SharpCap Forums

A lot of camera's now are cooled and have very low dark current and darks would only introduce noise. A bad pixel or defect map might be a better option. Saying that I've used the bad pixel map option with my uncooled GPCAM in PHD2 and it worked much better than the darks, so it maybe helpful to unc...

Excellent stuff. Polar aligned with my gpcam last night. All seems top top.

Is it possible you didn't leave enough time for a new frame and solve after making an adjustment?

Hi Robin, just thought I'd check. I don't rotate to dec +90 with a great deal of accuracy, I just unclutch rotate to just past 90 degrees by sight and reclutch. The home position is rough too. Does this matter? Do those positions need to be as accurate as possible?

Polar alignment is completely separate from the GOTO plate solving. Your mount doesn't have to be connected and you don't need plate solving software for polar alignment, Sharpcap handles it on its own. Can't help with the location bit I'm afraid.

I found All Sky Plate Solver quite easy to set up up. Once you've installed the catalogues its pretty much automated from Sharpcap's side.

I'd second this, dithering would also work well with the live sigma stacking I presume.

Just a suggestion but if you're getting a lot of hot pixels have you tried using darks, if you didn't know Sharpcap has the ability to apply dark frames to the overall captures and previews.

I can help test the live stacking, if the clouds clear at some point....

Hi Robin, as far as I am aware dithering is more important for OSC camera's or DSLR's. As you probably know dithering and a sigma stacking routine will get rid of hot pixels, planes and satellites trails. It also reduces the colour noise inherent in OSC and DSLR's. Someone called Tony Hallas has don...