SharpCap now does live stacking for the Moon and Planets

[PeterC65]

Robin Glover has just released an update to SharpCap with a new feature that will live stack images of the Planets. See here for the details.

Up to now it's only been possible to live stack DSOs because the live stacking needed stars. So observing Planets via EAA has meant just watching the live video which is usually disappointing. This new feature should make it possible to use EAA for planetary observation which is a huge step forward.

 

Edited December 18, 2023 by PeterC65

[happy-kat]

That's really good for sharing in the moment

I'm loving the sharpsolve function

[Astrowl]

I also make planetary live stacking on the Astrowl Box (live aligning also), but the main issue is realtime filtering of frames to avoid adding blur rather than adding details.

I don't know if this what offers SharpCap, if not this will be useful only on very very stable nights.

But IMO I think this is a new promising direction for visual (or EEA) observers. 

Edited November 21, 2023 by Astrowl

[PeterC65]

I finally managed to use the new Live Planetary Stacking feature last night. It’s amazing, a complete game changer for planetary EAA making it possible to do for the first time really.

Usually I just give the Planets a cursory look when I do EAA but last night I spent an hour observing Jupiter, coming back to it twice during the session and seeing the Great Red Spot for the first time.

I used the RAW8 colour space and a small ROI about four times the size of the planet, then set the planetary stacking tool going with a stack length of 1000 frames, just using the fine sharpening setting set to 1.000 and auto adjusting the brightness and colour. This is a fairly simple setup but gave great results on Jupiter.

Shorter exposure times seem to give a crisper view, I was using 6ms, and an IR pass filter improved things further, but at the expense of colour.

Here is the live stack from last night with a UV/IR cut filter …

and another with an IR pass filter …

I was using an Explorer 200PDS at its native F5 as I was testing this new scope. Next time I will add a Barlow and try at a more appropriate (for my camera) F12.

 

[PeterC65]

In the latest release of SharpCap (18th December) Robin has added surface alignment to the new planetary live stacking tool so that it can now live stack a detailed view of the Moon as well as a complete lunar or planetary disc.

I've just tried this out with some old captures of Moon detail and it works really well, completely removing that atmospheric wobble that you normally see.

For both whole discs and Moon detail I'm just using Fine Sharpening, set to 1.000, rather than fiddling with the wavelet sharpening, and using Auto Adjust Brightness/Colour. This is simple to do and gives great results.

 

[bosun21]

I’ll have a look at the new update for planetary live stacking when the clouds eventually clear. I do like the tried and tested process though. This was my third ever image of Jupiter with a 6” Maksutov.

 

Edited December 18, 2023 by bosun21

[PeterC65]

I've tried capturing the Moon and Planets and then later stacking the frames with AutoStakkert and doing some image processing. It works well, particularly for Moon detail, but I really want to see things on the night which is where this new SharpCap tool makes such a huge difference. It does at least as good a job as I managed with post processing, bearing in mind that I'm no AP expert.

The other thing I like is that it makes it possible to watch changes as they happen. So for Jupiter, the GRS moving around and transits of moons or their shadows. You can watch these live as you would visually, and record time lapse AVI files. I've yet to watch a transit but watched the GRS for a while the other night.

Previously I didn't really bother observing the Moon and Planets via EAA, but now I'm actually looking forward to observing them.

 

[Astronomist]

This could be an interesting prospect for outreach as in my experience most non-astronomers struggle to see planetary detail past saturn's rings, especially Jupiter as the contrast is quite low.

I should be getting a planetary camera after christmas so I am excited to try this out!

[bosun21]

Updated Sharpcap and looking forward to giving the new features a spin.

[happy-kat]

just watching a great video by Dr Michael Owen makes for good watching of SharpCap planetary live stacking as it is raining

[Ags]

I tried it out tonight. The image is of course more stable, but I'm not entirely sure I prefer the stacked view. Watching the unstacked video is much more engaging and far closer to the visual experience, and I think the flashes of detail seen in the live stream surpass the results from the live stacking process.

[PeterC65]

9 hours ago, Ags said:

I tried it out tonight. The image is of course more stable, but I'm not entirely sure I prefer the stacked view. Watching the unstacked video is much more engaging and far closer to the visual experience, and I think the flashes of detail seen in the live stream surpass the results from the live stacking process.

The live video view is certainly a lot closer to what you see visually, in that you can see the constant motion of the atmosphere. Live stacked EAA images do always look a bit static compared with what you see visually.

If you use the sharpening function (just fine sharpening on its own is enough) then I'd expect you to be able to see much more detail than it's possible to see in the live video during those brief moments of stable atmosphere.

 

[Ags]

I think the sharpcap test camera can replay SER files, so I will play with the sequences I shot last night and see if I can get a pleasing view from live stacking.

[PeterC65]

3 hours ago, Ags said:

I think the sharpcap test camera can replay SER files, so I will play with the sequences I shot last night and see if I can get a pleasing view from live stacking.

