Robin,
I've been using 4.2b exclusively for the past three months. I'm also vigilant about checking for updates and downloading them. As a one trick pony DSO user of SharpCap I'm rarely using the planetary side of the application. I've always wondered if you have statistics on your user base and how many are planetary versus DSO.
As a deep space observer I'd like to see further enhancements for 4.2 which I've shared before. As an end user with zero understanding of what's under the hood I'd like to know if improved gradient removal and star reduction are feasible enhancements or just too complex to tackle. If feasible it would be nice to know if this is something on your to-do list.
Moving on to other suggestions, for the arcsinh stretch and the softening option it would be nice if the arrow buttons made 0.1 increments versus 0.2. I've found that 0.1 is the sweet spot and have to manually type it in versus using the arrow button.
Adjusting the color in the background tab after you've color calibrated seems to be hit and miss for me. Many times the handles for each color overlap and I'm not able to easily clink on the adjust tab. And then when I do it seems like mouse movements (trackball for me) are too extreme. I'd suggested the fine adjust arrows for the histogram a while back which I use constantly and love. Is there any way to do something like this for the background adjustments?
In the more recent versions of 4.2 I've noticed that in addition to closing something (like live stacking or FWHM) does not actually close it. That is, clicking the X in the corner of the feature dialog box used to close the feature. Now it seems like it only closes the dialog box yet the feature continues to run and I need to go to the main menu to close the feature.
EDIT to add one more suggestion regarding rejection of frames with a satellite trail. Typically when a frame with a satellite trail is stacked it's quite obvious with a straight white line across the entire frame. So this suggestion is for those obvious satellite trails, not the short dim or long dim trails that you don't notice without pixel peeping. Even when I'm diligent at watching the stack and unstack the bad frames there's always one that gets past me (a bathroom break, a binocular break, etc.). Can you detect these more obvious trails at the time of acquisition and delete or not add to the stack?
Thank you,
Mike
4.2 Enhancements/Improvements for DSO Live Stacking
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'+1' posts are welcome in this area of the forums to indicate your support for a particular feature suggestion. Suggestions that get the most +1's will be seriously considered for inclusion in future versions of SharpCap.
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Re: 4.2 Enhancements/Improvements for DSO Live Stacking
Hi Mike,
my data suggests that use of deep sky stacking is about double the user of planetary/solar system stacking - at least in the last month of data. Mind you, that ratio may change significantly when Jupiter comes back into position...
4.2 has definitely ended up having more improvements for deep sky than planetary, in part because it's hard to see at the moment what other improvements for planetary are useful/possibly. There are definitely some still for deep sky that could in theory be added.
For the star size reduction, while the new stretch options help, it would be good to be able to go further. However, the normal approach for that is to create a star mask, separate the image into 'stars' and 'starless' and then process each separately before recombining. There are a significant number of steps there that would need to work reliably without significant user interaction to make that process workable inside of SharpCap live stacking - it's something I would like to try but it is significantly too big to consider for including into the initial release of 4.2
Background subtraction is probably an easier challenge - while you can do it in the 'preprocessing' tab, there is no way to undo/adjust that once it has been applied - putting the same sort of background subtraction algorithms into the live stack processing would probably help, since you could tinker with the settings and see the results. Something to consider...
For satellite trails, you have 3 current options (of which you can use any one or any combination)...
1) 'Satellite trail removal' in the preprocessing section - this is basically what you are asking for (or close to it) - detection and removal of the trails in the individual frames before they are added to the stack. It's a bit awkward to set up (best done with previously saved FITS images in the folder monitor camera), but once adjusted can detect and mask out the worst trails
2) The 'Unstack' button to remove the most recent frame if it added a nasty trail
3) The sigma clipped stacking option (as opposed to the default stack). This is good at excluding the pixels in the satellite trail that are significantly different to the normal pixel values for that area without any user interaction. It's also significantly improved in 4.2, allowing it to remove trails in the first 10 frames and the sensitivity can be adjusted more easily (although still best done with a previous set of FITS files to allow you to tinker with the values and then repeat the same data).
Both 1) and 3) work unattended, so you have some options there.
Finally, for the minor tweaks and potential issues, I will have a look to see what can be done.
thanks for the feedback!
Robin
my data suggests that use of deep sky stacking is about double the user of planetary/solar system stacking - at least in the last month of data. Mind you, that ratio may change significantly when Jupiter comes back into position...
4.2 has definitely ended up having more improvements for deep sky than planetary, in part because it's hard to see at the moment what other improvements for planetary are useful/possibly. There are definitely some still for deep sky that could in theory be added.
