Best Method to Change Live Stack Target

[kaymann]

Most of the time I remember to change my Target Name at the top of SC for my first target. Most of the I remember to change the target name before I start my second target. However, I find the second target rename effects the first target because the Live capture was never stopped only paused or... (I never can figure this out) The dialog box comes up asking if I want to move everything to the new folder and the original target also gets moved over.

So what I am gathering is if I can actually learn how to start and stop (not Pause) a live stack I could properly change the target name mid-stack and get the right subs/lights in the right folder because the dialog box would save the day.

So how do I actually stop a live stack so I can move to a new target and start a fresh live stack in a new folder.

Ya I know some of you are going say to yourself - REALLY!?! but ya I need to know...

Randall

[admin]

Hi Randall,

well first I will put in a plug for SharpCap 4.1...

In SharpCap 4.1 the 'Goto Catalog Target/Co-ordinates' tool will take care of this for you - if you are stacking M31 and you tell it to go to M42 then (providing you check the box to 'start a new stack') the tool will

* Save the current stack
* Pause it
* Move to the new target
* Set the target name
* (optionally) plate solve to center the target
* clear the stack
* start a new stack on the new target

If you aren't ready to try out 4.1 yet, then I would recommend

* Save current stack.
* Clear stack
* Immediately pause stack or close live stacking
* Move to new target
* In either order do
+ Set new target name
+ resume stacking (if you left live stack open) or re-show live stacking

The real trick is to set the target name after clearing the old stack - SharpCap is smart enough to deal with the target name being changed during a stack because often people forget to set it until a few frames in, but it is best to avoid setting it just before you clear - much better to set it after clearing.

I'm also looking at ways to simplify this for SC4.1 - so far I have an option to allow you to tell SharpCap not to auto-start stacking after a clear. I think I will also change the 'Resume' button to 'Start' in those circumstances, which will then mean that clearing the stack will also stop stacking until you actually press 'Start'.

cheers,

Robin

[kaymann]

Hi Randall,

well first I will put in a plug for SharpCap 4.1...

Ahead of you on this one just hoping it comes out of beta ASAP But did not know about the Goto Catalog Target/Co-ordinates

In SharpCap 4.1 the 'Goto Catalog Target/Co-ordinates' tool will take care of this for you - if you are stacking M31 and you tell it to go to M42 then (providing you check the box to 'start a new stack') the tool will

* Save the current stack
* Pause it
* Move to the new target
* Set the target name
* (optionally) plate solve to center the target
* clear the stack
* start a new stack on the new target

If you aren't ready to try out 4.1 yet, then I would recommend

* Save current stack.
* Clear stack
* Immediately pause stack or close live stacking By click on Live View?
* Move to new target
* In either order do
+ Set new target name
+ resume stacking (if you left live stack open) or re-show live stacking

The real trick is to set the target name after clearing the old stack - SharpCap is smart enough to deal with the target name being changed during a stack because often people forget to set it until a few frames in, but it is best to avoid setting it just before you clear - much better to set it after clearing.

I'm also looking at ways to simplify this for SC4.1 - so far I have an option to allow you to tell SharpCap not to auto-start stacking after a clear. I think I will also change the 'Resume' button to 'Start' in those circumstances, which will then mean that clearing the stack will also stop stacking until you actually press 'Start'. I really like this

cheers,

Robin

You are leading me into a new question. I usually use Stellarium or Cartes du Ciel to push the scope to my new target and you are saying that SC will do that for me? That being true is a game changer for me only having to load up PHD2, ASTAP and SC and leaving the resource hog planetarium off...

[admin]

Hi Randall,

closing live stacking is just a matter of either pressing the 'Live Stack' button again on the toolbar or using the 'X' close button at the top right of the live stacking work area.

Yes, you can definitely use SharpCap now to move to new targets. It doesn't show a skymap like Stellarium or CdC, but it does have a 'sort and filter' approach to choosing a suitable target that you might like. The short catalog is simply a dropdown of the 200 or so most common targets (Messier and Caldwell catalogs), but the full catalog selection is much more flexible

Capture.JPG (149.88 KiB) Viewed 1599 times

You get to choose the type of target you are interested in, set limits on magnitude, altitude and time to meridian and then sort the resulting list of candidates by altitude, magnitude, etc. You can even search by name or id.

cheers,

Robin

[kaymann]

First, wow I tried the GoTo in Tools and fantastic! I really like a one stop shop for all my astro needs. I tried the much nicer GoTo in 4.1 but got a very sharp error complete lockup (I will write a bug report with log in another thread). So I tried the more basic GoTo in Tools in your latest 4.0 and went to town having a great night of live stacking running only SC, PHD2 (ASTAP in background).

BTW I think I finally got the hang of the Live stacking stop and of course it worked just as you described. I am perhaps a different kind of user of SC from others in that I use it for AP as much as LS. I want to see what my AP is going to look like before my subs are done and I discover my subs are worthless or maybe pristine. Then the final pic is worked over in Siril, Gimp and Darktable from the subs saved by SC. I could use N.I.N.A. to do the whole thing but that is not as exciting as watching a LS appear your very eyes and know what the final pic could look like.

[Jean-Francois]

Hello Robin,

A question about the "Time to meridian" ... if "22h49, it means the object will pass the meridian in 22 hours 49 minutes ?
So the object is 1 hour 11 minutes past the meridian.

Why not show the time in the format "-12h ... +12h" ?
So it will = 0h when the object is on the meridian and +/- 1 h if it is "1 hour" away the meridian.
You need to think what the meaning of "+" and "-" will be.

Regards,
Jean-Francois

[admin]

Hi,

glad to hear that you like the look of the GOTO tool - I will investigate the bug report to see what is going wrong. I think that you are right that if you are coming from a more classical AP background then the way that live stacking just starts may feel wrong, but as a beginner tool, the fact that it 'just works' is invaluable.

@Jean-Francois, yes, 22h49 to meridian means it crossed the meridian 1h11 ago. I'm not sure if I can see a benefit to using +/- and a range of zero to 12 hours, since as you noted the choice of sign is not obvious and would get misinterpreted. To me the large value for 'time to meridian' is a clear indication that you aren't going to need to worry about a flip any time soon.

cheers,

Robin

[kaymann]

I saw that I was using one version older of the beta. So I downloaded the newest version and will see if I can repeat the error - probably tonight with clear skies (I looked at the error report and couldn't find anything that led up to the lockup. Like I say I will hopefully get a chance to try again tonight. BTW where does beta bug reporting go - in the general bug reporting section?
Randall

[admin]

Hi Randall,

happy for beta bug reports to go in either the beta forum or the bug reports forum. Good luck with the clear skies!

cheers,

Robin