PushTo direction

[admin]

Hi,

to show the left/right/up/down directions, SharpCap needs to know your location (latitude and longitude). You can set this in the SharpCap Polar alignment settings page (I keep meaning to move those settings to a more sensible page).

cheers,

Robin

[[proxima]]

Hi Robin,
I have a suggestion for improving easy of use.
Sharpcap could play a beep similar to car parking sensors while approaching to the target. This would avoid checking the screen and preserve dark adaptation. Very helpful for doing visual with manual mounts.

[admin]

Hi,

yes, that would be possible - there is a similar feature in the polar alignment with the option to have audible beeps with the pitch rising as you get closer to perfect alignment. Have you ever tried that option for polar alignment?

cheers,

Robin

[Cyg]

Absolute Field Rotation ?

PushTo is marvelous, I use it for every night I go out using my Dobson ! A 1000 thank you for making it so good, easy to use, fast & precise.

What whould be also very helpful in the astrometry display results, additionnally to the coordinates, would be to have the absolute field rotation.

I am doing multi session astrophotography with the Dobson on an equatorial platform, and every 1h30 the platform is reset and I have to redo the full set of pushTo and manually rotate the camera to compensate the field rotation since the previous session, and it is difficult to achieve it by the eyes and sometimes I totally miss it as here...

M63 bad field rotation compensation

M63 field rotation.jpg (125.73 KiB) Viewed 2538 times

(red and IR so far only)
While looking at the absolute field rotation of the 1st session, and manually replicate it using the pushTo final setting would be so helpful, precise and time saving...

Hope it will reach your interest and to others like me
Best regards,
Fabrice / Cyg

[admin]

Hi Fabrice,

so, just show a readout of the rotation alongside the co-ordinate/movement readouts? That sounds fairly simple. You do currently get that information when you plate solve manually - if you look in the notification bar that pops up, it will say something like 'Up is 307.2 degrees E of N', which I think is what you need, but it can be easy to miss that or not spot it when lots of things are going on.

cheers,

Robin

[Cyg]

Yes that's "simply" it Robin, but it would be easier to have it displayed in big and almost live in the PushTo window as for the distance, especially when you are into the action with the optic train in the hands and the screen far away...

[admin]

Hi,

just to say that I have added an orientation readout in the latest update - this shows the orientation in the same fashion as in other parts of SharpCap - ie that the 'up' direction in the image is oriented 'XXX degrees East of North'. That means that if you take a line from the image center position to the North Celestial Pole, then rotate that line clockwise on the sky arount the image center position by the given number of degrees, the line will be pointing in the direction of up in the image.

cheers,

Robin

[Cyg]

Thank you a lot Robin, already in use !

M78.jpg (854.96 KiB) Viewed 2520 times

Best regards,
Fabrice / Cyg