I have an SBIG DSS-7 spectrometer that I am interested in using on something other than a windows machine (which the software runs naively on). The attached camera (ST-402) seems to work very well with Ekos, but it appears there are no options for something like the DSS-7. There is open source software available (for instance, see the bottom of diffractionlimited.com/support/sbig-archives/ and sbig-util on github). There is also the SBIG Linux Devleopment kit (which I assume is what Ekos uses, although I don't know).

So I want some advice about how to go about creating a very simple device to control my spectrometer. The functions I need could not be simpler - I need to be able to flip the slit into and out of view, and also rotate the diffraction grating.

I have some software development experience, but mostly scientific computing / C / IRAF / etc. But I am good at googling!

Read More...