Abstract
We present a software application called JAstroCam. It is a Java-based software package being developed in cooperation of the Astronomical Observatory of the Jagiellonian University and the Mt. Suhora Observatory of the Pedagogical University, and covers all aspects of image acquisition, including hardware control, environment monitoring and provides support for an observer in gathering high quality scientific data. The main motivation for making yet another software application is lack of advanced tools for data acquisition with CCDs available on the Linux platform. Most of the hardware vendors provide software drivers and supporting applications mainly for the Windows operating system, leaving Linux users with a limited number of open source solutions, usually not optimized for professional astronomers. With cooperation of academic researchers, we have managed to implement an application with an intuitive user interface and powerful tools that perform scheduled image acquisition and crude online data analysis, including measurements of a single frame statistical parameters as well as single and multifilter photometry. We present existing features, latest enhancements built in version 3.X as well future development plans for version 4 of JAstroCam.
