Got an idea for something that SharpCap should do? Share it here.
Forum rules
'+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.
good report - thanks for taking the time to write it
With the declination, would you prefer it in decimal degrees rather than DD:MM:SS? That could be an option I guess (possibly for RA too).
Is having to use Live Mode a big issue? I could probably make it work in still mode with a little work (make it request a new still frame every time it is ready to plate solve).
yes - in degrees would be so nice in DEC and RA for this use case. Maybe a toggle to choose notation/display? Maybe this can simplify the Alt/AZ display as well -as this would be one of the different notation options to choose?
Live view is working really nice because it saves a lot of clicks/moving between laptop and setup. Because you are moving and taking pictures at the same time, you get these missed plate solves - but the routine displays that very well, so did not lead to confusion imo.
One item I though would be nice was if there was a picture with an arrow/direction from your last platesolved frame in the Pushto tool. The arrow would start in the center of you latest image (plate solved) and would point in the direction of your target. Somewhat similar to polar align visual on Polaris. In a way you could argue this is redundant, because the numbers (and E/W, N/S) show direction/distance as well - yet it would provide a nice visual to help with the interpretation of the adjustments to be made.
fantastic, triangular visual indicator of polar (mis) alignment. So not just showing a single "arrow" but decomposing the vector into dec/ra (or in alt/az). Then the corner of the triangle would do the same as Sharpcap PA procedure: moving one object to the "new" location that minimized PA - I believe the bits are there in Sharpcap already, just a way to bring them to the table.
In the Nebula Photos patreon group, there are many astro photography enthusiasts (many started with non go to trackers hunting for dso) raving on the idea of Push to Direction in Sharpcap - I think you are really on to something here!
on the polar alignment side, there is (somewhere here on the forums that I can't find right at the moment), a thread with a SharpCap addin script that does the type of polar alignment that was being demonstrated in that video. I wish I could find the thread
Good to hear that the pushTo feature is causing some excitement - I do have a few things on my todo list to improve that feature once the first version of 4.1 (and documentation) is all finished.
The script is working, but I do not use it while it has a small problem ... it uses a GOTO command for moving the telescope.
The GOTO command is not the best while it can move both axis.
For example with SynScan driver, the telescope moves a little bit away in DEC and RA and then moves slowly each time from the same side (that is for reducing the backlash).
The polar alignment method in the script expects a pure rotation in RA. Now when the mount moves in DEC, it is not sure with which precision.
Ideally is to have a MoveAxis command only in RA.
Matt ... I'm waiting too that SharpCap will do the polar alignment everywhere in the sky
yes, I agree, GOTO is not a good thing to use for the PA routine, as some mounts will make a significant movement in DEC just to come back to (hopefully) the same position. Really it should just be the RA axis that moves.
Of course, with just moving the RA axis, you are limited to working on only one side of the meridian, and since we assume that you cannot see the pole that means measurements are confined to either the area from about NE to S or from NW to S. I think you would need 3 measurements as you have 3 unknowns:
* True declination (ie not the mount readout declination which might be incorrect)
* Polar alignment E/W offset
* Polar alignment N/S offset
You can only get info from the declination of the plate solve position, so to get the 3 unknowns sorted you need 3 measurements.
The last time I tried taking some shots to test out this idea (rotated in RA, took several images, tried processing the plate solve data later), the fit to the known polar error was poor. I will have another go at some point.
Hi robin,
Have been using “push to” to find faint fuzzies in my urban skies. I’m really pleased with the tool. I use 2 different solvers. Astap when looking at darker skies this is fastest. When looking at bright skies is sometimes switch to ansvr due to ability to see more stars. I’m not very computer savvy, could both solver run concurrently?
there's nothing fundamental that stops both from being run at once (on a slow computer though they would probably slow each other down). You could also imaging trying one first and then trying the other if that one doesn't work. On the whole though, perhaps an easier solution would be a way to change plate solver more easily than having to dive into the settings.
