M31 - my first attempt with Sharpcap and QHY163M - I'm a fan!
Posted: Wed Jul 05, 2017 4:16 am
Hi all, today I finally decided to leave aside my UC18 and get back to my plans for the wide field imaging with the SV70T @ f/4.8.
I downloaded QHY's EZCAP software to my Mac and to my small Windows notebook. I also downloaded Sharpcap to this notebook, along with the drivers for the QHY. The Mac version didn't work. But Sharpcap did. I was just happy I could see light when I waved my flashlight in front of the camera, but as I focussed out, I could see the stars getting sharper, and I was surprised to see that it looked pretty good visually.
I didn't really expect anything to work, so I wasn't prepared and even though I have a Bahtinov mask, didn't have time to focus, do darks, etc. or do anything really. However, Sharpcap was intuitive to use and after playing around with a few settings, I decided to start taking some snaps. Even though I could easily get two minute subs, I realised I didn't have time to fiddle around with the gain, etc. so I decided to go with live stacking 15s exposures. I was able to stack 9 of them to get a total of 195s and this is the image I got! You can also see M110 and M32 in the background.
I'm definitely subscribing to a Sharpcap license! And so far, the QHY camera seems to be working out really well. I had to reduce the size of the image to upload it to FB (it's set to public):
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... 4719205000
Any tips/suggestions for someone starting out would be greatly appreciated beyond what's in the docs (which I've read most of) and other online help. I'd like to extend my imaging sessions to be longer and more automated (I can program). Thanks!
--Ram
I downloaded QHY's EZCAP software to my Mac and to my small Windows notebook. I also downloaded Sharpcap to this notebook, along with the drivers for the QHY. The Mac version didn't work. But Sharpcap did. I was just happy I could see light when I waved my flashlight in front of the camera, but as I focussed out, I could see the stars getting sharper, and I was surprised to see that it looked pretty good visually.
I didn't really expect anything to work, so I wasn't prepared and even though I have a Bahtinov mask, didn't have time to focus, do darks, etc. or do anything really. However, Sharpcap was intuitive to use and after playing around with a few settings, I decided to start taking some snaps. Even though I could easily get two minute subs, I realised I didn't have time to fiddle around with the gain, etc. so I decided to go with live stacking 15s exposures. I was able to stack 9 of them to get a total of 195s and this is the image I got! You can also see M110 and M32 in the background.
I'm definitely subscribing to a Sharpcap license! And so far, the QHY camera seems to be working out really well. I had to reduce the size of the image to upload it to FB (it's set to public):
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... 4719205000
Any tips/suggestions for someone starting out would be greatly appreciated beyond what's in the docs (which I've read most of) and other online help. I'd like to extend my imaging sessions to be longer and more automated (I can program). Thanks!
--Ram