Sharpcap or NINA

[Astro74]

Hello 

I’m a complete beginner to AP and to processing- which would be better NINA or Sharpcap ? I need it to be very simple and easy to use for a beginner.

thanks 

 

Edited February 10, 2023 by Astro74

[Stuart1971]

Well neither of those softwares are for processing, they are both for image acquisition….but out of those 2 for capturing images of Deep sky it would be NINA, and for planetary imaging it would be Sharpcap…👍🏻

[Astro74]

Ok…I thought that was part of the processing stage apologies I’m a beginner 

[newbie alert]

1 hour ago, Astro74 said:

Hello 

I’m a complete beginner to AP and to processing- which would be better NINA or Sharpcap ? I need it to be very simple and easy to use for a beginner.

thanks 

 

These are softwares for capture.. AP does include planetary but as the capture is different Nina isn't really recommend..

As for processing,if you search Photoshop, affinity photo etc, remember you need to also stack your images so something like DSS, APP, gimp , ASTAP can all stack... 

[ONIKKINEN]

Simple, easy to use, and astrophotography processing does not go together. You will have to compromise a little bit here, but not compromising on the astrophotography processing part will get you a headstart in learning to process astrophotographs that are very different from "normal" photographs.

Try Siril, a free astrophotography processing software: https://siril.org/

Its free and relatively simple to learn. Fights toe to toe with paid software in terms of what it can do and certainly for a beginner will be the least uphill-battle kind of deal because the most important tools in it make processing a breeze. At first i would suggest ignoring everything but 3 tools in it, the background extraction tool, the color calibration tool and the histogram transformation tool.

[The Lazy Astronomer]

3 hours ago, Astro74 said:

Hello 

I’m a complete beginner to AP and to processing- which would be better NINA or Sharpcap ? I need it to be very simple and easy to use for a beginner.

thanks 

 

A few questions to clarify your request to hopefully get you the right recommendations:

1. Did you mean processing or capture? 

2. If you meant processing, how would you rate your general degree of computer literacy? (Or have you used any sort of image processing tools before?)

3. If you meant capture, what sort of equipment are you working with? 

[Astro74]

Sorry my mistake .. let me explain 

I will be using photoshop for processing I meant image capture 

sharcap was recommended to me as the software to use just wondered if it’s a good one and why that one ?

do I need something else on top of it to stack or will Sharpcap do this also ? 

[PeterCPC]

Sharpcap will do the job and is fairly easy to use. Sharpcap does allow for stacking but you might want to do that in another program.

[newbie alert]

50 minutes ago, Astro74 said:

Sorry my mistake .. let me explain 

I will be using photoshop for processing I meant image capture 

sharcap was recommended to me as the software to use just wondered if it’s a good one and why that one ?

do I need something else on top of it to stack or will Sharpcap do this also ? 

For capture I'd recommend APT, NINA, or indeed sharpcap, out of the 3 I'd choose  APT as it suits me better

For stacking, most start with DSS as it's free, but APP has a bit more control, abit more finesse 

[Astro74]

49 minutes ago, newbie alert said:

For capture I'd recommend APT, NINA, or indeed sharpcap, out of the 3 I'd choose  APT as it suits me better

For stacking, most start with DSS as it's free, but APP has a bit more control, abit more finesse 

Thanks 😊 

[IDM]

I have been using Sharpcap for a couple of years and find it very intuitive and easy to setup. I have the pro version which involves an annual license fee (not much) as it does provide some benefits. I am interested in NINA because as I understand it it can do polar alignment without seeing the Polaris. This would be useful to me because for me to look south from some parts of the garden I cannot see polarise due to trees. I therefore downloaded NINA and tried to set it up but found it less intuitive in terms of just getting the camera, mount etc to talk to each other. I must watch a video to sort it out. Anyway in my experience I managed to setup Sharpcap with no instructions or videos whereas NINA was more difficult.

cheers

Ian

[Astro74]

1 hour ago, IDM said:

I have been using Sharpcap for a couple of years and find it very intuitive and easy to setup. I have the pro version which involves an annual license fee (not much) as it does provide some benefits. I am interested in NINA because as I understand it it can do polar alignment without seeing the Polaris. This would be useful to me because for me to look south from some parts of the garden I cannot see polarise due to trees. I therefore downloaded NINA and tried to set it up but found it less intuitive in terms of just getting the camera, mount etc to talk to each other. I must watch a video to sort it out. Anyway in my experience I managed to setup Sharpcap with no instructions or videos whereas NINA was more difficult.

cheers

Ian

Yes that’s why I have heard - thanks for this I think I’ll stick with Sharpcap for now 

[sinbad40]

I started with Sharpcap 6 months ago as it came with the pro version for 12 months when I purchased the camera.  It is easy to use and has some very good features.  I have however started to dabble with NINA to see what it can do.  Once you have the kit setup, the rest I have found seems to start to fall into place (watching videos helps).  Sorted the atlas and framing with plate solving (local db), and that has helped with moving onto the advanced sequencer with multi panels, all linked to the mount and guiding.  Plate solving etc has made life easy (again a lot of this Is available in Sharpcap).  Managed to get polar alignment sorted with the plugins you can add (seems to work well), the only thing I have had an issue with was the focusing, but that will be for the next session to try again.

Watching video’s has really moved the learning curve to an acceptable time frame.  I still use sharpcap for a couple of things, but have moved to NINA for almost all the imaging session now.

