I'm new to this hobby. I've been a photographer for many years but I'm new to telescopes. Bought my first 5 months ago. I'm dumb as a bag of hammers when it comes to astrophotography. Sort of.
My RIG: Celestron AVX Mount, Celestron C6", Celestron EdgeHD 9.24, ZWO ASI678MM ASI662MC and ASI715MC.
My Software: SharpCap Pro v4.1.12419, 64bit, Windows 11 Pro, Celestron CPWI, ASCOM Platform
SharpCap Settings:
Mount: Hardware: CPWI
Focuser: CPWI Focuser
Backlash Compensation: 'NONE". < Need guidance with these settings too.
All ZWO cameras have a guide port. My confusion stems with this port and the guide port on the AVX Mount.
I always connect a cable between the AVX Mount's guiding port and the ZWO cameras guide port.
I may have misunderstood what these ports are for.
I've assumed Sharp cap is using the camera to guide my Mount to track the ROI I've selected in "Live Planetary Stacking/Enhancement", "Stabilization/Alignment" TAB.
There are 3 options in that section and by default they are all checked. When photographing the Moon, Sun (my favorite targets) and Jupiter (My only other target) I have assumed SharpCap is using the ZWO Camera Guide port to control my AVX mount to track the Moon using either the ROI I've selected or just the Selection area when I don't select an ROI.
Help! Can someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
Tracking isn't solid and drifting eventually gums up my image.
True there may be many other reasons for poor tracking but I'd like to know If I've misunderstood what the camera's Guide port is for.
I realize many astronomers use these ZWO cameras exclusively for Guiding but I've been using my ZWO camera for imaging with SharpCap plus Guiding with SharpCap.
Thank you in advance for straightening me out.
Michael Angelo
Stabilization/Alignment "Track planet with Camera ROI
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Re: Stabilization/Alignment "Track planet with Camera ROI
Hi Michael,
the sort of guiding using the extra ports on the camera and mount is called 'ST4' guiding - software like SharpCap can send a command to the camera which in turn sends an electrical signal down the cable to the mount to make it move in one direction or another.
SharpCap planetary/solar/lunar live stacking does *not* use ST4 guiding to move the mount (but SharpCap's feature tracking tool can do that - more on that later). The options in the 'Stabilization/Alignment' tab of planetary live stacking allow you to use the cameras 'ROI' (Region of Interest) feature to track the planet by moving the ROI around on the sensor. Suppose your camera sensor is 1920*1200 pixels, but for Jupiter you are using a smaller area of 480*480 pixels. SharpCap will move the 480*480 sub-area around in the full 1920*1200 sensor area to try to keep the sub-area centered around Jupiter. That will work nicely for a while, but then drift will mean the sub-area will reach the edge of the camera sensor area, so it cannot track any further in that direction, and the planet will start to move out of view.
If you want to actually use the guiding movements of your mount to keep the planet (or sun/moon) in view for longer, use SharpCap's 'Feature Tracking' tool instead (you can use it in parallel with the planetary live stacking). See https://docs.sharpcap.co.uk/4.1/#!2!Feature%20Tracking for full documentation.
With the feature tracking tool, you will *still* probably not use the ST4 cable to send guiding commands to your mount. That's because guiding commands can also be sent via the ASCOM driver for the mount (probably CPWI for your Celestron AVX), giving much more flexible control of the mount from within SharpCap, and effectively the same results in terms of guiding. If you really want to use the ST4 cable then you can select 'On Camera ST4' as the selected mount in the SharpCap settings, but that gives you very limited functionality and is only really there for those who have a non-GOTO mount that can guide via ST4 (better than nothing in terms of control of the mount in that situation).
cheers,
Robin
the sort of guiding using the extra ports on the camera and mount is called 'ST4' guiding - software like SharpCap can send a command to the camera which in turn sends an electrical signal down the cable to the mount to make it move in one direction or another.
SharpCap planetary/solar/lunar live stacking does *not* use ST4 guiding to move the mount (but SharpCap's feature tracking tool can do that - more on that later). The options in the 'Stabilization/Alignment' tab of planetary live stacking allow you to use the cameras 'ROI' (Region of Interest) feature to track the planet by moving the ROI around on the sensor. Suppose your camera sensor is 1920*1200 pixels, but for Jupiter you are using a smaller area of 480*480 pixels. SharpCap will move the 480*480 sub-area around in the full 1920*1200 sensor area to try to keep the sub-area centered around Jupiter. That will work nicely for a while, but then drift will mean the sub-area will reach the edge of the camera sensor area, so it cannot track any further in that direction, and the planet will start to move out of view.
If you want to actually use the guiding movements of your mount to keep the planet (or sun/moon) in view for longer, use SharpCap's 'Feature Tracking' tool instead (you can use it in parallel with the planetary live stacking). See https://docs.sharpcap.co.uk/4.1/#!2!Feature%20Tracking for full documentation.
With the feature tracking tool, you will *still* probably not use the ST4 cable to send guiding commands to your mount. That's because guiding commands can also be sent via the ASCOM driver for the mount (probably CPWI for your Celestron AVX), giving much more flexible control of the mount from within SharpCap, and effectively the same results in terms of guiding. If you really want to use the ST4 cable then you can select 'On Camera ST4' as the selected mount in the SharpCap settings, but that gives you very limited functionality and is only really there for those who have a non-GOTO mount that can guide via ST4 (better than nothing in terms of control of the mount in that situation).
cheers,
Robin
Re: Stabilization/Alignment "Track planet with Camera ROI
Thank you for the detailed reply.
Very helpful to understand how and when those ports are used.
Michael
Very helpful to understand how and when those ports are used.
Michael