SharpCap Forums

Minos, Hardware binning is frequently used when capturing RGB with a mono camera. The advantages are (1) higher signal-to-noise ratio, (2) shorter exposures than bin1, (3) smaller image files. The disadvantage is lower spatial resolution but that is all right since we rely on the luminance channel f...

Minos, Katherine Tsai's reply is correct but she needed to devote more time to her answer. The example I'll give is for my CCD camera: Atik 314E 16-bit ADC Full Well Depth: 13762 electrons Gain: 0.21 electrons per ADU Hardware Binning Let's say I focus the camera on an evenly-illuminated gray card. ...

I plugged in the info for your telescope, camera, and site. At your B6 site, 6.9 hours got you to SNR 14.1 At a B5 site, you could get to SNR 19.2 At a B4 site, you could get to SNR 30.6 For you to get to SNR 19.2, you would need a total time of 12.8 hours. To get to SNR 30.6, you'd need 32.7 hours....

Ah, I see. Thanks for the great follow up. Much appreciated. I've looked at a few images on AstroBin. The outer extent of the galaxy is a faint glow which I would probably have difficulty picking up with my B5 skies. Re: LP filters, they take a large chunk out of red-green wavelengths which gives a ...

Hi, what's the total integration time?

I ran the numbers. It's surface brightness is similar to M81. I could get a good LRGB in 10 hours.

I've drawn the dimensions of the galaxy atop a screenshot of your photo:
Thanks.

Robin said: When cameras have no adjustable gain control, it's easy for the manufacturer to pick a single value for the offset that is just high enough to ensure that the histogram remains unclipped without wasting a significant amount of ADU value between zero and the mean level for a bias frame (w...

You da Moon Man, Dave.
Great work!

Hi Nick, Since you have a low-noise, CMOS camera the image quality won't improve dramatically from 20s to 60s but you will consume one-third the disk space, plus APP will complete faster. Another thing you might want to try is selecting a ROI centered on M101 since it takes up so little real estate....

Jeffrey, There is another weak point in their design: the single shoe that mates to the main scope. To test, grab the stem and give it a firm twist to see if you feel any movement. If you do then loosen the thumbscrew and slide the scope out of the shoe. Take a screwdriver or Allen Wrench and make s...

Hi Jeffrey, Do you have something like this: https://www.telescope.com/Orion-Mini-50mm-Guide-Scope/p/99607.uts Me too. It's got three spring-loaded adjustment screws that unfortunately shift a bit as the scope tracks a target. I've witnessed 2 arc-minutes of offset during the course of a 3-hour sess...