SharpCap Forums

Ok,

well I have a simple version that just aligns the peaks of the three colour histograms, which actually doesn't seem to work too badly on a range of images. I think it might get tripped up if you have very orange light polluted skies (low pressure sodium), but we will see.

Colour balancing the non-live stacking case through the camera colour balance controls is a non-starter. Every brand of camera has different interpretation of what controls to have for colour balance (adjust green and blue; adjust red, green and blue; adjust temp and tint, etc, etc). Not only that, I don't know what effect a change of the controls has without changing the control and trying to measure the result, so you end up needing a closed loop feedback measure-change-measure-change-measure system that's implemented differently for every brand of camera. Yeuch!

Maybe a display colour balance that works in the same way as the live stack one would be a possibility. That would probably need a separate display colour control under the display level stretch control.

cheers,

Robin

Hi Robin

I was playing a bit today during the daytime with my ASI1600MC and Sharpcap. I did notice that when I began a session, I would first color balance using the red and blue sliders in the image control section on a single image (no live stacking yet) and I made sure the RGB peak in the histogram lined up. Once I accomplished this, I then opened up live stacking and used the auto-stretch tab in the live histogram. I did not adjust the displayed histogram stretch but instead used that tool as a guide for adjusting the RGB live or almost instantaneous using the RGB vertical sliders in the live histogram. This seems to work okay for now but I know that you will come up with something much better for color balancing.

Cheers,

Chris A

Robin,

When I adjust the white balance I start off using the Image Histogram that displays the Mean and SD values for the image. I adjust the Red and Blue AWB Mean values to match the Green. I'm wondering whether a servo style algorithm in software could adjust these two color channels to track the Green channel when a single image is being captured and when Live Stacking is implemented?

Don

Robin thanks for the AWB in new update.

Don

Thank You Robin////the new AWB seams to be working!!! with asi294 will do more test....

Hi,

glad you guys found it It was late by the time I managed to get the new build uploaded and I had to be up early so I didn't get around to posting here last night.

You might also like to know that I made changes so that if you click above or below the slider in the colour adjustment sliders then it moves the slider by 0.1db for each click, which should provide a more accurate adjustment than trying to drag the slider if you just want to make small tweaks.

I also increased the maximum number of stars detected from 250 to 1000 - while testing with those rich field images I found that with some star detection settings the 250 limit was proving a problem as it meant that stars were only detected in part of the frame. If you find yourself getting near the new 1000 limit in the number of stars detected then the thing to do is to turn up the noise reduction control as that will suppress some of the fainter stars (and also make the stacking a little faster).

cheers,

Robin

Also, thanks to Don for sending a number of images for me to test on If you find any images where the AWB comes out way off then please share those with me so I can investigate and potentially improve the algorithm.

cheers,

Robin

Thank you again...BTW the new fine slider adjustment's (above-below) the bars works GREAT! A very logical idea.. easy to do.

Other EAA ideas...

Maybe a color " Saturation" control that would move all 3 sliders at the same time would also be nice..maybe a (+-) control of all the colors?

Next might be some form of "sharpness" and because of these larger chips,(+4/3") a form of Vignetting control...



Bob(mega)

Thank you very much Robin for the update regarding the new colour balance during live stacking. I was watching Don on NSN.com last night and it seemed to work very well. We did not know then about the fine adjustment so this will make it even easier to use. It has been so cloudy here and have not been able to test anything lately. I echo Bob suggestions but SharpCap is developing into a fantastic one program for EAA and we all greatly appreciate having you!

Chris A

Very glad to see this feature implemented, I had requested it back in December:

viewtopic.php?f=17&t=515&sid=1def6c2849 ... e4b4d43599

Cheers Robin
Minos