Sharpcap question

[Unklefunk]

Ok here goes...im a complete novice at this so please be gentle

I have a  Logitech webcam which I have modified, I thought I would try and  have a bash at some lunar imaging the other night, using sharpcap and the webcam I tried to focus on the moon, I could see the shape of the moon on the laptop screen but no matter how I tried I could not get it into focus

all I could see was a really bright semi circle, I appreciate it could be the webcam I suppose, but is there any settings I should be aware of within sharpcap that would make a difference to this. I am also looking to have ago at some planetary imaging, I am using a celestron nexstar 4se with a focal ratio of f13  with the webcam. Again apologies for the stupid question...any help would be much appreciated

[CodnorPaul]

There are no focus settings in Sharpcap, that is all controlled by the telescope focuser.  Do you have dew control?  It could be a dewed up corrector rather than a focus issue?

[Davesellars]

What exposure time did you have set?

[Unklefunk]

What exposure time did you have set?

I don't know...basically I just plugged it in and tried it

[Unklefunk]

There are no focus settings in Sharpcap, that is all controlled by the telescope focuser.  Do you have dew control?  It could be a dewed up corrector rather than a focus issue?

the corrector was clear no dew problem at all

[Jonk]

In sharpcap, go into the camera exposure settings and tick the auto box.

Once the exposure looks good, untick auto and manually move the exposure slider (or gain or both) until the brightest part of the moon is correctly exposed (I,e, not pure white).

Turn on the exposure histogram (somewhere at the top) and you'll see the exposure histogram at the bottom. Basically the line should be an even hill from left to right - play with the sliders and you'll get it.

[Davesellars]

SharpCap for me defaults to start at 85ms exposure, no idea why this figure but it's way too much for the Moon. With my Altair GPCAM I'm using somewhere between 5ms and 15ms depending on the phase. It's very sensitive and a few ms too much and all definition is lost.