EQ Mount tracking control to compensate for long period drift on unguided captures?

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AdrianS
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Joined: Wed May 24, 2017 11:03 am

EQ Mount tracking control to compensate for long period drift on unguided captures?

#1

Post by AdrianS »

Hi, I am fairly new to astrophotography and still learning the ropes. I am trying to keep my setup as simple (hence as portable) as possible with a fast apo refractor (f5.5) and CMOS camera (Altair Hypercam 183C), and therefore keep exposures to 60secs or less. I don't use a guide camera /guiding with my AVX mount, which seems more than capable for these exposures. However, over 10 mins and longer I start to see drift between images - I use Sharpcap Live Stacking as much to keep an eye on how the captures are going as anything else, and save the individual frames for stacking in DSS later. The Drift log and the Live Stack image quickly show the drift. Now I can manually tweak the mount from time to time and throw away the frame with movement but I wondered if there was a better way of handling this problem or if Sharpcap could carry out this drift tracking operation automatically? I see there is 'Feature Tracking' now in Sharpcap version 3.1 which is aimed at fast video capture for solar system objects. Could this be modified for long exposure drift compensation?
Thanks
Adrian
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admin
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Re: EQ Mount tracking control to compensate for long period drift on unguided captures?

#2

Post by admin »

Hi Adrian,

yes, getting feature tracking into the live stacking is a goal for a future version of SharpCap - can't really give any time line for that yet though.

cheers,

Robin
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turfpit
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Re: EQ Mount tracking control to compensate for long period drift on unguided captures?

#3

Post by turfpit »

Adrian

Have a look at viewtopic.php?f=16&t=541. Minos used an AVX, unguided and 30 minutes Livestack. If you read all the thread, he mentions PEC and the AVX. This could be something to look at to improve your tracking.

Dave
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