StuartT

I use SharpCap with my ZWO cameras and it connects to them just fine. But it can't seem to see my Meade LPI-G (even though it's on the Windows device manager and the driver is installed). Any ideas?

Ok, so best 20% of frames stacked in AS! Then wavelets in Registax Then a touch of smart sharpen in Photoshop. Thanks again everyone for the super helpful advice!

Thanks for this Craig. Really helpful. I'm going to have another bash at this now. I see that Registax allows you to save a wavelet protocol so once you have your preferred set of settings you can save it out as a preset. Nice.

Thanks. What I am referring to is the fact that Autostakkert generates two image files. The second has the suffix _conv applied to it (see screenshot) Awesome! Thanks

Oh boy! Thanks. I don’t suppose you could tell me the settings? (My previous question was which of the two output files from AS you use? One has “_conv” after the filename)

ah. ok. thanks. I'll try that now. EDIT: When doing the wavelets in Registax, do you take the standard image out of Autostakkert or the conv one

If anyone's bored enough to try with my original video, please feel free. I'm here to learn! 91 sec, 3.68GB https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bTGL4m2hzWLqVoZwdO5Vat3tK85gQA8t/view?usp=sharing

Right. I tried stacking the Jupiter video in Registax (nice piece of software!) and then the post processing. I only got about 20 align points though. Couldn't persuade it to find any more! Also I wasn't really sure where to put all the wavelet sliders (or what they actually mean), so I just tried putting them all at 50%. This image is slightly better, but given the seeing, I'm not sure I'll get much. Still, it was great to be able to try all this out for the first time.

Thanks both. No, these are just how they came out of Autostakkert. I wasn’t aware of registax. I’ll check that out!

Ok, so first clear (ish) night since learning all about planetary. Thanks to all you guys for being so helpful and patient. Here is my first attempt. (Seeing was pretty poor, only 20 degrees elevation and intermittent thin cloud) 20cm SCT with 2x Barlow. ASI 2600MC. SharpCap and Autostakkert. No post-processing Saturn. 800x600 capture area, RGB 24, sensor temp 23.4°C gain 471 exposure 17ms best 10% of 90sec of video frames Jupiter 800x600 capture area RGB 24 sensor temp -8°C gain 362 exposure 10ms best 10% of 2mins of video frames

I contacted Black Diamond and they think it must be defective so they're sending me a replacement. 👍

Excellent! That's great to hear, as I do like SharpCap's uncomplicated interface, so I'd prefer not to have to learn a new piece of software.

Thanks. I've heard though that sharpcap generates heavily compressed MOV files which are not good for planetary imaging. Maybe that's a misconception

I'm getting started with planetary imaging (having only done DSOs before). I saw a video from Dylan O'Donnell in which her raves about Firecapture. It's got some very nice new features. I wondered if anyone has any experience with it for planetary? How does it compare with APT and SharpCap?

ok, I reckon this should do it. (though I am not sure if the reef knot is the best knot for this application - I wasn't in the Boy Scouts)

I have a Berlebach Planet and want to suspend a weight from it to increase stability. Normally, the advice is to suspend the weight centrally from the apex, but that would clash with the instrument tray (which I find rather handy). One the other hand, suspending it below that from the three legs would tend to pull the legs together (which I don't really want). Any bright ideas?

Me too! Though I have yet to actually use it! So this thread is super useful for me... thanks for asking the question!

I want to make the most of the fact that Jupiter will still be around for about another month to do some imaging. It looked truly magnificent visually last week through my frac. I've not attempted planetary imaging before so I have a few questions. I'm going to be using my 20cm SCT (f/10) I read that to generate a video for 'lucky imaging' it's best to match the focal ratio to the pixel size of the camera (f-ratio = 5 x pixel size). So at prime focus at native f/10 I should ideally be using 2um pixels. But I was planning on attaching the camera to my Baader Morpheus 6.5mm eyepiece to make the image bigger. What is my f-ratio then? What about a Barlow? The scope is still f/10, but presumably using an eyepiece changes that? But how? Thanks

I have a Black Diamond Spot Lite 160 and it drives me mad! I set it to red and then down to the lowest setting. But often when I switch it on and off it reverts to white, which is incredibly annoying. The on/off switch just seems to behave randomly. I actually had to put some black tape over the white lamp, but it's only partly successful. Has anyone else had this problem? is there a solution?

@tripleped Just to be clear I was talking about the website, not the app. However, it's fixed now. @Tiny Clanger Heather did you try what @Dinglem advised me (above)? It solved the problem for me. I didn't have to make any bookmark. It simply set a cookie with my coords and now goes to my location every time.

An annoying feature of the clearoutside website is that they seem not to understand cookies! It doesn't matter how often I enter my coords it always reverts back to Exeter whenever I go back to it. (presumably because that's where the FLO people are based)

Thanks so much for sharing your work with us.

This is great! Thanks. I shall read with interest. I guess what I mostly want to know is whether the nice clear sky at dusk is likely to stay that way until night. For that, I rather like satellite cloud imagery like this. Although it doesn't really show the thin stuff (which buggers up seeing).

correct Hmmm... good question! I think it's because at the start of the flat top peaks the moon is new, so the only factor affecting increase in darkness length is the steady increase in night duration (which is virtually linear). The data is from the Astrophotography Tool app https://www.astrophotography.app/mobile_apps.php