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rwg

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  1. I've been waiting for someone to build a sensor that does this *at the pixel level*. Just like we have microlenses and (for colour cameras) filters on each pixel now, imagine a camera where each pixel had a prism arrangement splitting the photons between 3 separate detection sites.... Once camera, one shot colour, no 66% loss of photons. It might seem far-fetched, but the sort of features built into camera pixels now were pretty far fetched only 15 or 20 years back. cheers, Robin
  2. My trick is to wrap Zinc Oxide tape round each part to be unscrewed - the coarse fabric surface of the tape gives you plenty of grip, even on a narrow spacer ring, then the tape peels off nicely. You can pick up the tape cheaply from any chemist or probably sports shop (as it is used for strapping sports injuries). cheers, Robin
  3. I had a quick word with the organisers to point out that they had neglected to mention the opening time on their web site The site has now been updated with the show times of 9am to 5pm. I also remember there being a good sized queue outside last time before 9am. Of course it makes sense to only hand out talk tickets on the day to avoid problems with people reserving tickets and then not showing up... Anyway, very much looking forward to it cheers, Robin
  4. I recorded the missing bit later and you can find it here
  5. Check out the troubleshooting guide https://www.sharpcap.co.uk/sharpcap/features/polar-alignment/polar-alignment-troubleshooting If that doesn't help then capture a couple of images by using the 'snapshot' button and share them with me and I will have a look to see if I can work out why they are not working. cheers, Robin PS. At the IAS show this weekend, so may be able to look in detail until after the weekend.
  6. @Atreta until yesterday there was a donation button on the SharpCap web site. I've removed that because with the release of 3.0 in the next week or two there will be a 'Pro' option available for those who wish to support SharpCap. cheers, Robin
  7. Hi @Atreta, you need to be able to see the region around the pole (north or south) for the polar alignment to be able to work. I have an idea for a version that will work without seeing the pole, but have had no time to even test out whether it works yet, so it's a far while off even if it does work. cheers, Robin
  8. The solve status for the most recent frame is there - in Stage 1 and Stage 3 it's to the right near the 'Next' button and in Stage 2 it's to the left (I think that was the only space for it in stage 2). The actual plate solving procedure is fairly quick (fraction of a second usually) as it works over such a limited area of sky. Actually the first solve can take a few seconds as it builds it's search index at that point, but subsequent ones are fast. Anyway, as soon as the exposure finishes the frame gets passed to the plate solver and only when that is done does it get displayed on screen - if you see only stars on a frame and no NCP circles then that means the frame has already failed to solve, not that it's waiting for the solver to run. cheers, Robin
  9. @frugal Are you using the 2.10 beta? That has improved star detection and more tweaks to it too - it seems to have fixed issues in 2.9 with faint stars not working well for a number of people, particularly with lodestar cameras which seem to have no gain control Set a digital gain of 2x if you have no camera gain control and see if that helps. With a camera gain control (QHY, ZWO, Altair, etc) I'd usually advise exposures in the 1-4s range and a high gain. cheers, Robin PS. Don't forget to use the trial license key with the latest versions of the beta to unlock the adjustment phase!
  10. Personally I've never tried PE correction and just relied on guiding. cheers, Robin
  11. Look at the PHD guide logs - if it's mostly RA corrections then it's almost certainly periodic error. Polar misalignment would show up as DEC drift being corrected. cheers, Robin
  12. Are you sure that isn't periodic error? Two reasons I suspect this - 1) the trails are stronger at each end, suggesting it's spending longer with the star near the end than with it in the middle of the trail - that doesn't fit with a PA problem which should be a straight line 2) The trails look like they are almost due E-W (see http://nova.astrometry.net/user_images/1569527#annotated ) so it looks like you are getting trailing in RA, not DEC. Again this doesn't fit with a polar alignment issue, but does with periodic drive error. cheers, Robin
  13. Ah, good point - I didn't think of the auto-upgrade path when putting the license on the download page. I *think* I put something in the release notes that you see when you install a new version of SharpCap, but very few people read those I suspect... cheers, Robin
  14. If you look on the beta download page there is a license that you can use with the beta for now. This will continue to be available and updated during the beta period. So yes, you can still use the features for the beta period, but we've got to the point that the license entry/checking code needed to be turned on to make sure it didn't have bugs in it! cheers, Robin
  15. PHD does a strong stretch on every frame before displaying it which can make it's brightness onscreen misleading. There is a way to turn this off somewhere in PHD, but can't recall where. cheers, Robin
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