StuartT

I have recently acquired a car (not having had one for years) from a member of the family, so it is now possible for me to do some observing (and AP) from somewhere other than my (deeply suboptimal) back garden. So my question is, where would you recommend that's within about a 40 min drive from Oxford? It seems to me that I am looking for two things; a) lower Bortularity than I currently have (approx 6); and b) a site where I won't get trampled by wild animals, accosted by unsavoury characters or chased away by shotgun wielding farmers. Thanks

Hmm... interesting Yes. Same thing. RA looked about right but Dec was off by miles. Wasn't just Jupiter tho, happened with M31 also

Thanks Craig. This 2600MC is an APS-C sensor and doesn't get super high frame rates. But as you say, I can afford to shoot for longer with the moon.

Ok, I am not sure what full well or HGC is, but I think the take home is to keep my gain low. I guess I was trying to get a good frame rate, but as the moon doesn't rotate, perhaps I was worrying about that unnecessarily. Thanks!

Last night, I polar aligned my mount (EQ6R Pro and Synscan) then did a two star alignment on Capella and Markab. But then went I selected Jupiter as a target, it was miles off! Similarly when I asked it to go to M31. A good 10 - 15 degrees out in both cases. Jupiter ain't such a biggy as I could use my finder scope to get that. But surely GOTO should be more accurate than that? So I parked the scope, switched off and started all over again. Double checking I'd entered the right date and time. Still the same problem. How can Synscan be so far off?

ok, I think I misunderstood you then, when you said this It enables you to split / join / calibrate your video captures

according to the settings file generated by SharpCap the gain was 571 (I think I put it up high to try and get a faster frame rate). Not sure about the histogram (sorry, I am new to this stuff). SharpCap has generated an excel file called histogram, is that what you mean? Attached 01_19_10.Histogram.csv

I shot this last night. Moderately good seeing. Only my second attempt at the moon. It's the best 50% of frames from a 2min video captured in SharpCap, then stacked in AS3! and (gently) tweaked in Registax. Shot at prime focus of an Esprit 150mm ED APO using a ASI 2600MC Reasonably happy as a try out of my setup and processing, but it's a bit too blown out at the bottom. Maybe the latitude of these cameras isn't that wide? Anything I can do about that without underexposing the terminator?

nice one mate! You're about at the same stage as me. I'm trying to get the hang of planets. I assume this is from stacked video frames? If it's a single shot, you did bloody well!

So this is interesting. I think I need to check out PIPP. So do you mean it's possible to combine multiple videos? Usually I shoot a bunch of 1 or 2 minute videos and process the best one. I kind of assumed it wasn't possible to combine different videos into one, but maybe it is? Thanks. I posted on the SharpCap forum and asked him if he might consider adding this in a future version

Thanks. I've kind of gotten used to SharpCap now, so I'd rather not have to keep learning new pieces of software ideally. Maybe I will contact the creator, Robin Glover and see what he says. Thanks vlaiv

But it doesn't seem to provide that either. Here is the complete settings file [ZWO ASI2600MC Pro] Debayer Preview=Off Pan=1880 Tilt=776 Output Format=SER file (*.ser) Binning=1 Capture Area=3120x2088 Colour Space=RAW16 Hardware Binning=Off High Speed Mode=Off Turbo USB=100(Auto) Flip=None Frame Rate Limit=Maximum Gain=517 Exposure=3.2E-05 Timestamp Frames=Off White Bal (B)=99 White Bal (R)=56(Auto) Brightness=0 Anti Dew Heater=Off Temperature=-15.5 Cooler Power=72 Target Temperature=-15 Cooler=On Auto Exp Max Gain=350 Auto Exp Max Exp M S=30000 Auto Exp Target Brightness=100 Mono Bin=Off Banding Threshold=35 Banding Suppression=0 Apply Flat=None Subtract Dark=None #Black Point Display Black Point=0 #MidTone Point Display MidTone Point=0.5 #White Point Display White Point=1 Notes= TimeStamp=2021-08-28T00:19:10.1244739Z SharpCapVersion=3.2.6482.0

SharpCap very helpfully generates a text file of camera settings with each movie it shoots. But I can't seem to find the frame rate. The only reference it seems to make to frame rate is this Frame Rate Limit=Maximum is there not a way to get it record the actual frame rate? I guess this varies through the capture, but it could presumably give you a mean?

Ok. Thank you for these suggestions. I’ll give them a try and stop wasting everyone’s time 🤣

thanks. I have downloaded SkyCapture from Meade but that didn't help. I now managed to download the CD contents from the Meade dealer (Opticstar)... but guess what... the driver won't install AAAAAAGGGHHHHH!!!!! Why are Meade so USELESS!! ZWO stuff works a treat! I officially give up

Unfortunately I don't have the CD (no CD drive in my laptop anyway!) So I am reliant on the web. It's pretty unusual nowadays to have a CD drive I think

right. I would have done that. Except that Meade doesn't provide camera drivers. I even contacted them and they told me all they have is ASCOM or SkyCapture! Hopeless. I'm never buying a Meade product again. Total amateurs

The original ASCOM installation I had (6.5) was direct from the ASCOM site and didn't appear to support the Meade camera. If the Meade version of ASCOM (version 6.3) contains the Meade drivers, I'd effectively be downgrading the installation. I'm pretty confused about this to be honest. Are you saying that the ASCOM platform (of any version) should contain all the drivers it needs, irrespective of where I got it from?

Best 24% of frames from a 2 min video, shot at f/20 with my 20cm SCT and a ASI2600MC. Stacked in AS! and then processed in Registax. Unfortunately, the image that came out of AS! was too big for Registax so I had to reduce it in Photoshop first. 334 alignment points (chosen by AS!) Reasonably happy with this tho, as a first go. Although it's a bit misaligned on the left Any ideas as to why the left of the moon is less in focus than the right? I can't really understand how that happened

Thanks. Problem is I already had ASCOM 6.5 installed from the ASCOM website, but the Meade CD only has ASCOM 6.3. So in order to install the drivers I'd have to downgrade ASCOM, which I guess could cause issues with my mount etc. I wish Meade would get their act together!

Hi. Because Sharpcap seems to also need something called a PDB file for each camera as well as a DLL. I've contacted Meade for some support now. Thanks

thanks for this sneaky suggestion. I can see the meade dll in SkyCapture, but I can't see any toupcam dlls in Sharpcap. Also, the SharpCap folder seems to have a .DLL and .PDB for each camera (I think this may be above my paygrade 🤣)

'Redbadged' cameras? So I guess what you mean is the fact that SkyCapture can see the camera doesn't mean it's properly installed? Even though it's showing in device manager?

there's nothing in the SharpCap help files, unfortunately. It's strange because SkyCapture is seeing the camera, but it's not listed in ASCOM

I already have ASCOM 6.5 installed. Meade only seems to have 6.3 so I don't want to install it and mess up the versions. https://www.meade.com/ascom-platform-6-3/ I already installed Meade's SkyCapture which claims to have the drivers