Are Planet Stabilization and Feature Tracking via the mount or ROI compatible?

[Borodog]

It seemed like they were not, but I recall a passing comment (unfortunately I can't put my finger on it at the moment) that seemed to indicate that they should be.

Basically, I need the ability to both center the planet in the ROI and have either the ROI also track the planet across the chip, or much preferably, have the mount track the planet such that it stays near the center of the chip.

One use case is that I am starting to believe that averaging frames during planetary focusing without planet stabilization enabled is a mistake; the more frames you average, the blurrier the image will become, and the amount of blur will be dependent on drift and wind as the target bobs around. But with only planet stabilization and not feature tracking, the planet can drift or be shifted (by image shift during focusing) out of the ROI or off the optical axis. That can be problem both for focusing with an SCT due to image shift as well as recording, if you drift out of the coma free field or far enough for field curvature to matter.

The same question goes for the ADC tool; is it compatible with planet stabilization and feature tracking? Normally the planet shifts around when I adjust the ADC, but I can't recall actually testing it with planet stabilization or feature tracking, as these tools never seemed to work right when there are overlays (e.g. black level boxes) on the screen, which the ADC tool uses.

Thanks,

Mike

[admin]

Hi Mike,

first of all, the order of the processing steps is important when combining these features

In SharpCap 4.0, Stabilization happens before ADC alignment and focus calculations, which means they can work on a stabilized image. Feature tracking calculations also happen after stabilization in SC 4.0, meaning that if you have stabilization turned on, feature tracking will not work. One thing to note is that the grey band from stabilization may throw off ADC calculations unless the black threshold is turned up - this is not a problem in 4.1

In SharpCap 4.1, feature tracking detects movement *before* stabilization, so ought to work normally with stabilization turned on (although I have never tried that combination!). ADC and focus calculations still happen after stabilization, so will work.

I should note that when you average across multiple frames to create a focus score, the score is calculated for each frame, then the scores are averaged - it's not the frames being averaged and then the score calculated from the average frame.

cheers,

Robin

[Borodog]

Robin,

Because I was eventually able to get feature tracking to work last night, I was able to test all of this and was very happy to see that feature tracking worked with planet stabilization, focusing, and ADC alignment. All worked more or less flawlessly together (to within the ADC and focus ROI box issue I reported elsewhere).

Thanks,

Mike