Start up sharp cap

[Gfranzese]

I currently have a meade LX90 with a QHY 224C camera optec f.2 with 58mm tube. This was set up by optec. My question is, when I go to deep sky, what should the general settings in sharp cap be so I can at least see an image. I've begun working with bright stars but when I move to deep sky I cannot see an image on the screen.
Thanks, Greg

[admin]

Hi

a reasonable starting point would be maximum gain and 5 to 30s exposures - that should pull out something at least on the brighter DSOs. Once you have some visibility you can start tinkering with the gain and exposure to be in optimising the image.

Cheers, Robin

[chongo228]

This depends on several factors like light pollution and which DSO you're going after. M31, M42, or a cluster like M13 would show up faster than a lower magnitude target. As stated above 30 seconds should be enough to see most targets...once you have it in view lower the gain so stars are not blown out and noise is reduced.

Another tip that should really help is to use the display histogram in the right side control panel. Hit the lightning bolt and it will auto-stretch the image for you making dim objects visible. As you dial in exposures and gain keep resetting the display histo and hitting the lighting bolt to adjust the display to your new settings. See the infor about it here....https://docs.sharpcap.co.uk/3.2/#Mini%2 ... %20Stretch