New Feature : Planetary Live Stacking

[Borodog]

Or how about a live stacked mineral Moon?

Live stacked mineral Moon in SharpCap 4.1.

Live_stacked_mineral_Moon.png (240.53 KiB) Viewed 96830 times

[admin]

Well, those last few posts give us all something to aim for

thanks for sharing and showing what is possible!

cheers,

Robin

[Altocumulus]

I am clouded out for the next week at least, but luckily I found a treasure trove of SER files from last year.

Gorgeous! What's the scope and cam?

[Borodog]

I am clouded out for the next week at least, but luckily I found a treasure trove of SER files from last year.

Gorgeous! What's the scope and cam?

The scope is an 1100 EdgeHD. I think I used 2 different cameras for those planetary images, but I'm not certain. I think I used the ASI183MC for some and the ASI678MC for some. I'd have to check the image scales to be sure.

Except the Moon, of course. That was shot with a 60mm SVBONY guide scope and an SV305.

[Borodog]

I am clouded out for the next week at least, but luckily I found a treasure trove of SER files from last year.

Gorgeous! What's the scope and cam?

The scope is an 1100 EdgeHD. I think I used 2 different cameras for those planetary images, but I'm not certain. I think I used the ASI183MC for some and the ASI678MC for some. I'd have to check the image scales to be sure.

Except the Moon, of course. That was shot with a 60mm SVBONY guide scope and an SV305.

I went back and made a video showing the tool in action in good seeing using these old videos for Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter. It's clear now from the two image scales of Jupiter that some were with the 183 and some with the 678. I think the 183 images did not use an ADC, so I demonstrate the channel alignment feature in the tool (spoiler alert: it works great). I also show the Moon, imaged very low just after moonrise, imaged with a guide scope and SV305, and Jupiter in poor seeing in IR. I share some tips on how I would process all of these in the tool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFOwE-PSQsY

[Altocumulus]

The scope is an 1100 EdgeHD. I think I used 2 different cameras for those planetary images, but I'm not certain. I think I used the ASI183MC for some and the ASI678MC for some. I'd have to check the image scales to be sure.

Except the Moon, of course. That was shot with a 60mm SVBONY guide scope and an SV305.

I went back and made a video showing the tool in action in good seeing using these old videos for Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter. It's clear now from the two image scales of Jupiter that some were with the 183 and some with the 678. I think the 183 images did not use an ADC, so I demonstrate the channel alignment feature in the tool (spoiler alert: it works great). I also show the Moon, imaged very low just after moonrise, imaged with a guide scope and SV305, and Jupiter in poor seeing in IR. I share some tips on how I would process all of these in the tool.

A wonderful advert for the routine - thank you.....

[admin]

Hi folks,

I have just uploaded the weekly new SharpCap version, and most of the changes in this version are related to planetary live stacking, so I thought it would be handy to detail them here.


Sharpening and Adjustments

Capture2.JPG (40.29 KiB) Viewed 96527 times

• Re-arrangement of some adjustments sliders on the Sharpening and Adjustments tab - colour channel alignment has moved to the Stabilization/Alignment tab
• Remove level 5 wavelets, as it never seemed to be useful, even in 'half scale'. This speeds up wavelet processing
• Added a 'Fine' sharpening slider which performs a convolution sharpening, adding contrast at the finest levels to give the image more zing
• Added a 'Denoise' slider to allow fine level noise to be suppressed as part of sharpening
• Added an 'Auto Adjust Brightness/Colour' button which will perform auto colour balance adjustment and brightness adjustment for the stack.
• Add a master on/off checkbox for colour/brightness adjustments

Saving and Pausing

Capture3JPG.JPG (22.44 KiB) Viewed 96527 times

• Added a 'Save to 16 bit TIFF' button that will save the stack to TIFF (no display stretch adjustment included)
• Add a 'Pause' checkbox which pauses stacking *and* timelapse (but the image on screen will still update to adjustment control changes)
• Add a warning if the stacking FPS drops to very low levels, which could indicate cloud obscuring the target or poor quality meaning most frames being filtered out.

