Auto guiding and imaging simultaneously with FireCapture?

[Leveye]

Just wondering if this is possible using just one camera all at the same time using FireCapture on Jupiter ,Saturn or Mars. I do understand you can't auto guide on the moon or sun. Many thanks in advance for the help and guidance here.

[Ant]

I've been looking for a similar thing for imaging the sun. 

Polar alignment during the day is rough at best, so I was after some capture software that would guide at the same time as capture... There was a piece of software that would do it (apparently), but I never managed to get it working at all, and it isn't available any longer

apologies for not being much help, if you find something please let me know.

ant

[Leveye]

8 minutes ago, ant said:

I've been looking for a similar thing for imaging the sun. 

Polar alignment during the day is rough at best, so I was after some capture software that would guide at the same time as capture... There was a piece of software that would do it (apparently), but I never managed to get it working at all, and it isn't available any longer

apologies for not being much help, if you find something please let me know.

ant

I'm under the assumption that for this to work well you would of course want to have a well aligned mount going in. If you drift aligned the mount, (or whatever precise method you prefer) prior to imaging the Sun or Moon I would think that auto guiding would not really be necessary. As long as you have the correct tracking selected just doing a basic GOTO and then a fine point would be sufficient and the area would stay centered at least for a few minutes yes? Works in my case.

[cgarry]

FireCapture will guide on a planet whilst capturing it with the same camera.  It is a really nice way to work.

FireCapture will also now guide on the sun or the moon whilst capturing with the same camera by tracking surface features.  This is quite a new feature based on the surface feature tracking code from PIPP.

Cheers,
Chris

[Leveye]

11 minutes ago, cgarry said:

FireCapture will guide on a planet whilst capturing it with the same camera.  It is a really nice way to work.

FireCapture will also now guide on the sun or the moon whilst capturing with the same camera by tracking surface features.  This is quite a new feature based on the surface feature tracking code from PIPP.

Cheers,
Chris

Thank you for this info. Most excellent to hear this!

[cgarry]

Torsten made a video about guiding on a planet, it is based on an older version of FC but is still worth watching:

 

The main thing to remember is the camera orientation must be set up so the mount's up/down controls move the planet vertically and the left/right controls move the planet horizontally.  FC does not go through a calibration routine as PHD does.

Cheers,
Chris
 

 

[Leveye]

Thank you very much for the link. Much appreciated.