Raw frames saved in PNG instead of FITS format

[roelb]

V.4.1.10827
In the Live Stack window, the RAW frames are saved in PNG- instead of FITS- format.

[roelb]

OK
I found in the Sharpcap Settings > Saving > Prefferred Still Format was suddenly changed to PNG instead of FITS.
Apparently this change was made automatically in the latest version?

[admin]

That's weird...

I haven't changed the default there - in fact I just checked the code and the default save format for still images has been PNG since 2015 (when I first added the default settings). I suppose if something somehow deleted some of your settings then it would go back to default, but I can't see that happening except deliberately through the 'Reset Settings' button.

Just one of those weird things I guess...

cheers,

Robin

[HawaiianHaole]

Hi. I’ve been using sharpcap for a few months now and I have the same problem. I have quite a few hours of usless data to stack now because all raw frames from the live stack have been saved in png format. The live stack image is in color and saved in FITS format, but when I go to practice stacking the raw frames in DSS, i can’t get past the registration process because my flats and darks are incompatible with the light frames. All light frames show “no” under the CFA column while the flats and darks show “yes”. I experimented making flats a darks in png format and made it through the stacking process, but everything was in grey scale. I have seen png color frames before, I just don’t understand why png format doesn’t save the color in these raw frames. While I have changed the settings manually for the video and still frame to SER and FITS respectively, somehow they got changed back to png. This happened again to me last night. I am new to this, so I’m fairly certain I’m doing something to cause this but I don’t understand what.

Is there a way to stack these png light frames in color? If not I can free up some space.

Sorry didn’t mean to hijack the thread.
Cheers, Skip

[Menno555]

Hi Skip and welcome

There is a setting in SharpCap which remembers the latest settings of your last used camera, this is in Setting under the General tab: Automaticly restore last used camera setting. If that is not set, when you open SharpCap and start your camera, there is change it returns to a "default setting" of PNG that you maybe used once.

The other setting is in the main screen with you camera connected. On the right side, under Capture format and area, there is a drop-down menu for Output Format. Open that and choose FITS. This together with the setting mentioned above, causes the output format to be FITS each time you connect to that camera.
The only thing you have to remember now is to set it back to FITS when you for example used SER with that same camera.

About the files saved as PNG, I'm not sure there. Maybe someone else has tips.

Menno

FITS.jpg (56.74 KiB) Viewed 1000 times

[admin]

Hi,

For the DSS issue, DSS only offers to apply debayering to FITS files. This is just one of those strange historical limitations of DSS, although it might be worth looking for any new or beta versions of DSS as I am fairly sure that the new maintenance team were hoping to change this.

If you can't find a suitable DSS update then you can convert the PNG files to FITS. A tool like PIPP (Planetary Imaging Pre Processor) will do this for you (I am sure there are plenty of others too)

cheers,

Robin

[Craigar]

Had PiPP ONLY flip it and save it as .FITS then set debayer pattern manually in DSS - I was even able to use existing darks and flats (from same camera) .. acted like standard .fits save from SC !

DSSmanualBayerSelection.png (371.18 KiB) Viewed 693 times