For the star size reduction, while the new stretch options help, it would be good to be able to go further. However, the normal approach for that is to create a star mask, separate the image into 'stars' and 'starless' and then process each separately before recombining. There are a significant number of steps there that would need to work reliably without significant user interaction to make that process workable inside of SharpCap live stacking - it's something I would like to try but it is significantly too big to consider for including into the initial release of 4.2
Background subtraction is probably an easier challenge - while you can do it in the 'preprocessing' tab, there is no way to undo/adjust that once it has been applied - putting the same sort of background subtraction algorithms into the live stack processing would probably help, since you could tinker with the settings and see the results. Something to consider...
For satellite trails, you have 3 current options (of which you can use any one or any combination)...
1) 'Satellite trail removal' in the preprocessing section - this is basically what you are asking for (or close to it) - detection and removal of the trails in the individual frames before they are added to the stack. It's a bit awkward to set up (best done with previously saved FITS images in the folder monitor camera), but once adjusted can detect and mask out the worst trails
2) The 'Unstack' button to remove the most recent frame if it added a nasty trail
3) The sigma clipped stacking option (as opposed to the default stack). This is good at excluding the pixels in the satellite trail that are significantly different to the normal pixel values for that area without any user interaction. It's also significantly improved in 4.2, allowing it to remove trails in the first 10 frames and the sensitivity can be adjusted more easily (although still best done with a previous set of FITS files to allow you to tinker with the values and then repeat the same data).
Both 1) and 3) work unattended, so you have some options there.
Finally, for the minor tweaks and potential issues, I will have a look to see what can be done.
thanks for the feedback!
Robin
Re: 4.2 Enhancements/Improvements for DSO Live Stacking
Thanks for the dso/planetary user info. I've always been curious and figured it was 50/50, and perhaps it is during planetary season.
I'll need to play a bit more with satellite trail removal. I've been using it consistently since you introduced it but must not have it set optimally. I've never been one to save a bunch of frames to play with later and perhaps that's something I need to do. There are just so many different types of trails. I'm assuming the test frames should be gathered without sigma clipping and satellite trail removal applied.
Mike
I'll need to play a bit more with satellite trail removal. I've been using it consistently since you introduced it but must not have it set optimally. I've never been one to save a bunch of frames to play with later and perhaps that's something I need to do. There are just so many different types of trails. I'm assuming the test frames should be gathered without sigma clipping and satellite trail removal applied.
Mike
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Re: 4.2 Enhancements/Improvements for DSO Live Stacking
Hi Mike,
yes, you want to gather the test frames 'raw' from the camera with no processing or stacking applied - one way to do this is to set up Live Stacking to save the raw frames while stacking - that way you can do your normal live stacking and grab some frames for later testing. The 'Folder Monitor' camera then lets you replay the captured frames again and again as if they were being grabbed from a camera, so you can see the effects of different satellite trail detection/removal settings, and at least get things set up to catch the worst ones.
I should also point to the 'new in 4.2' Satellite Forecast map (at the bottom of the tools menu) - this plots expected satellite density across the sky and lets you see how it will change over the night. You might think it is going to be pretty uniform, but that's not the case at all - there are big variations both in the number of satellites and in whether they will be visible or not due to the shadow of the earth. Picking the right target to observe in the right area can help a lot.
I've looked at some of the other points you raised -
* Closing the tool area at the bottom (live stacking, planetary live stacking, histogram, etc) does seem to fully turn off the tool in my testing - for instance when using one of the live stacking tools, the image goes back to the normal unprocessed image from the camera either straight away or when the next frame is captured from the camera.
* The background subtraction can be adjusted more finely in a few ways already - holding down <SHIFT> while dragging the sliders makes them move more slowly than the mouse. You can also click on one of them then adjust it using the left/right arrow keys (or <SHIFT>+ left right for smaller adjustments). I have however stopped the 'raw' markers (which cannot be moved) from interacting when under the mouse - that makes it easier to be sure of adjusting the other markers that can be moved...
* I have changed the default adjustment on the soften parameter from 0.2 to 0.1
cheers,
Robin
yes, you want to gather the test frames 'raw' from the camera with no processing or stacking applied - one way to do this is to set up Live Stacking to save the raw frames while stacking - that way you can do your normal live stacking and grab some frames for later testing. The 'Folder Monitor' camera then lets you replay the captured frames again and again as if they were being grabbed from a camera, so you can see the effects of different satellite trail detection/removal settings, and at least get things set up to catch the worst ones.
