Planetary Capture and 'Live' Stacking in Sharpcap

Got an idea for something that SharpCap should do? Share it here.
Forum rules
'+1' posts are welcome in this area of the forums to indicate your support for a particular feature suggestion. Suggestions that get the most +1's will be seriously considered for inclusion in future versions of SharpCap.
Post Reply
DrBobAZ
Posts: 71
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2021 11:41 pm

Planetary Capture and 'Live' Stacking in Sharpcap

#1

Post by DrBobAZ »

Hi Robin

First let me say I love your software, and I have been using it for about 2 years in pro mode for EAA livestack and video capture of planets for export into autostakkert! and registax6.

I feel a bit embarrassed to even be asking this, since sharpcap is so capable in so many areas of interest to the community.

Would it be possible to have a livestack (or postprocessing) capability for planetary imaging?

Your software is super useful for many things, so having this capability would just be icing on the cake. There is of course a current workflow that just passes on the video to other apps, but it might be cool to have it as much as possible turn-key.

I would really appreciate your feedback on this idea

Bob Campbell
User avatar
admin
Site Admin
Posts: 13173
Joined: Sat Feb 11, 2017 3:52 pm
Location: Vale of the White Horse, UK
Contact:

Re: Planetary Capture and 'Live' Stacking in Sharpcap

#2

Post by admin »

Hi Bob,

I don't think it would be possible to do a good job of 'live' planetary stacking, since planetary imaging is usually run at 30fps or faster. That means that analysis, alignment and statcking would all need to be processed in less than 0.03s, which I think is probably not achieveable even on fast processors.

It may be possible to do some sort of basic stacking, but I think the results would fall substantially below those of a program like AS!3 etc.

Of course, the other part is that the whole problem of analysing, aligning and stacking planetary images is something I have no experience of, so a lot of code would need writing, testing, revising, etc.

cheers,

Robin
User avatar
Rocket_Guy
Posts: 73
Joined: Mon Jan 22, 2018 4:12 pm
Location: Huntsville, Alabama USA

Re: Planetary Capture and 'Live' Stacking in Sharpcap

#3

Post by Rocket_Guy »

Would it not be possible to take all the saved planetary images and then stack and process them after the fact using the folder monitor camera? It is not quite real time, but could be close. Just asking.

Best, Bill
DrBobAZ
Posts: 71
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2021 11:41 pm

Re: Planetary Capture and 'Live' Stacking in Sharpcap

#4

Post by DrBobAZ »

Hi Bill

Thanks for the reply. I have never used this feature, but does it not use the same star identification algorithm used to stack and align DSO pics? In planetary, the stack/align algorithm uses a different set of reference points on the planet's disk. In short, if there are no stars then it won't be able to stack and align the individual images.

Cheers,

Bob
DrBobAZ
Posts: 71
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2021 11:41 pm

Re: Planetary Capture and 'Live' Stacking in Sharpcap

#5

Post by DrBobAZ »

Hi Robin

Yes, of course, we are running at very high framerates so live stacking is certainly out (there is no facepalm emoji, :) I should have thought of that!). Moreover, one could have to substitute a 'better' frame from one in the current stack, since there is no way of knowing what the seeing will be doing later in the capture.

Thanks for the reply, and I understand fully why it makes sense to offload the stack/align step to the specialized software like as! and rs6

Best wishes, and keep up the good work!

Bob
Post Reply