Introduction

PEAAnuts is a plugin for the planetary image capturing tool FireCapture. It provides three main features:
  • Stream analysis
    The tool tries to detect the planet within the frame, and prints a cross section intensity plot. Some characteristic data are derived from the plot which can serve -a.o.- as focusing aid.
  • Live stacking
    The incoming frames can be added up (stacked). The final live stack image will be updated continuously every time when the specified number of frames have been gathered.
  • On the fly image processing
    The stack image can be either displayed immediately, or processed by one or more filters before, to produce a sharpened version.
Further peripheral features round up the module. The images can be saved to files, parameters can be saved and loaded via profiles, etc.
So, finally, the name becomes clear: PEAAnuts stands for Planetary EAA. And of course one has to be at least a bit nuts to set out for the whole lot of work needed to get this running.

Prerequisites

You need ...
  • 1 of course FireCapture (FC). The plugin cannot operate standalone.
  • 2 a computer which is powerful enough to process the frame size and FPS ratios you want to use. A multicore CPU is highly recommended.
  • 3 either a perfectly running mount or a working autoguiding installation. Note that FC provides an very convenient autoguiding feature. The only thing you need is a camera and mount controller supporting the ST4 cable connection. No ASCOM crap or other software nightmares are needed.
  • 4 a telescope and a camera. OK, you might have thought about that yourself already. The camera should support ROI selection. Most of the widespreadly used models come with ROI support.
  • 5 clear sky ! Conditions should be constantly good over a reasonable amount of time. Using the plugin in situations with only short cloud gaps, or otherwise significantly varying conditions, is not recommended. At least not for beginners.

Installation

By installing and using the plugin, you accept the license agreement in the last chapter of this manual. Installation procedure is similar for all FireCapture plugins. Unpack the archive and copy the Java plugin file ( here: 'peaanuts.jar' ) into the subdirectory
plugins/x64/myplugins
of your FireCapture installation. If this is your first plugin installation, you might have to add the subdirectory 'myplugins' first. When running FireCapture, the plugin name should now appear in FCs plugin list for selection/activation.

Important: The installation archive contains two subfolders, FC27xx and FC 26xx. Dependent on which branch of FireCapture your're using, either the newest FC 2.7.14, or the old but still available FC 2.6.08, you have to pick the right plugin version. Please copy the right plugin and only the right one into the a.m. ../myplugins FC installation subfolder. There should always be only one peaanuts.jar plugin file in the ../myplugins directory.
Checking if you have installed the right one can be done by looking at the info window which is accessible via the 'P' button in the main plugin window.

Other important basics

  • the plugin is intended for use in planetary imaging. UFOs may work, too. IOW, any sort of objects which appear as a well defined shape confined to a small region on the screen, and being sufficiently brighter than the dark sky surrounding it. So generally, it rather won't work with arbitrary deep sky objects. There exist many other tools for deep sky live stacking.
  • for big camera chips (meaning size in pixels), limiting the processing area by selecting a ROI is necessary. The module switches to standby mode when the frame size exceeds the current limit (user-adjustable). Most of the plugins features only work when it is in active state.
  • for live-stacking, you have to think in the opposite way compared to the old school recording and postprocessing. Instead of stacking the best fraction of a recorded stream, one specifies the stack count and lets the plugin process frames until the target count is reached.
  • no derotation takes place (yet), so try to use suitable stack counts and/or FPS ratios to accumulate your stack before rotation becomes noticeable.