SharpCap Forums

So a little personal information to help, I am disabled and find it painful to look through the polar alignment on my Star Adventurer 2i. My interests are Nightscape Imaging the Milky Way and Moon with interesting foregrounds and backgrounds. The reason for the SA2i is that I want longer exposures with a 100mm to 200mm or better lens.

So I'm looking for just the equipment needed to assist me in PA with the SA2i and a DSLR which is a Canon 5DM3 and several lenses to chose from but nothing converted to DSO.

The items I have chosen so far are of course SharpCap Pro, ZWO ASI224MC, and WO 50mm UniGuide Scope paired with a MeLE Mini PC Quieter2Q Windows 10 Pro 8GB DDR 256GB eMMC Celeron J4125 Processor Quad-Core Mini Computer. I saw this mini-pc recommended by Cuiv, the Lazy Geek on YouTube. Prior to that video I was looking at an ZWO ASIAIR, but they are out of stock.

I would use Windows RDP from an Android phone the MiniPC. This works on my home PC creating a WiFi Hotspot, so I believe it will work on the MiniPC.

Then the questions are, will that equipment work with SharpCap and will SharpCap run on that MiniPC? I've not purchased anything yet, but do have a Jackery to power equipment and a nice cart to get me on location.

Thanks,
Mike

Hi Mike,

that sounds like a pretty reasonable set of equipment - the Celeron J4125 processor of the mini PC may be a bit on the slow side by todays standards, but it should manage SharpCap polar align without too much trouble.

The ZWO 224MC will be fine (but if you are *only* going to use for polar alignment, then consider a mono camera instead - both will work, but you will get away with shorter exposures with a mono camera, so the feedback will be quicker.

I'm not familiar with the WO guide scope, but it looks to be their version of the premium 200mm f/4 guide scope (I have the Altair equivalent). The only thing I would check is if it has enough back focus to work with a camera like the 224MC, which has the sensor in the main camera body and a T-to-1.25 adaptor on the front. Cameras like the 120MM Mini (which are mentioned on the WO page) have the sensor inside the 1.25" barrel of the camera, so the sensor can be pushed much further towards the front of the scope.

Hoep this helps,

Robin

Thank you for the assistance, really appreciated. I will make the change to a monochrome as you suggested and probably changing the MiniPC too.

Looking at the Beelink SER3 with a Ryzen 3200U - would that be powerful enough? I'm working on finding a DC cable for it first before I purchase and to read more reviews. It's twice the size and with a fan, but will allow me to run more apps. My Jackery 500 can do AC, but would rather use the DC output to conserve power.

So changing to one of the mini's such as the ASI120MM or ASI290MM - would I see a benefit with the 290 vs the 120 for PA?

Thanks,
Mike

Hi Mike,

the Ryzen CPU will be noticeably faster than the Celeron, see the benchmark values here

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cp ... 0U&id=3431

and here

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cp ... Hz&id=3667

The 'single thread' rating is probably the one that relates most to how snappy the computer will feel in use, so 1825 for the Ryzen vs 1173 for the celeron.

The 120vs290 thing is tricky.

290 : Better read noise values, more modern sensor, but smaller pixels and a 'widescreen' approx 2:1 aspect ratio, higher resolution

120 : More read noise, but bigger pixels and a squarer 4:3 aspect ratio

Both will do a decent job - for polar alignment only, I would go with the cheaper 120MM

cheers,

Robin

Thank you very much Robin, I will be choosing the less expensive 120. Still comparing MiniPC's, that's a pretty big market now with lots of companies.

Thanks,
Mike