Second Monitor Lightbox from Paw-Print Software

What's it all about

SM Lightbox is a utility to help astro-photographers while they perform the onerous task of aquiring calibration frames, specifically flat frames. Flat frame acquisition requires the collection of mutliple frames shot at a even light source. Ideally, the exposure level needs be about the centre of the dynamic range of the camera - for a 16bit camera, this is an ADU value of about 30000. Getting this right for a mono camera with a filter wheel is a bit tiresome as the brightness of the light source probably needs to change for each filter.

This is where SM Lightbox helps out. If you don't have a dedicated light box but you do have a laptop with an external video port and you have an old monitor kicking about somewhere, grab that monitor and attach it to your laptop. Fire up SM Lightbox and calibrate it for the best light level (and hue if you like) to hit that middle-range target for each filter. Then link it up to whatever software you use to collect the flat frames so that the light level changes on the second monitor to automatically match the position of the filter wheel when you take the flat frame exposures.



You have a choice of two operating modes with SM Lightbox:

Presets

Using presets you can name a brightness level and then later load the brightness level by referring to the name. Doesn't sound much in itself but the important bit is that you can invoke the preset level from a vbs script which means that you can, for example, set a flats sequence in Sequence Generator Pro to automatically run the appropriate vbs script before capturing flats for each filter.

ASCOM

If you're using an ASCOM-enabled filter wheel, this is the mode you'll want. With this mode you set the brightness level for each position on the filter wheel and as the wheel moves position, SM Lightbox will automatically replay the brightness level for the current position of the filter wheel.



What next

Download SM Lightbox and get going. It's free so knock yourself out. If you like it, use it. If you don't, dump it.

When you install the software, you'll get a warning from Windows to say that it's from an 'Unknown publisher'. That's just because I haven't gone to the expense of buying a developer's certificate to sign the software. Just click 'More info' and 'Run anyway'.

If you really, really like it and want to contribute to my funds so I can carry on developing useful stuff, use this button: