Image leaving Trails in Live View when mount moved.

[HughP]

I have an odd problem with Live View.
Using all latest software and drivers and Win 10, my image in Sharpcap appears to be fine until I move my iOptron AZ Pro mount with the hand controller.
No other peripherals or software running.
The solar disc moves but leaves a trails. Centering the disc the trails get smaller and then disappear.
Move the hand controller again and the trails come back. I thought to start with it was something to do with use the mount control in Sharpcap.
So, I shut down everything and started again. the only connection between Laptop and ZWO 178M was a USB cable (tried changing cable and camera), still the same result.
After much head scratching, by chance I clicked on the Live View button into Still Mode, then clicked back to Live view.
All was OK. I have tried Sharpcap with Test camera 2 and all seems OK with the Graphic card.
The Mount and camera also work fine in ASI Studio and Firecapture.
Attached image showing the trails and log file.

fault t 2026-05-01 163803.png (380.93 KiB) Viewed 541 times

[admin]

Hi,

this effect is typical if you have the 'Planet/Disk stabilization' option in the preprocessing settings turned on. The software is trying to put the sun image in the middle of the camera frame by offsetting the image, but the sun has drifted so far that it is now touching the edge of the frame with no black margin, so you see the 'warp drive' trail effect in the area that is shifted across.

The solution is to turn off the stabilization option briefly to re-center the sun, then turn back on again. If you look closely at the screen (including your screenshot), you can see a dark red box is drawn over the image to indicate the actual original area of the image after it is shifted to center the sun - this lets you monitor the drift before the warp drive trail effect appears and tweak the sun position as required. I have already made a change for the next major update to SharpCap to make this dark red highlight box a bit brighter to make it more obvious.

cheers,

Robin

[HughP]

Many thanks Robin for your speedy reply,
I will check the setting next time we have some Sun!
Sharpcap is the best.
Rergards
Hugh

[HughP]

Sorted, 'Planet/Disk stabilization' was indeed turned on, how that happend I do not know.
To compound the issue it was also 'On' in my default camera profile.
Thanks again Robin.