SC polar alignment not working with iOptron HEM 15

Using SharpCap's Polar Alignment feature
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kongpup
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Joined: Fri Dec 13, 2019 4:24 am

SC polar alignment not working with iOptron HEM 15

#1

Post by kongpup »

Recently purchased an HEM 15 w/built in ipolar scope. The alignment procedure works fine using the ipolar app, but not with SC polar alignment. The camera shows up in the camera list as a DirectShow camera and seems to connect, but no stars are visible in the polar alignment window and from time to time the window will appear as a green screen (adjusting the camera controls seems to do nothing). I also have an iOptron GEM 45 w/ built in alignment scope that connects to both SC and the ipolar apps with no issues. The built in cameras for these two mounts are not the same (with very little info regarding the specs on the smaller HEM 15 model available) and I would like to find out if anyone might know anything about this or if the small HEM 15 model is simply incompatible with SC. Thanks in advance!
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Re: SC polar alignment not working with iOptron HEM 15

#2

Post by admin »

Hi,

a few years ago, someone lent me one of the original standalone iPolar cameras and I made a couple of small tweaks to SharpCap to allow the camera to work nicely without needing the settings adjusting every time. I wonder if something similar (perhaps different tweaks, or perhaps the tweaks aren't being applied) for the newer iPolar camera.

For the old camera, it connected as a Webcam (DirectShow) camera, with the name "iOptron iPolar". If SharpCap detects this then it starts the camera with minimum brightness and in the resolution listed last in the resolution list (probably the highest resolution).

If your newer mount has a camera name that isn't exactly "iOptron iPolar" then these tweaks would not be applied, and maybe they need to be? Even if it's not that, you may find that there are certain settings for the camera that do work (and the iPolar app probably will always select these working settings, but SharpCap has no idea what they are).

Hope this helps a bit,

Robin
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