SharpCap Forums

Hi,
A question about SharpCap Pro: Can you use it to guide to a sunspot and make an AVI at the same time?

Grafuso

Hi,

yes, that's possible - you can use the 'Feature Tracking' tool to get SharpCap to keep the image steady by sending movement commands to the mount, then when that is calibrated/configured and running, start capturing. The documentation for Feature Tracking can be found here : https://docs.sharpcap.co.uk/4.1/#!2!Feature%20Tracking - however, note that the latest updates of SharpCap4.1 have improvements to Feature Tracking that are not yet in the documentation. In particular there is a new 'Phase Offset' method of tracking the movement of the image that seems to be more reliable than the older 'Use Image Features' option.

thanks,

Robin

Thankyou!
Does guiding with ShapCap Pro also work without the combination with PHD2?
Best regards
Grafuso

Hi,

SharpCap doesn't do deep sky guiding like PHD2 does, so is not a replacement for PHD2. You *can* use SharpCap in conjunction with PHD2 - SharpCap will monitor PHD2, schedule dither operations between frames, etc.

cheers,

Robin

Hi Robin,
"SharpCap does not provide deep sky guiding like PHD2 and is therefore not a replacement for PHD2." I do not understand that. I have been guiding successfully at night with PHD2 for years. I want to do a sun timelapse during the day, guiding to a sunspot and I saw this here on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbA7ZA9siZ8

Utz

Hi,

yes, that's the feature tracking tool in SharpCap, which can guide on sunspots/solar disk/lunar craters/planet/etc. What SharpCap doesn't do is *deep sky* guiding on stars while doing long exposure deep sky imaging. I thought you were asking about using SharpCap in place of that function in PHD2.

cheers,

Robin

Robin,
many thanks for your help

Utz