photographic (film) images.
PC users: need a Pentium or higher processor; Windows 95, 98, or Me; 32 MB of RAM; and 30 MB of disk space.
Mac users: need a PCI Power Macintosh computer; Mac OS 8 or higher; 32 MB of RAM; and 30 MB of disk space.
Please note: the current version of SkySight will not run under Windows NT, Windows 2000, or Mac OS X.
Adapting the program to run under Windows NT/2000 would involve some relatively straightforward changes to the parallel-port communication code. Porting to Mac OS X would require rewriting the parallel-port driver code, and porting the interface code to the Mac OS "Carbon" APIs.
If you'd like to help us port SkySight to Windows NT/2000 or Mac OS X, we'd love to talk to you! Send us an e-mail or call us toll-free at (866) 887-7827.
While SkySight will run on a computer with 32 MB of RAM, we reccommend 64 MB of RAM or more. This is especially true if you have a large CCD, such as the SBIG ST-8, or if you expect to be processing large images. Big images take lots of memory!
We also reccommend a computer with a fairly fast processor. While SkySight will run on any Pentium or PowerPC computer, we reccommend a 200 MHz or faster processor for the best experience. Processing large images requires lots of computing horsepower, as anyone with Photoshop experience can attest to!
Some additional notes for Mac users:
SkySight requires Mac OS 8 or higher. This is because it uses the new controls supplied with the OS 8 Appearance Manager. If you have System 7, you can try installing a special version of the Appearance Manager and running SkySight on top of that, but we don't reccommend or support this configuration.
The parallel-port cards supplied with the Mac version of SkySight require a PCI desktop or PowerBook Macintosh. You can run SkySight on a non-PCI Power Mac (e.g. the 6100, 7100, 8100, or PowerBook 5300 and 1400), but you won't be able to use the PCI or PCMCIA parallel-port cards, or control any parallel-port CCD cameras.
Specifically, the Power Macintosh computers which can be used with the SkySight parallel-port cards are: the Power Mac 7200, 7500, 7600, 8500, 8600, 9500, 9600, and all G3s and G4s; the Powerbook 2400, 3400, G3, and G4.
Unlike most general-purpose image-editing programs (like Photoshop, GraphicConverter, or Paint Shop Pro), SkySight lets you view the entire dynamic range of an image. You aren't just limited to 8 bits or 255 levels of red, green, and blue. This is especially important in astronomy, where CCD cameras commonly output 16-bit images with 65,000 levels of intensity. A practical example of when this kind of thing is important is an image with a star thousands of times brighter than a faint nearby galaxy. You simply can't see all the detail in such an image if your image-viewing program can only handle 8-bit data.
SkySight can perform all of the basic image-processing operations you'd expect of any image-editing program: e.g. rotating, scaling, trimming, padding images. There are also easy adjustments for brightness/contrast and color balance, and filters for sharpening, smoothing, and removing noise from images.
More advanced image-processing features include reconstructing RGB color images from separate red-, green-, and blue-filter images, as well as the inverse of this process (i.e., separating RGB color images into their red, green, and blue components.)
SkySight can also perform a number of operations especially relevant to astronomical image processing, like dark-frame subtraction or flat-field division. Moreover, we've tried to make these operations-- which can become quite tedious-- as effortless and automatic as possible.
SkySight will eventually let you combine many separate short-exposure images into a single, long "virtual exposure" for greatly improved contrast and detail. You'll also be able to create a huge mosaic out many individual images by using common stars along the image borders as registration points.
Also under development are a number of tools especially designed for astronomical image analysis. SkySight will be able to very accurately measure the positions of objects in an image (like asteroids), and calculate their corresponding right ascensions and declinations. It will also also take magnitude measurements for asteroid or variable-star observers.
Yes! But please be aware that SkySight is a work-in-progress, so these screen shots may be out of date.
This is the camera exposure control panel in the Macintosh version of SkySight. It provides easy mouse-driven controls for setting the exposure length, filter, antiblooming, and other camera features. Mouse control is especially important at night, when it's nearly impossible to use the keyboard!
This is an actual image of the Omega Nebula (M17) in Sagittarius, taken with the Macintosh version of SkySight and a Celestron PixCell 255 CCD camera.
This is the image display control panel in the Windows version of SkySight. It lets you easily set the intensity range and color schemeused to display the image data.
This is an image of the moon taken through an SBIG ST-4 CCD camera, using the Windows version of SkySight.
Once again, these are screen shots of a work in progress. These only scratch the surface of the program and hint at its capabilities. Expect to see more on this site soon.
If you have more questions, please feel free to send us an e-mail or give us a phone call. Our toll free number is (866) 887-7827, available Monday-Friday from 10 AM to 5 PM Pacific Standard Time.
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This page was last updated on 26 April 2003.