Last year I switched over to a 64bit operating system and realised there were no 64bit drivers available for the MX716 CCD camera I use for astrophotography. Unable to pass up the opportunity to learn about windows driver programming I spent a bit of spare time creating two drivers for the camera (firmware loader and blockIO driver).

The driver supports both the original StarlightXpress software, AstroArt and MaximDL. In addition, the MaximDL universal firmware may be used (see installation instructions for details).

I’ve also created 64bit drivers for the newer Lodestar guiding camera and SXV USB2 range of CCDs. Both the SXV and older MX716 drivers are now available for download direct from the Starlight Xpress site.

My thanks to Terry from StarlightXpress for his assistance and openness on the SX hardware.