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Releases: markjamesford-telescope/SigmaFpAlpaca

Sigma fp / fp L Alpaca driver 1.0.0

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@markjamesford-telescope markjamesford-telescope released this 10 Oct 11:57

First public release of the open-source ASCOM Alpaca camera driver for the SIGMA fp L and fp (colour and mono-converted bodies).

Install: download SigmaFpAlpaca-1.0.0-win-x64.zip, unzip it, then in Terminal (Admin) in that folder:
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\Install-SigmaFpAlpaca.ps1
First bind the camera to libusb-win32 with Zadig; see the Installation guide.
For 60-300 s exposures see Mass Storage mode (Yepkit YKUSH XS + LCUS-1 relay).

What's in 1.0.0

First public release.

  • ASCOM Alpaca ICameraV4 driver for SIGMA fp L and fp (colour and mono-converted bodies).
  • Direct USB control (PTP vendor protocol over libusb-win32); timeouts, watchdog, automatic reconnect.
  • Exposures: 1/8000-30 s and the 300 s camera bulb under USB control.
  • Mass Storage mode: any exposure from 1 s to 300 s (60/120/180 s ...). The camera exposes on its own, timed by an LCUS-1
    relay on the remote jack while a Yepkit YKUSH XS switches its USB port off; the driver then reads the DNG from the card.
    Warns when the camera is not set to Bulb; reports the camera's ISO (from the DNG) as Gain. Switch modes on the setup
    page (the driver restarts itself).
  • Managed DNG decoder (bit-exact with LibRaw); ImageBytes transfer.
  • Per-body settings by serial number (mono/colour, learned raw size); per-model default ISO.
  • Gain as ISO list (old-driver compatible) or as ISO value.
  • Lost frames reported immediately (sticky Error); StartExposure queued while an un-abortable capture finishes.
  • After a USB drop, the shot that was in flight is collected and cleared before the session can close (a session closed
    over an uncollected shot was the likely cause of a 0x6004 camera lock-up seen in the field).
  • On disconnect the camera is left set to "save in camera", so it is usable on its own afterwards.
  • Camera problems (e.g. 'switch it off and on') shown on the setup page.
  • Camera restart detected at once (PTP 'session not open' triggers an immediate reconnect).
  • Per-client connections; Alpaca discovery; browser setup page.
  • Windows service with automatic restart; self-contained installer.
  • DngToTiff: interpolation-free DNG to 16-bit TIFF, display/linear/raw modes, flat-field correction.
  • Passes ASCOM ConformU 4.5 (no errors, warnings or issues) in USB control mode.