ATS MaxImCCD info

Advanced Telescope Supplies
Australia's Premier CCD and Astro-Imaging Experts

New MaxIm DL Version 3
A revolution in CCD imaging!

MaxIm DL/CCD ^TM is widely recognized as the "gold standard" for astronomical CCD imaging.

The combination of powerful image processing capabilities, sophisticated CCD camera control, and remarkable ease of use has made MaxIm DL the software of choice for astronomers worldwide.

Now with the release of Version 3, MaxIm DL takes CCD imaging to new heights.

The powerful new capabilities of Version 3 include:

Enhanced image processing capabilities
New image editing tools
New scientific image analysis tools
Scripting now available for all major functions
Image processing plug-ins
Telescope and Focuser control *
Enhanced CCD camera control *
Autofocus *
Browser-based internet astronomy **

* Requires MaxIm DL/CCD version with camera and telescope control modules
** Requires MaxIm DL/CCD and ACP2 and PinPoint software from DC-3 Dreams.

Here is just a sample of the new capabilities of MaxIm DL Version 3:

Image Processing and Editing

New in MaxIm DL V3:

Batch file conversion /move/save.
Annotate images with text, lines, shapes, and rulers. Select color and font.
Arbitrary-angle rotation.
Photometry with light curve plotting.
PinPoint astrometry engine integration. Perform an astrometric analysis and read out accurate star positions.
Optimized double size.
User-defined transfer curve.
Rank filter.
Local adaptive filter.
Remove gradient.
MX7C camera color conversion with optional anti-alias.
Color adjust lets you select from variations of your image.
New combine modes.
Improved plotting tool now includes 3D.

Equipment Control
New in MaxIm DL/CCD V3:

The renowned MaxIm DL/CCD camera control features many upgrades, including enhanced autoguider capabilities, advanced sequencing, and more!
Control your telescope directly from MaxIm DL/CCD. Includes database lookup, slew and nudge, insertion of telescope position in FITS header, and auto-center.
Directly link to many popular telescopes (can also link to TheSky™ via the RASCOM interface supplied with Orchestrate™).
Link to digitally-controlled focusers including Optec TCF-S and RoboFocus for the most precise possible focusing.
Powerful and fast autofocus capability.

Enhanced Flexibility and Compatibility
New in MaxIm DL V3:

ASCOM-compatible scripting has been greatly extended, including image processing and control of CCD cameras, focusers, and telescopes.
Add your own image processing plug-ins using Visual Basic, Visual C++, Delphi, or other COM-capable programming languages. Use a combination of MaxIm DL's built-in features and your own algorithms. Sample code is included!
Support for third-party programs has been added. PinPoint astrometric reduction engine and ACP2 observatory scripting host/web server from DC-3 Dreams have been fully integrated. This means incredibly accurate astrometric measurements, automatic closed-loop telescope pointing, and even remote browser-based astronomy!

Introduction to MaxIm DL 3.0

Here is an example of one of the simplest image processing functions – adjusting color balance. In this case, you can equalize the background level between the three color planes, and independently scale each color plane.
The Auto button automatically determines the correct settings to make the background of the image black – with just a single click! Plus, you can simply click on a white or gray area of the image to set the color balance.
All of the image processing functions in MaxIm DL include a Preview Image. The preview can be dragged to an interesting part of the image by right-clicking on the image and dragging. The Zoom button allows you to zoom in on a small portion of the image. Once this is done, MaxIm DL will quickly show you the effect of the processing settings you are using. Once you are satisfied with the results, click OK to process the entire image.

The convenience of MaxIm DL's image processing functions is shown by the Digital Development command. This new command, also known as "DDP," produces amazing results on galaxy and other deep-sky images.
The user can select different filters, plus the required Background and Mid-level settings, and watch what happens to the Preview Image.

The DDP parameters can be determined automatically, or you can pick a brightness level just by clicking on the image – it's that simple.

Don't understand what a button is for? Just click the small "?" button at the top, then on the button. A description will pop up to explain how it works. You can also ask for a complete description of the entire dialog box.
Like most MaxIm DL functions, this command works equally well on black-and-white or color images.

