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New user issues

Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2019 7:51 pm
by tonester
Hi,
I just purchased SharpCap as a recommendation from a hardware vendor I purchased my gear from for easier star alignment. Unfortunately upon installing and plugging in my DSLR, it doesn't recognize it. Is there a trick to this or does it not support DSLR's? I purchased this program to help with star alignment and now I see it is significantly more robust than the purposes i bought it for, though now I am now really intrigued to what it can do.

I do have a ZWO camera on my auto-guiding scope, but its not used for primary imaging. Does this program support using the DSLR for primary imaging or no? If not, I may need to request a refund.

Thanks for your help!
Tony

Re: New user issues

Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2019 8:40 pm
by admin
Hi Tony,

SharpCap does not currently support DSLR cameras. There is an experimental Ascom driver available for Canon and Nikon DSLR's that has been written by somebody on cloudy nights that some people have used with little success, but this driver is in its very early days and is nowhere near stable yet unfortunately. I do hope to be able to support DSLR cameras either through an update to this driver or other means sometime in the next year or so.

You will find lots of information about what you can you SharpCap for (for instance polar alignment and EAA/live stacking) on the main SharpCap webpages and in the documentation which you can find at https://docs.sharpcap.co.uk/3.2/.

If you are aiming to perform polar alignment using SharpCap, you'll find that your ZWO camera on the guide scope is most likely the best option anyway rather than using your DSLR.

SharpCap's free version allows you to try it out before you pay for the pro version – to check it supports your hardware and that you are happy with the operation of the programme. Because of this we generally only offer refunds for purchases in exceptional cases (for example paid twice by mistake).

Hope this helps, Robin