Brand new user here. Basic question.

Discussions of using SharpCap for Planetary Imaging
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astrobunny
Posts: 8
Joined: Mon Apr 08, 2019 10:37 am

Brand new user here. Basic question.

#1

Post by astrobunny »

Hi. Just bought a new ZWO astrocam and started using SharpCap. Don't know how to use either but I just set up on my driveway to film Jupiter and I think I got everything set up right. The software seemed live and operating but for the life of me I could not get jupiter on my screen. Chose my webcam from drop down menu and all. Am i missing something basic like my exposure is too low? How do I raise it? Thank you.
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Re: Brand new user here. Basic question.

#2

Post by admin »

Hi,

You've hit the steep part of the learning curve for astrophotography which comes about because you don't really see anything on screen until you have the focus, the exposure and the pointing of the telescope all spot on (or very nearly spot on).

The usual advice I give is to start with the moon as a target as it is big and bright and hard to miss even if you're pointing or focus is not quite spot on. This helps you find out your focus position for the camera and work out what settings for exposure and gain to use. When moving to planetary from lunar imaging it's usually a good idea to initially turn up the gain and exposure to help you find the target and then turn them back down again to get correctly exposed images.

Cheers, Robin
astrobunny
Posts: 8
Joined: Mon Apr 08, 2019 10:37 am

Re: Brand new user here. Basic question.

#3

Post by astrobunny »

Thank you. I actually am accustomed to the NexImage5 cam and the icap software. So I'm not exactly new to this. I suspect that I need to increase the brightness quite a bit. I experience the same thing on my NexImage cam if I don't have the brightness turned up. Thank you.
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