Maximum Entropy Deconvolution (MaxEnt) is a sophisticated processing feature can be used to tighten up blurry images. It can reduce the effects of atmospheric seeing, telescope aberrations, and guiding errors. This animation shows how much the details in this galaxy's spiral arms improve after processing.
In order to work properly, MaxEnt requires a model of the blur and of the noise in the image. Both automated and manual tools are provided for this purpose. For beginners, a special "Wizard" leads you through the processing step-by-step.

Interested in color imaging? MaxIm DL makes that easier than ever. Choose from standard RGB techniques or advanced LRGB, CMY, and LCMY filter sets. Automatically equalize the background level. Align the color planes using our all-new Align Images tool.
Images not aligned? No problem. You can now automatically register images using our new star matching capability.

MaxIm DL Features

MaxIm DL runs under Windows 95^TM, Windows 98^TM, Windows ME^TM, Windows NT^TM 4.0, or Windows 2000^TM and includes these powerful features:

Easy to use!

Supports any image size to the limit of your memory
Pan and zoom images, multiple windows
Full-screen view mode - great for photographing the screen
Thumbnail images on image processing dialogs for a quick preview of the results
Convenient toolbar includes most commonly-used features
Full context-sensitive help
Wizards simplify complex image processing functions
Detailed 250 page manual with index

Image stretching and scaling

Quick-Stretch real-time contrast/brightness adjustment using the mouse
Changes to "screen stretch" do not affect contents of file
Convenient mouse-controlled stretch allows you to adjust min/max value or contrast/brightness
Stretch using sliders on image histogram w/zoom capability
Automatic stretch settings
Permanently apply gamma, logarithm or linear stretching to an image
Advanced histogram specification (equalization)

Uniform, Straight-line, Exponential, Lognormal, Gaussian, and Rayleigh curves
User defined curve - paint your own curve with the mouse

Advanced image filtering

Digital Development Processing

Selectable FFT and Kernel filters
Use automatic parameters calculation, or
Convenient mouse-based selection of parameters

Kernel Filters

High Pass / High Pass More / Low Pass / Low Pass More
Dead Pixel / Hot Pixel removal
Average, Median, Dilation, Erosion
Up to 12 User-defined Kernels
Selectable 3 x 3, 5 x 5, and 7 x 7 pixel kernels

FFT Filters

High Pass - Mild, Medium, Hard, Custom
Low Pass - Mild, Medium, Hard, Custom
Control cutoff and weight

Unsharp Mask

Many Mask Options

FFT Mild / Medium / Hard / Custom
Kernel Low Pass / Low Pass More / User-Defined Kernel

Geometric Mean Mask - perfect for those close-up comet images!

Maximum Entropy Deconvolution (MaxEnt)

MaxIm DL uses Hidden Image ^TM Maximum Entropy Deconvolution, the same algorithm featured in the premiere issue of CCD Astronomy magazine.
New features make MaxEnt easier to use than ever!

Automatic Point-Spread Function Extraction

Extract star image as PSF, with optional clean-up
Fit Gaussian curve to star image
Fit Exponential curve to star image

Automatic Noise Model Extraction

Accurately estimate parameters with a click of the mouse!

Advanced MaxEnt Wizard makes Maximum Entropy easy even for first-time users!

Thumbnail image in dialog allows "quick look" processing and rapid experimentation
Photons Wizard allows you to quickly determine the correct calibration for your CCD camera

Color image support

Combine three or four filtered CCD images with optional alignment

RGB
LRGB
CMY
LCMY
Manual alignment

Sub-pixel shifting
Auto-centroid for precise alignment
Rotation alignment

Manual Overlay alignment
Automatic alignment

Star matching
Correlation matching

Sub-pixel color plane realignment
Pseudo Color
Color balance adjust including scaling and base offset w/auto and mouse selected settings
Adjust Saturation
Split color image into three monochrome images
Convert to Mono
Most processing functions work on monochrome and color images
Color Smoothing
Convert MX5-C and LISAA Color images

CCD Image Calibration

Calibration Wizard makes CCD calibration a breeze!
Supports bias, dark, and flat field frames
Full support for median combine, including flat-field renormalization
Rescaleable dark frames

Manual scaling factor
Auto-scale based on exposure length from file header (FITS, SBIG)
Auto-optimize automatically calculates scaling for minimum noise level

Calibrate all images command
Create master calibration frames

Image Manipulation

Flatten Background
Build large mosaics from individual images
Pixel editing using the mouse

