Welcome to the SharpCap Forums

[admin]

Welcome to the new SharpCap Forums.

These forums are now the primary way to get support for SharpCap as well as a place to share hints, tips, tricks and images taken with SharpCap. Please make all requests for support by posting in the open forums rather than by sending PM messages - Forum posts can be found and read by others which means that the same question does not get asked many times.

cheers,

Robin

[Tassielx90]

Hello Robin,
The forum looks great i like the purple! everything stands out clear and no doubt this is the best way to share our experiences and get information from you and the many of the users of SharpCap in one place. :
Congratulations from Tasmania, Australia
Regards
Michael :

[admin]

Thanks Michael, glad you are liking the forum so far

The colour scheme is likely to go through a few more tweaks - I wanted something a bit darker than the default light blue theme and this was what I could come up with quickly. Still ironing out a few other teething problems, but getting there I hope.

cheers,

Robin

[AussieHowie]

Hi, just joined the forum. Live in Brisbane Australia in very light polluted downtown townhouse complex so usually wait for no Moon or very little Moon to do anything. Practise EAA using ASI224 with SharpCap, and Canon EOS with Astrotoaster. Max I've ever shot is 60 secs preferring shorter exposures than that. Matter of fact single 30 sec shots or only 4 to 9 four or eight second shots for outreach.

Cheers
AussieHowie

[admin]

Hi Howie,

welcome to the forum, hope that you find some useful info here and enjoy your stay.

cheers,

Robin

[jasillasen]

Interesting to see you have your own forum, Robin, versus something on Groups.io. I hope it doesn't become overwhelming when your real focus is the SharpCap tool itself. I have a SharpCap Pro license and just printed out the entire 3.2 manual, had it spiral bound. It was the suggestion of one of your v.3.3 Pro Beta users, I have been watching doing EAA.
My question to this welcome is there an errata or addendum for v 3 3 to print out or make changes to the v3.2 manual?

Additionally, I have a ZWO ASI183MM, camera and an Inova PLB MX2. Is there support or going to be support for various Atik cameras either as an ASCOM supported camera or via direct models? I also have the Atik 460EX CCD camera.

Inquiring minds want to know.

For now, its back to reading so I can participate in EAA since we can not be doing public outreach directly with the public yet!

Thank you,

John Sillasen (Connecticut USA)

[admin]

Hi John,

so far, the only documentation specific to SharpCap 3.3 is to be found in the posts that I've been making in the beta testing forums – this is usually just a high-level overview of changes and new features. I will be doing a full documentation update to bring the manual into line with 3.3, but that will only occur after 3.3 is effectively ready for wide usage (ie the beta period is finished).

Do give your Atik camera a go with SharpCap - I added Atik support about a year ago to SharpCap 3.2, so it should work if you have a recent version.

cheers,

Robin

[jasillasen]

Thank you, sir! On the advice of Mike Jerry in Nevada USA, a Beta user of v3.3, I printed out the entire 3.2 PDF manual. I took all 106 double sided pages to a Staples store. There they did a spiral bound so the sheets stay together and put it into a cover with a clear top and black plastic back.

A very nice way to pick up the manual and read it, as was his suggestion. Coming from a Nebulosity and Images Plus user background, I found this suggestion to be quite helpful.

Perhaps when 3.3 is released, you may find value in adding an Errata addendum with specific pages that need updating or replacing completely. A very fine product indeed.

Thank you for your efforts with SharpCap Pro!

John Sillasen
Connecticut USA

[UPMICHIGAN]

Hey Robin,
My brain was filling up trying to learn so much new stuff so I needed a little break and I thought I would pull back the curtain to see the wizard that created all this so using my trusty Google search engine I found and watched an interview you did some time ago. I was expecting to see some ancient guy who's wrinkles had wrinkles and was a cross between Yoda and Obi Wan. Man, you are just a young fella! Your knowledge is truly amazing and whenever I dabble with SharpCap I am just in awe of the way it is laid out and ease of use. I am TRYING to learn Siril but that program totally defies ease of use. Someone forgot how to write code for folks that didn't have a PhD in coding! I'll get it, but it will take some time to learn that program. It was recommended to me by another astronomer for doing advanced processing but I am not near there yet. Anyway, I just thought I'd tell you that now I have a face to go with the name of Robin Glover! If they ever come up with astronomy currency, your face should be on the denomination that gets the most use. Thanks for all of your past help, I just need to put in the work now.
Reid

[admin]

Hi Reid,

thanks for your kind appreciation of SharpCap and all the hard work that has gone into it. Most of the good stuff in SharpCap has come about because I have encountered things in astronomy that I have found hard and then I have tried to make software that makes them easier. Beyond that there are a few good guidelines that I have learned over the years to try to make software easier to use, like

* don't make the user pick an option if you can do the right thing automatically anyway
* If there is an option, make the default something that works for most people
* avoid presenting the user with a question that (s)he doesn't have any good way to answer
* put the things that people want to adjust in front of them right away, not hidden in some hard to find settings window
* give instant feedback if possible, so that when someone changes something, they see the result straight away.

Anyway, hope that you continue to enjoy the software and get plenty of clear skies!

Robin