Retroactive Capture

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Borodog
Posts: 330
Joined: Fri Jan 01, 2021 7:25 pm

Retroactive Capture

#1

Post by Borodog »

One of the things I would dearly love to capture is almost impossible to predict, namely aircraft transiting the Moon (or Sun, for that matter). It is impractical to try to record continuously for hours hoping for a transit and then sifting through the data afterward. However, it occurs to me that SharpCap has all the infrastructure needed to do what I want . . . almost.

SharpCap has a frame buffer; for my lunar imaging camera, a 20 MP ASI183MC, on my imaging laptop (32 GB of RAM) my frame buffer is well over 700 frames at full resolution. It occurs to me that a mode where SharpCap is continuously writing frames to the frame buffer but not to disk and, once the number of frames in the buffer reaches some threshold, dumping them without ever writing them, would allow for retroactive recording, i.e. a recording that gets written to disk could start before the users starts the capture by writing prior frames from the frame buffer. This would allow one to monitor without writing to disk, and allow you to capture an event just after it happens.

It might even be possible to automate the capture, i.e. monitor and retroactively write a transit out without the user having to watch and press a button. That way you could set your scope up to track the Moon (using Feature Tracking, of course), and leave it monitoring for hours, and when you came back, you would have only recordings of actual transits, if any occurred. I have some ideas of how to implement this, if you're interested.

Thanks for your consideration.
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admin
Site Admin
Posts: 13173
Joined: Sat Feb 11, 2017 3:52 pm
Location: Vale of the White Horse, UK
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Re: Retroactive Capture

#2

Post by admin »

Hi,

good one - I already have a note to add a feature to allow you to save the currently viewed frame when in still mode (ie, you take a 'framing shot' without saving and then decide you quite like it). Your idea is roughly the same for video :) Almost like a DVR mode...

cheers,

Robin
Borodog
Posts: 330
Joined: Fri Jan 01, 2021 7:25 pm

Re: Retroactive Capture

#3

Post by Borodog »

I would REALLY love to automate these. These were hours sitting outside with the mouse in my hand, cursor over the Snapshot button . . .

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viator
Posts: 11
Joined: Tue Nov 16, 2021 7:41 am

Re: Retroactive Capture

#4

Post by viator »

+1
Krzysztof z Bagien
Posts: 14
Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2022 2:46 pm

Re: Retroactive Capture

#5

Post by Krzysztof z Bagien »

Something like that would be great, so I'm giving it not only +1, but actually +11 :D
iamhondo
Posts: 34
Joined: Thu Oct 05, 2017 11:27 pm

Re: Retroactive Capture

#6

Post by iamhondo »

I think this is akin to Apples "Live Photo" option. Right?

There might be some borrow-worthy insights in this video.

https://youtu.be/HPsTniFGkhA
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