Pick up color
Draw
Select color from palette

Align sets of images, bicubic or blinear resampling
Image resize with interpolation, controlled by image dimensions or pixel aspect ratio
Remove bad pixels (hot pixels, blooming)
Crop to any dimensions using the mouse or by entering coordinates
Add Noise
Rotate, flip, mirror, and duplicate
Make pixels square
Undo works on all image processing functions
Combine multiple files with manual or automatic shift/rotate - combine a series of short exposures into one long-exposure equivelant image to reduce noise, without guiding.
Add, subtract, multiply, or divide two images with scaling and offset

Image Inspection

Blinking and Animation
Continuous display of cursor coordinates, pixel intensity, and pixel color in status line
Night vision mode
Zoom View shows close-up of area under the mouse
FITS Header Viewer/Editor
Line Profiles
Information box displays statistics using a resizeable circular cursor, includes

Intensity and Red/Green/Blue display
Cursor position and radius
Brightness statistics: Minimum, Maximum, Average, and Standard Deviation
X and Y Centroid
X and Y Full-Width Half Maximum (FWHM)
Estimated star magnitude w/calibration feature
Statistics on whole image or rectangular region

Match screen stretch

File Formats

Supports many popular file formats:

FITS - a full implementation of the standard file format for astronomical images, with selectable pixel format and proprietary lossless compression feature
SBIG - supports full line of SBIG cameras
PC-Lynxx CCD cameras
BMP - Windows standard format
TIFF - industry standard format (no LZW)
JPEG - with controllable quality to allow for optimum compression
PNG - for high-quality compressed images
RAW (unformatted binary) - IEEE float, 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit integers
Starlight Xpress images can be imported using either RAW or FITS format

MaxIm CCD Camera Support

MaxIm CCD
ActiveX Camera Scripting Interface
Plug-in Camera Support

System Configuration

Windows 95, 98, ME, NT 4.0, or Windows 2000
Pentium recommended; minimum 486DX or higher
16 MB RAM or higher (24MB for NT/2000)
800 X 600 video recommended
16-bit video (65535 colors) or higher required (256 color support now available for monochrome imaging)
10MB disk space required for software installation
Mouse
MaxIm DL (image processing only) is compatible with Virtual PC or SoftWindows 95 on Macintosh systems

Upgrade Policy

One year of free minor version updates via web site download.
Major releases available at upgrade prices (DL to CCD, Version 1 to Version 2)

Fully Y2K Compliant

Web Information supplied by Cyanogen Productions Inc.
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	Here is an example of one of the simplest image processing functions – adjusting color balance. In this case, you can equalize the background level between the three color planes, and independently scale each color plane. The Auto button automatically determines the correct settings to make the background of the image black – with just a single click! Plus, you can simply click on a white or gray area of the image to set the color balance. All of the image processing functions in MaxIm DL include a Preview Image. The preview can be dragged to an interesting part of the image by right-clicking on the image and dragging. The Zoom button allows you to zoom in on a small portion of the image. Once this is done, MaxIm DL will quickly show you the effect of the processing settings you are using. Once you are satisfied with the results, click OK to process the entire image.
The convenience of MaxIm DL's image processing functions is shown by the Digital Development command. This new command, also known as "DDP," produces amazing results on galaxy and other deep-sky images. The user can select different filters, plus the required Background and Mid-level settings, and watch what happens to the Preview Image. The DDP parameters can be determined automatically, or you can pick a brightness level just by clicking on the image – it's that simple. Don't understand what a button is for? Just click the small "?" button at the top, then on the button. A description will pop up to explain how it works. You can also ask for a complete description of the entire dialog box. Like most MaxIm DL functions, this command works equally well on black-and-white or color images.
	Maximum Entropy Deconvolution (MaxEnt) is a sophisticated processing feature can be used to tighten up blurry images. It can reduce the effects of atmospheric seeing, telescope aberrations, and guiding errors. This animation shows how much the details in this galaxy's spiral arms improve after processing. In order to work properly, MaxEnt requires a model of the blur and of the noise in the image. Both automated and manual tools are provided for this purpose. For beginners, a special "Wizard" leads you through the processing step-by-step.
Interested in color imaging? MaxIm DL makes that easier than ever. Choose from standard RGB techniques or advanced LRGB, CMY, and LCMY filter sets. Automatically equalize the background level. Align the color planes using our all-new Align Images tool. Images not aligned? No problem. You can now automatically register images using our new star matching capability.