Filtering and Quality History

Capture.JPG (38.6 KiB) Viewed 96529 times

• Added a graph showing the history of the quality measurement of frames from the camera, along with a histogram showing the distribution of quality (see above)

Time Lapses

Capture5.JPG (31.16 KiB) Viewed 96523 times

• Add WMV compressed video as an option for time lapse output
• Add an option for timelapse video to include display stretch adjustments
• Add more information on the status of the time lapse (how long it has been running for as well as number of frames)

Alignment and Stabilization

Capture4.JPG (20.94 KiB) Viewed 96527 times

• Add an option to keep the planet in the current position when stabilizing, not move it to the center
• Add an option to automatically move the selection area (if in use) to track the planet within the camera frame
• Add an option (very experimental - no clear sky to test yet) to adjust the camera ROI to track the planet

Bug fixes and tweaks

• Fix issue with colour band near the edge of the stacked image, particularly in selection area mode
• Increased ranges to wavelet adjustments and colour adjustments
• Add a slider for the 'Test Camera 2 (High Speed)' to allow the position of the camera in playing back an SER file to be seen (and adjusted)
• Fix 'Test Camera 2 (High Speed)' not properly converting RAW data to MONO if MONO is selected in the camera colour space
• Record camera settings in capturesettings.txt file for saved images/videos from Planetary Live Stacking - these include the wavelet sharpening and other settings in use at the time

Here's a screenshot showing the new frame quality graph:

Capture.JPG (38.6 KiB) Viewed 96529 times

The most recent frames are on the right and the graph scrolls left as more data is added on the right. The partially transparent histogram on the left shows the distribution of frame quality over the area shown in the graph. If filtering is enabled then the orange/green division is at the point where the quality filter threshold is currently (note that the quality threshold changes over time, so don't assume that the frames above the orange/green split have gone into the stack and the ones below haven't).


Phew! lots of little changes this week that I hope should improve the usability of this feature. Hopefully I haven't broken anything (or at least not too much!)

cheers,

Robin

[Borodog]

Wow! What an incredible update! Thank you so much Robin! I am running out of exclamation points!

Now I'm going to have update my tutorial again . . .

[PeterC65]

I'm still testing these releases with a recorded SER of Mars as I haven't had the opportunity yet to try it live, but even so, each set of changes is improving the performance for me.
I particularly like the Fine convolution sharpening slider which seems to do a great job all on its own. I find I'm setting it to maximum though, and it's not obvious that the Halve Wavelet Scales tick box doesn't apply to it. I'd also be inclined to rename the "Gaussian Wavelet Sharpening" tick box to "Sharpening / Denoise Adjustments" since it enables / disables all of the sharpening and denoise functions listed below it.
The ability to disable Stabilize to center (centre surely?) will be very handy when I do eventually get to observe Jupiter with its moons.
The Denoise slider makes Mars a little more fuzzy for me and Auto Adjust Brightness Colour turned the planet white / pink!

[Borodog]

I'm still testing these releases with a recorded SER of Mars as I haven't had the opportunity yet to try it live, but even so, each set of changes is improving the performance for me.
I particularly like the Fine convolution sharpening slider which seems to do a great job all on its own. I find I'm setting it to maximum though, and it's not obvious that the Halve Wavelet Scales tick box doesn't apply to it. I'd also be inclined to rename the "Gaussian Wavelet Sharpening" tick box to "Sharpening / Denoise Adjustments" since it enables / disables all of the sharpening and denoise functions listed below it.
The ability to disable Stabilize to center (centre surely?) will be very handy when I do eventually get to observe Jupiter with its moons.
The Denoise slider makes Mars a little more fuzzy for me and Auto Adjust Brightness Colour turned the planet white / pink!

Ha! Thanks for reporting all that. I predicted [most] of this behavior. ;O)