I should also point to the 'new in 4.2' Satellite Forecast map (at the bottom of the tools menu) - this plots expected satellite density across the sky and lets you see how it will change over the night. You might think it is going to be pretty uniform, but that's not the case at all - there are big variations both in the number of satellites and in whether they will be visible or not due to the shadow of the earth. Picking the right target to observe in the right area can help a lot.
I've looked at some of the other points you raised -
* Closing the tool area at the bottom (live stacking, planetary live stacking, histogram, etc) does seem to fully turn off the tool in my testing - for instance when using one of the live stacking tools, the image goes back to the normal unprocessed image from the camera either straight away or when the next frame is captured from the camera.
* The background subtraction can be adjusted more finely in a few ways already - holding down <SHIFT> while dragging the sliders makes them move more slowly than the mouse. You can also click on one of them then adjust it using the left/right arrow keys (or <SHIFT>+ left right for smaller adjustments). I have however stopped the 'raw' markers (which cannot be moved) from interacting when under the mouse - that makes it easier to be sure of adjusting the other markers that can be moved...
* I have changed the default adjustment on the soften parameter from 0.2 to 0.1
cheers,
Robin
Re: 4.2 Enhancements/Improvements for DSO Live Stacking
Robin,
I ran 4.2b 4.2.15192.0 (64-bit) last night with the Windows 11 MiniPC at the mount and Windows 11 laptop running WRD and again noticed that tools (FWHM and Live Stack) were not shutting down when their windows were closed. In the past I've always just closed the live stack window to cease live stacking. I will typically Reset and Pause before closing the window (live stack dialog box).
Last night both the FWHM tool and Live Stack tool would remain active after closing their respective windows. I needed to go to the top menu and click on Live Stack to quit . . . and the same with FWHM. I'm just not recalling these features acting this way in the past.
Unrelated but I also had many instances of the first frame not stacking. My workflow is to set the exposure at 2-4 seconds, start PHD2 and initialize guiding and once guiding looks good I'll set exposure to say 60 seconds and then start live stacking. I would say about 50% of the time the first 60 second frame would not show up and a 2nd 60 second frame was necessary to start. When you are only running a 10 minute live stack, not getting that 1st frame is frustrating. Is there something I'm doing to cause this?
Thank you,
Mike
I ran 4.2b 4.2.15192.0 (64-bit) last night with the Windows 11 MiniPC at the mount and Windows 11 laptop running WRD and again noticed that tools (FWHM and Live Stack) were not shutting down when their windows were closed. In the past I've always just closed the live stack window to cease live stacking. I will typically Reset and Pause before closing the window (live stack dialog box).
Last night both the FWHM tool and Live Stack tool would remain active after closing their respective windows. I needed to go to the top menu and click on Live Stack to quit . . . and the same with FWHM. I'm just not recalling these features acting this way in the past.
Unrelated but I also had many instances of the first frame not stacking. My workflow is to set the exposure at 2-4 seconds, start PHD2 and initialize guiding and once guiding looks good I'll set exposure to say 60 seconds and then start live stacking. I would say about 50% of the time the first 60 second frame would not show up and a 2nd 60 second frame was necessary to start. When you are only running a 10 minute live stack, not getting that 1st frame is frustrating. Is there something I'm doing to cause this?
Thank you,
Mike
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Re: 4.2 Enhancements/Improvements for DSO Live Stacking
Hi Mike,
that's definitely odd. Let's make sure that we are all talking about the same thing...
For me, closing the live stacking tool by closing the window means clicking on the 'X' button at the top right of the live stacking , as indicated below...
window
That should make the window vanish and make the displayed image on screen go back to the raw image from the camera instead of the stacked image. If you look in the log at that point you will see some lines like
Seeing those lines indicates that live stacking has properly closed down (or at least gone into background hibernation - it deliberately doesn't fully close at this point - the current stack is kept alive in case you accidentally closed live stacking and want to go back to it).
Similarly, when closing the window for the 'Multi Star FWHM' tool, the change you should notice is that the highlight boxes around the stars should vanish pretty much straight away and there will be the 'Selecting transform None' message in the log.
If you are not seeing exactly the behaviour I have described above, please let me know exactly how yours differs from the expected and I will try to work out what might be going on. It might be that a screen recording showing the problem and the log file would help.
For the first frame not stacking, the things to check are
* Is the first frame actually arriving, or is there a dropped frame? Keep an eye on the dropped frame count at the bottom left to see if that goes up by one at the point of the expected first frame. Some QHY cameras in video mode will not send any frames to SharpCap until they have acquired two frames, which can show up as an apparently dropped frame after an exposure change.