If you have sharp cap, and you can make your way around it quickly, then start with that as i did, once you start to know what you can do, and you start to understand the different elements, you can always try different software.  Some find one app better than another, like anything, it comes to personal preference.

[david_taurus83]

What equipment will you be using? 

[Anthonyexmouth]

I used APT for years and held off switching to NINA because I was used to APT. I so wish I'd switched much sooner. It looks daunting but it can be as simple or sophisticated as you make it. If you're just starting I'd say jump straight in to NINA. Patriot Astro on youtube has excellent tutorials. 

[bomberbaz]

18 hours ago, Astro74 said:

Hello 

I’m a complete beginner to AP and to processing- which would be better NINA or Sharpcap ? I need it to be very simple and easy to use for a beginner.

thanks 

 

A year ago I started out like you, no idea what I was doing. Some might say that's still the case 😉

Anyway, I now use ZWO ASIAIR software for capture of data. If I didn't use that, I would use sharpcap instead.

For processing at first I played around with Gimp, That is until I was introduced to Siril, so now I use Siril. (Siril is very easy)

With Siril you can 90% process your data to give you a decent looking image, the process for this is largely automated. After just tidy up a little in Gimp, both Siril and Gimp programmes are free.

[Astro74]

1 hour ago, bomberbaz said:

A year ago I started out like you, no idea what I was doing. Some might say that's still the case 😉

Anyway, I now use ZWO ASIAIR software for capture of data. If I didn't use that, I would use sharpcap instead.

For processing at first I played around with Gimp, That is until I was introduced to Siril, so now I use Siril. (Siril is very easy)

With Siril you can 90% process your data to give you a decent looking image, the process for this is largely automated. After just tidy up a little in Gimp, both Siril and Gimp programmes are free.

What do yo use to stack 

[bomberbaz]

47 minutes ago, Astro74 said:

What do yo use to stack 

Deep Sky Stacker, I find it the easiest and most straight forward (and it is free)

[jacko61]

9 hours ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

I used APT for years and held off switching to NINA because I was used to APT. I so wish I'd switched much sooner. It looks daunting but it can be as simple or sophisticated as you make it. If you're just starting I'd say jump straight in to NINA. Patriot Astro on youtube has excellent tutorials. 

Out of interest, what does NINA give you (or improve on) that APT doesn't?

Graeme

[wongataa]

7 hours ago, jacko61 said:

Out of interest, what does NINA give you (or improve on) that APT doesn't?

Graeme

NINA's sequencing is a lot more powerful than what is available in APT.  I prefer the interface of APT and use it more.

[Anthonyexmouth]

9 hours ago, jacko61 said:

Out of interest, what does NINA give you (or improve on) that APT doesn't?

Graeme

So much more control. More intuitive layout. The nice thing about it is the way it can be as simple or as complicated as you want. It'll grow with you where you could easily outgrow apt. It's also free. I used apt for about 5 years. It's good but I'd recommend anyone starting from scratch to go straight into NINA. It has lots of really useful plugins that can polar align, analyse images for tilt. Upload subs to lightbucket which is really nice for easily checking subs during a session from your phone. So very many things. Check out patriot astro on YouTube, he has excellent tutorials from setting up for the first time to advanced sequencing. 

[Cosmic Geoff]

Sharpcap works well for image acquisition, and the successive versions have become increasingly sophisticated, offering polar alignment, focus aids, etc.  It allows you to 'live stack' of you are interested in EAA.  (Rival capture programs are available).

I checked out APT but found it complicated and never put it to real use.

My advice is to try Sharpcap, and if you feel you are outgrowing what it has to offer, try NINA or APT.  Whether you intend to use an astro camera or a DSLR also has a bearing on which software you will want to use.

[scotty38]

My, unsurprising, vote is for NINA if only for its ridiculous rate of enhancement and development. I never got on with APT, I tried twice, so it would be unfair of me to say one is better than the other but I find NINA very intuitive but maybe that's just me 🙂

[AstroMuni]

On 11/02/2023 at 07:13, Astro74 said:

Sorry my mistake .. let me explain 

I will be using photoshop for processing I meant image capture 

sharcap was recommended to me as the software to use just wondered if it’s a good one and why that one ?

do I need something else on top of it to stack or will Sharpcap do this also ? 

Many software have been named above that run on Windows. Let me add a bit of info in case you use a Mac/Linux. Kstars/Ekos allows you to control the mount/cameras/focuser etc, capture images and has a planetarium, platesolving, guiding, scheduler all built in. For stacking and initial processing I would suggest Siril. You can use Photoshop to do the final touch ups.

EDIT: If you find Sharpcap easier to use, you can get it to do the image capture and have Kstars managing rest of devices. Disadvantage with this approach is you cant get platesolving done via Kstars.

Edited February 14, 2023 by AstroMuni

[Jane C]

Hi:  I have been using SharpCap for planetary imaging ever since I changed computers and found that K3CCD had stopped issuing licence keys, which must have been five years ago or so.  Now I have branched out into galaxy imaging, and find that SharpCap can do everything I want.  Indeed it can do a whole bunch of stuff I have not yet tried.  I see no reason to change.  Here's a couple of recent examples of galaxies.  (They are only jpegs, to keep the file size reasonable, so they aren't as good as the 16-bit images.)  M31 got 4.3 hours over two nights, and M66 got 2.55 hours over one partly cloudy night.  The images were then processed in PixInsight.

Edited March 4, 2023 by Jane C