The driver for AstroArt (camera control and image processing software—see the http://www.msb-astroart.com/) allows selection of active camera from all currently connected G2 cameras. The configuration dialog box provided by the driver also allows selection of the target CCD temperature. However, the required temperature is not set to the camera directly, but the temperature is changed with the speed of 6°C per minute until it reaches the desired temperature. Note the CCD User Interface dialog box displays current CCD temperature and cooling power on the right side of its status line. Set the target temperature so the cooling power varies around 80 or 90% to provide some room for temperature regulation.

Driver installation is quite easy—AstroArt scans DLLs (Dynamic Link Libraries), matching particular file name conventions, in the folder, where it is installed, and checks if the DLL exports required driver API functions. Only DLLs named 'd_*.dll' are tested, so every driver file name must begin with 'd_' characters. When a proper DLL is found, AstroArt offers it as CCD Camera Plug-in.

To install the G2 CCD driver for AstroArt, just:

• Download the package 'd_g2ccd.zip' from the web site http://ccd.mii.cz/.

• Unzip the package into the AstroArt folder (e.g. 'C:\Program Files\Astroart').

  Remark:

  Note that the driver file name is 'd_g2ccd.dll', but the driver need two more DLLs to work—'vproc3.dll' and 'vtools3.dll'. Both DLLs are included into the driver package and both must be unpacked into the same folder like the driver DLL itself.

• AstroArt then offers the G2 CCD driver in the CCD Camera - Control panel dialog box.

G2 CCD Internal Filter Wheel in AstroArt v4.0

Each G2 camera can operate without internal filter wheel or can be equipped with internal filter wheel with 5 or 6 filter positions. The user can order camera with various filters, or he or she can change individual filters or the whole filter wheel. There is no way how to determine the actual filters in the filter wheel automatically. This is why the G2 CCD camera driver for AstroArt reads the 'd_g2ccd.ini' file to determine actual configuration of filters. Number of present filters is then reported to AstroArt.

The 'd_g2ccd.ini' file is placed in the same folder where the G2 CCD driver and the AstroArt itself is installed. This file is ordinary text file following the .INI files conventions. Here is the example of the 'd_g2ccd.ini' file:

[filters]
Luminance, Gray
Red, LRed
Green, LGreen
Blue, LBlue
Clear, 0

The file should contain just one section '[filters]' (other sections, if present, are ignored). Every line in this section defines one filter position.

The first string defines the filter name, which can be used within the application GUI or will be part of file name of acquired images (if the user chooses including of filter name to file name). The second parameter, delimited by comma, represents a color by which the string can be displayed. The color can be expressed by a name (White, Red, LRed, etc.) or directly by number representing the particular color (0 represents black).

While the driver can report filter names and also colours, which should be used to display these names, AstroArt does not utilize this feature and asks the driver only to report number of available filters. Still, the configuration file must be present and the number of lines must correspond to the actual filter count else the G2 CCD camera driver reports zero filters available.

For the G2 camera documentation, refer to the 'G2 CCD Camera Operating Manual'. This manual is supplied with each camera in the printed form and can be also downloaded as PDF file from the web site http://ccd.mii.cz/.