* Is live stacking fully active (open, stack reset, not paused) by the time the first frame arrives? If a frame arrives 1s before live stacking is activated then you have to wait for the next frame to complete before the stacking starts.
* Is there anything showing in either the main SharpCap log or the live stacking mini log (right hand end of the live stacking tabs) when the first frame doesn't stack - if something is going wrong and there really is a frame then one or the other should show some info.
cheers,
Robin
that's definitely odd. Let's make sure that we are all talking about the same thing...
For me, closing the live stacking tool by closing the window means clicking on the 'X' button at the top right of the live stacking , as indicated below...
window
- Screenshot 2026-10-03 134256.png (17.71 KiB) Viewed 51 times
Code: Select all
Info 13:45:13.620661 #2 Selecting transform None in void SharpCap.ViewModels.SharpCapViewModel.CloseTransform()
Info 13:45:13.620748 #2 Live stacking being closed, pausing current stack in void SharpCap.FrameTransforms.LiveStacking.MVVM.StackingParameters.Pause(PauseType type, string reason)
Info 13:45:13.621096 #2 Live stacking closed.
Similarly, when closing the window for the 'Multi Star FWHM' tool, the change you should notice is that the highlight boxes around the stars should vanish pretty much straight away and there will be the 'Selecting transform None' message in the log.
If you are not seeing exactly the behaviour I have described above, please let me know exactly how yours differs from the expected and I will try to work out what might be going on. It might be that a screen recording showing the problem and the log file would help.
For the first frame not stacking, the things to check are
* Is the first frame actually arriving, or is there a dropped frame? Keep an eye on the dropped frame count at the bottom left to see if that goes up by one at the point of the expected first frame. Some QHY cameras in video mode will not send any frames to SharpCap until they have acquired two frames, which can show up as an apparently dropped frame after an exposure change.
* Is live stacking fully active (open, stack reset, not paused) by the time the first frame arrives? If a frame arrives 1s before live stacking is activated then you have to wait for the next frame to complete before the stacking starts.
* Is there anything showing in either the main SharpCap log or the live stacking mini log (right hand end of the live stacking tabs) when the first frame doesn't stack - if something is going wrong and there really is a frame then one or the other should show some info.
cheers,
Robin
Re: 4.2 Enhancements/Improvements for DSO Live Stacking
Robin,
Thank you for the detailed response. Regarding live stacking I can understand now why you would not want to quit by accidentally clicking the X box you noted. With 4.2b I'm still not good at how the various dialog boxes can be moved and do get in trouble frequently and have to reset all the windows. This is mainly when I have the histogram open when taking flats. Sometimes the % scale at the bottom of the window does not display and as I try to resize it to show the % display it switches to an independent window and I'm not able to get it back where I'm used to unless I reset everything.
For the FWHM tool, I'll click the X box in the corner of the window, the window closes but the highlight boxes remain on the stars in the image. The only way to stop this is to go to the top menu and select the tool again. This is consistently happening.
Regarding the dropped frames it may be necessary to provide a log. I'm fairly certain that the first frame should arrive and stack. I'm good about making sure the preliminary steps are complete so live stacking is fully active many seconds before the 1st frame should arrive. I'm also not seeing dropped frames when this happens. The camera was an ASI2400MC-Pro running Bin2.
I'm not going to have time to run an EAA kit for several days. If you'd like a log file I'll upload next time I'm running the kit.
Mike
Thank you for the detailed response. Regarding live stacking I can understand now why you would not want to quit by accidentally clicking the X box you noted. With 4.2b I'm still not good at how the various dialog boxes can be moved and do get in trouble frequently and have to reset all the windows. This is mainly when I have the histogram open when taking flats. Sometimes the % scale at the bottom of the window does not display and as I try to resize it to show the % display it switches to an independent window and I'm not able to get it back where I'm used to unless I reset everything.
For the FWHM tool, I'll click the X box in the corner of the window, the window closes but the highlight boxes remain on the stars in the image. The only way to stop this is to go to the top menu and select the tool again. This is consistently happening.
Regarding the dropped frames it may be necessary to provide a log. I'm fairly certain that the first frame should arrive and stack. I'm good about making sure the preliminary steps are complete so live stacking is fully active many seconds before the 1st frame should arrive. I'm also not seeing dropped frames when this happens. The camera was an ASI2400MC-Pro running Bin2.
I'm not going to have time to run an EAA kit for several days. If you'd like a log file I'll upload next time I'm running the kit.
Mike