Live stack failed: Don't know why

[Calamity_Jane]

Hi:

The only change I have made is to change from a Celestron C11 XLT to a Celestron Edge HD 1100.

I like to use live stack because it enables me not to save bad frames, e.g. due to passing cloud. (I do the "real" postprocessing elsewhere.)

Anyway, it is now telling me that it can only find three stars, and therefore cannot stack. I attach a screen dump of what the camera sees and a screen dump of the Help About.

Presumably I need to reset something somewhere?

The camera is a ZWO ASI2600MC Pro. The PC runs Windows 10, which is regularly updated. I managed to measure the FWHM of a frame at 7.85.

Thanks in advance, Jane.

[admin]

Hi Jane,

well, your SharpCap is a bit out-of-date, but I don't think that will be the cause of this issue.

What I can see from your screenshot is that you are using a very strong display stretch to see the stars in that image - that could mean that the stars that appear quite clearly on-screen are actually very faint and are difficult for the live stacking to detect for alignment purposes.

Things to try are

* Increase gain or exposure to brighten the stars
* Adjust the sensitivity of star detection in the 'Alignment' tab of star detection
* Turn on 'optimize for faint stars' also in the alignment tab

I would suggest keeping the alignment tab of live stacking open while you are trying to sort this - it shows the number of stars found in the 'Star Detection Status' box, so you can see what effect your changes are having.

cheers,

Robin

[Calamity_Jane]

Hi Robin,

It turned out to be as simple as that I had unchecked the "Optimise for Faint Stars" option. Once I re-checked that, everything was fine.

Thank you for your help.

Regards, Jane.

[Calamity_Jane]

I also took your advice to update. That proved to be more "interesting" than anticipated, since I discovered that the reason the internet had failed in my observatory was a failed internet repeater that you plug into the mains. Further investigations revealed that the repeater that feeds my television had also failed (That has not worked for some months, but astronomy is much more interesting than television, so I wasn't very bothered). Previous experience tells me that these devices have a life of only 2-3 years.

[admin]

Hi,

I started off trying WIFI in the observatory, then WIFI with repeaters, then those things that run the network over the mains cables and ended up with a proper network cable running out there to get reliable networking. I'm lucky that the rails for the roll-off roof connect back to the house wall, so I can run mains and network cabling along the rails tidily without needing to bury them or string them in the air.

Glad you got the update sorted though

cheers,

Robin