What's new in SharpCap this week... 27th June 2022
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2022 2:11 pm
Hi folks and welcome to that bit of the year where our nights gradually start getting longer (for Northern Hemisphere observers anyway!)
GOTO Image
The main change in this week's SharpCap update is adding the 'Goto Image' tool into the UI (last week it was available for sequencer use only). You will find it in the Tools menu, and you need to have a camera open *and* a GOTO mount connected *and* a working plate solving tool configured in order for it to become available.
Once selected, you need to choose the image file that contains the area of the sky you want to revisit by pressing the '...' button to browse for the file.
SharpCap will attempt to plate solve the image file that you choose, so it must have visible stars in it. If the selected image is a FITS file and contains co-ordinates in the FITS headers than SharpCap will use those co-ordinates as a hint for the plate solving engine (and limit the engine to finding a position within 15 degrees of the header information). If the file is not FITS format, or does not contain co-ordinates in the headers, SharpCap will perform a whole sky plate solve (which will take longer).
As long as the plate solving operation is successful, SharpCap will command your mount to GOTO the co-ordinates of the image center (unless they are below the horizon, in which case you will get an error).
You can optionally instruct SharpCap to use an ASCOM rotator to match the orientation of the loaded image and also to perform a final plate solve/sync to ensure accurate positioning. Both of these actions will involve plate solving a frame captured from your camera, so if you intend to use them, make sure an appropriate exposure/gain are set to give a good number of visible stars before using the tool.
Once the procedure is started, progress is shown in the list of stages below - if there is a problem then you will see some information displayed in the 'Message' column and more can be found by expanding the 'Detailed Progress Log' section at the very bottom.
There are still a few things that I would like to tidy up about this - for instance saving the choice of file and other settings from one use to the next and also making sure that the browse for file chooser window ends up back in the right folder, but the current version should be usable.
Feedback welcome.
Other Stuff
Aside from the normal bug fixes, there are a few other improvements this week:
* Updated SDK from SVBony with bug fixes and support for new models
* Based on forum feedback the ability to shift the 'ghosted image alignment' overlay by 80% left/right/up/down to help with mosaic set up
* Performance improvements to live stacking, particularly when saving raw frames or when 'faint star optimization' for star detection is on.
* An option to start ZWO cameras in minimum 'turbo USB' setting to help on systems where camera stability is an issue
cheers,
Robin
GOTO Image
The main change in this week's SharpCap update is adding the 'Goto Image' tool into the UI (last week it was available for sequencer use only). You will find it in the Tools menu, and you need to have a camera open *and* a GOTO mount connected *and* a working plate solving tool configured in order for it to become available.
Once selected, you need to choose the image file that contains the area of the sky you want to revisit by pressing the '...' button to browse for the file.
SharpCap will attempt to plate solve the image file that you choose, so it must have visible stars in it. If the selected image is a FITS file and contains co-ordinates in the FITS headers than SharpCap will use those co-ordinates as a hint for the plate solving engine (and limit the engine to finding a position within 15 degrees of the header information). If the file is not FITS format, or does not contain co-ordinates in the headers, SharpCap will perform a whole sky plate solve (which will take longer).
As long as the plate solving operation is successful, SharpCap will command your mount to GOTO the co-ordinates of the image center (unless they are below the horizon, in which case you will get an error).
You can optionally instruct SharpCap to use an ASCOM rotator to match the orientation of the loaded image and also to perform a final plate solve/sync to ensure accurate positioning. Both of these actions will involve plate solving a frame captured from your camera, so if you intend to use them, make sure an appropriate exposure/gain are set to give a good number of visible stars before using the tool.
Once the procedure is started, progress is shown in the list of stages below - if there is a problem then you will see some information displayed in the 'Message' column and more can be found by expanding the 'Detailed Progress Log' section at the very bottom.
There are still a few things that I would like to tidy up about this - for instance saving the choice of file and other settings from one use to the next and also making sure that the browse for file chooser window ends up back in the right folder, but the current version should be usable.
Feedback welcome.
Other Stuff
Aside from the normal bug fixes, there are a few other improvements this week:
* Updated SDK from SVBony with bug fixes and support for new models
* Based on forum feedback the ability to shift the 'ghosted image alignment' overlay by 80% left/right/up/down to help with mosaic set up
* Performance improvements to live stacking, particularly when saving raw frames or when 'faint star optimization' for star detection is on.
* An option to start ZWO cameras in minimum 'turbo USB' setting to help on systems where camera stability is an issue
cheers,
Robin