It can. You need to select Test Camera 2 (High Speed), then under Camera Controls | Testing Controls, Browse to the SER file you want to replay.

I've been finding that for Jupiter I just need to enable the Fine Sharpening filter and set it to 1.000, then click the Auto Adjust Brightness/Colour button. These settings seem to give just as good if not better results than fiddling with Wavelet Sharpening and the individual colour balance. I haven't found any benefit so far in using Frame Filtering.

 

[Ags]

I did try out a few SERs with test cam 2 and got a reasonable result, but I think the conditions were limiting and my focus was not perfect. I'll try these settings on another night.

[PeterC65]

1 hour ago, Ags said:

I did try out a few SERs with test cam 2 and got a reasonable result, but I think the conditions were limiting and my focus was not perfect. I'll try these settings on another night.

I'm still learning about the new planetary stacking feature, and about a new scope (Explorer 200PDS, with a x2.4 Barlow for Planets), and I'm also finding that the focus is hard to get just right. I've been using a Bahtinov mask and focussing on a nearby star, but I've heard that it's possible to use the planetary stacking feature with a short stack length (<20) and then just focus on the Planet detail. I haven't tried this method yet though.

 

[Ags]

Yes I was thinking planetary stacking might be a good focus aid. 

[happy-kat]

There was a new release yesterday

[Ags]

I will download it now. I did encounter a few crashes while playing with the feature. I found an older SER from a better night. This is the sort of thing I get using my C6:

I guess there is an option somewhere to rotate the stream 180 degrees. This is with a short stack of 140 frames - enough to reduce the noise, but still keep a bit of the seeing variability. I have settled on these settings for now:

 

 

Edited December 28, 2023 by Ags

[PeterC65]

That looks a bit noisy and a bit dim. I would be inclined to increase the Brightness adjuster and check out what the Fine Sharpening can do on its own. Enable Fine Sharpening alone, set it to 1.000, then switch it on and off to see the effect it has. I find that it really sharpens up the image.

Here are the best images I've seen so far, both with an 8" Newtonian. The first is with a x2.4 Barlow which should give the correct F12 for Planets ...

and the second is just at the native F5 ...

The second one looks better to me but I suspect that may be down to focus which is much harder to get right with the higher magnification.

When the cloud eventually lifts I plan to try again and focus with the Planetary view.

 

[Ags]

I've tried fine sharpening on its own, and it makes the noise a lot worse. However, I have discovered since my last post that I can add in a degree of noise reduction without losing any noticeable detail. I think the image is dim as I was viewing the stack in darkness to mimic outside conditions. Also I capture using 1/3 to 1/2 of the histogram only.

@PeterC65 how many frames in your stack? What was your sub length?

Edited December 29, 2023 by Ags

[PeterC65]

3 hours ago, Ags said:

@PeterC65 how many frames in your stack? What was your sub length?

For the first image I posted above the stack was 1000 frames with 24ms exposure and a gain of 210 which is my cameras LCG / HCG switching point. Fine Sharpening was set to 1.000.

For the second one it was 500 frames with 54ms exposure and 210 gain, with Fine Sharpening set to 0.800.

I've found that lots of fine sharpening works well if the original image is reasonably detailed, but it blows up the noise when the image is a bit blurred. I tried observing Uranus last time and needed only only 0.582.

Here it is with 200 frames of 420ms and a gain ox 300.

No detail, but definitely Uranus!

 

[Pete Presland]

Interesting development, especially for outreach events. Jupiter and Saturn are always going to be popular with viewers new to astronomy.

[PeterC65]

I had another go at Jupiter last night. I tried using the wavelet sharpening alongside the fine sharpening as @Ags has been doing, and it did improve things. With fine sharpening alone and set to maximum I also saw a lot of noise which went away when I would down the fine sharpening.

I tried observing with the 8" Newtonian using the x2.4 and x1.7 Barlows, and with no Barlow. The x2.4 gives me F12 which x4.1 my pixel size, and so should be the optimum, but I found that Jupiter was fuzzy and I couldn't see the GRS. The view was much better with x1.7 and with no Barlow and the GRS was clear. With no Barlow Jupiter was perhaps a little pixilated.

I though that maybe the fuzziness was due to poor focus so I tried focussing using the planetary live stacking tool with the stack length set to 20. This is possible but not that easy as the image changes in response to the atmosphere as well as to the focus adjustment. It might be easier on a still night, but then so is everything. Focusing with a Bahtinov Mask was easier, and just as accurate. And the fuzzy Jupiter at x2.4 was not due to poor focus.

I captured SER files with the two Barlows and with none, and will re-run these today to see what improvements might be possible.

 

[PeterStudz]

I was visually observing Jupiter last night. But for me seeing was very poor, so I suspect that was it. Looking at the forecast there was a screaming jetstream over the southern half of the UK which would explain the poor seeing.