SharpCap Forums

Our situation: Brand new to all of this, and what little we have done has been EAA.
The only software we've used is Sharpcap & CPWI (for the mount). Getting familiar with both but there's no time to learn anything else.
We've got one last crack at the comet from our location, so I'd like to make it count. My hope is to capture it with the equipment / software we have now, and process the data sometime in the future when we've figured that part out.
But since I don't know what Ill need to process later, I'm not sure what I should capture now or how it should be captured.
Do I just collect raw frames as I usually do when live stacking?
Should I align on the stars or the comet (the latter being a new feature in sharpcap beta)?
Should I align the fov to the trailing edge of the comet so it's in frame for the longest time? And / or stop & re-center at times?
Would fairly short subs be called for to prevent blurring?
We've got an SCT we can run with either hyperstar or a .63x reducer. Which would be best? We do not have the ability to guide. We are in a suburban location (Bortle 6 or 7). AVX mount.
I know its alot. Any help would be appreciated.
Appreciate any suggestions!

Hi,

so, to start with, live stacking and also setting the save raw frames option to 'Save All' (or 'Save Stacked') will be fine - that will make sure you have all the data later for reprocessing.

If you are viewing the comet, set SharpCap up to do the comet alignment, otherwise you will get pinpoint stars and a big blur for the comet in SharpCap.

Hyperstar or 0.63 reducer is hard to judge, since I don't know the sensor size of the camera you are using, so can't be sure what the final field of view will be. The best thing to do is to try one to see how it frames the comet. If it is a tiny lost blob in the middle of the frame with the hyperstar then try the 0.63 reducer. If it is covering almost all the view with the 0.63, try the hyperstar.

You will need relatively short frames because you are running unguided *and* the comet moves relatively quickly. Maybe start with 30 seconds and see how that goes (if the stars trail in individual frames, go shorter). You can use the gain control to bring the brightness level up if the individual frames are dark.

For framing the image, consider putting the head of the comet about 1/3 of the way from the center to the edge, arranged so that the main part of the tail fills the center of the image. That should get a good tail in view and allow space for the comet to drift without going straight out of view.

Hope this helps,

Robin