SharpCap Forums

Hi Geoff, one other thing that has cropped up in my testing and other feedback for the auto-alignment is that you need to make sure that the settings for RA/Dec backlash takeup are big enough. They default to 4 minutes of arc, but if your mount has backlash above that level (or even near it), then a...

Hi,

great images, and *so* close on the first two to getting the whole disk. The CaK treatment in the second post is very different and rather nice

cheers,

Robin

Hi, yes, there are tools that can give a faster result than drift alignment - search for 'Three point polar align'. One thing to be aware of is that may of these tools involve the mount making a GOTO movment to a star, then you correcting to center the star. That all works find if the initial GOTO i...

Hi,

not currently, no, although with SharpCap now including a built in plate solving engine, it's something I might consider in the future. The other alternative is to buy a 'SharpCap' brand chainsaw

cheers,

Robin

Hi Mike, I suspect that SharpCap is testing the 'E:\' drive on startup and either finds it missing or cannot write to it for some reason - that causes SharpCap to reset the capture folder to the default as a way of avoiding being stuck when starting a capture without a valid folder to save it to. Ha...

Hi Mike, Ok, I have no personal experience of the AP mounts, so not sure if they allow detailed setting of the movements rate. You can check by looking in the mount movement area in SharpCap on the right - see what options are available in the tracking rate dropdown to the right of the tracking on/o...

Hi, my approach is to fix a piece of transulcent plastic over the top of the telescope to diffuse the sunlight and take the flats that way. You could use the inner bag of a breakfast cereal packet (after cleaning it of the dust!) or some notebooks have a translucent cover over the front page which c...

Hi Geoff, sorry to hear of more missing parts - I am going to look at some ways to try to improve the auto-alignment accuracy (possibly add a second phase that measures over a larger movement distance once the current initial alignment has produced a roughly right result). I'm also very much in favo...

Hi, did you by any chance use the latest update of SharpCap that allows you to set a hot/cold pixel correction level as well as using a dark frame? My goal with adding that ability was to address the sort of issue in this thread of 'rogue' hot pixels showing up in the light frames that are not in th...

Hi John, yes, this is a limitation of the version of the Hubo ASCOM driver that you are using - it only allows tracking to be turned on or off, not the rate to be selected. I'm told that there is a new version available from Rainbox Astro that resolves this issue (see this thread : https://forums.sh...