SharpCap - free Astro Webcam Capture Software

[rwg]

Hi,

you will need to install the drivers for your camera from this web page : http://www.telescope.com/Orion-StarShoot-All-In-One-Astrophotography-Camera/p/103394.uts

SharpCap will probably work best with the WDM driver, but you might want to try installing the ASCOM driver too as it might work better for long exposure imaging.

cheers,

Robin

[MORTIZ05]

Okay now it shows up in the SharpCam under cameras as "Orion Camera(WDM)". I have that selected, however all it gives me is a gray screen when I click the preview, am I missing something? Sorry if these are common sense questions but im new to this and im trying to learn how to set this up properly.

[rwg]

Normally you shouldn't have to click the preview button - preview is selected (and ticked) by default when you select a camera. Clicking it again will just disconnect the camera. Maybe just hit preview one more time so it is ticked again?

cheers,

Robin

[rwg]

I have just uploaded what I hope will be the real release build of SharpCap 2.5. I have also (feeling bold today) made it available via auto-update for both users of previous SharpCap 2.5 beta builds and users of SharpCap 2.0/2.1. A couple of the beta builds did have a bug with auto-update, so if you are on a beta build and it is not offering to update for you, you may need to update manually this one time.

The main changes in 2.5 include
 

• ASCOM Mount control
• New settings dialog including better control of capture filenames
• Improved exposure control for non-DirectShow cameras
• Better support for writing 16 bit FITS files
• Improved performance with high resolution, high frame rate cameras
• Many improvements to focus score functionality
• Add a selection rectangle for focus score, histogram and other preview transforms
• Improved ASCOM camera support
• 16 bit histogram support
• Python scripting module capable of driving most SharpCap functionality from a script (experimental)
• Many bug fixes and camera support updates

As always, you can head over to http://www.sharpcap.co.uk to download the latest version.

cheers,

Robin

[steviep]

hello

just installed SharpCap and a Microsoft Lifecam Cinema webcam. program displays live video using laptop integrated camera but with MLC only showing still picture. Has anyone seen this before?

[rwg]

Not something I've encountered before - just tested with my Lifecam cinema with the latest version of SharpCap and it works fine with both the proper Lifecam drivers and the 'USB Video Device' driver for generic USB webcams. I would certainly recommend a check of the drivers to see if you have them installed and they are up to date.

cheers,

Robin

[happylimpet]

That's great about 2.5! Look forward to updating!!

[rwg]

SharpCap 2.5.1490 now available

The last couple of months have been largely filled with bug-fixing in SharpCap world. Once again a big thank you for those that take the time to send crash reports or to report bugs via the forums or via email. In this version I have added a couple of improvements to bug reporting - a way to submit a bug report without having to have the program crash (it's in the Help menu) and a 'Copy Log Text' button on the Log view window.

Other changes include :
 

• Many UI bug fixes, particularly fixing issues when the camera controls are in auto-hide mode.
• Fix Out Of Memory errors when capturing very large resolution frames
• Add a menu item to manually report a bug. Also a copy log text button on the Log window.
• Fix bug with corrupted single frame snapshots from some DirectShow cameras
• Add initial support for SkyFish cameras
• Fixes to scripting support, including a stop script button
• Many general bug fixes based on uploaded bug reports

I am also creating a new page on the SharpCap web site detailing how to use the scripting language built into SharpCap to perform more complicated tasks. It will be available at http://www.sharpcap.co.uk/sharpcap/sharpcap-scripting very shortly.

[rwg]

SharpCap 2.5.1510 now available

This should improve the reliability of SharpCap when using long exposures on ZWO cameras and fix some other minor bugs.

http://www.sharpcap.co.uk/sharpcap/downloads

cheers,

Robin

[ngwillym]

Hi,

I hope someone can help.

I am new to using Sharpcap, but not new to other capture software.

I have an AVS DSO-1 integrating video camera. I am trying to set up Sharpcap to capture a sequence of images, one every 5 seconds. So to start capture I set capture limit @ 'Single Frame' Check the ' Perform a Sequence of Captures', set sequence length to 20 and interval to 5 seconds.

It takes the first frame, and then displays 2 boxes that are counting down to the next frame number. when they expire, these count down boxes multiply again until Sharpcap finally crashes.

I think I managed to copy the log to the clipboard before it crashed.

I've attached 2 screenshots - one after the first frame has been taken and another at crash time.

thanks in advance

Neil

Sharpcaplog.txt

[rwg]

Hi Neil,

Interesting

I fixed a bug similar to this for sequenced captures where the number of frames at each step was more than one, but it looks like the fix didn't help in the single frame case. I will look into it.

cheers,

Robin

PS. An alternate approach would be to use the scripting capabilities built into SharpCap to capture images periodically. See http://www.sharpcap.co.uk/sharpcap/sharpcap-scripting

[ngwillym]

Robin, you're a star. Thanks.

so could my work-around be to capture more than one frame in each step and then just discard the extras?

[rwg]

Yes, capturing 2 frames might well work - I tested initially just now using 3 frames per interval and all was fine (although I was capturing to AVI, but hopefully PNG would be the same)

cheers,

Robin

[ngwillym]

Robin,

thanks- I'll give that a try. Just to be on the safe side - I'll capture  both avi and png

My days of any sort of programming or scripting ended in the 1990s

[rwg]

SharpCap 2.5.1548 Now Available

Mainly a bug fixing release... worth upgrading to
 

• Add the ability to select 'Auto' output format and choose preferred formats in the settings
• Fix missing DLL that stopped ASCOM mount support from working
• Fix bug with some DirectShow cameras creating transparent snapshot bitmaps in PNG format
• Optimize memory usage when used with very high resolution cameras to avoid out of memory problems
• Fix SER file frame timestamps
• Fix filter wheel wrong filter bugs
• Fix capturing a sequence of single frames
• Fix incorrectly reported dropped frames on ASI cameras

http://www.sharpcap.co.uk/sharpcap/downloads

cheers,

Robin

[Landbo]

Tnx for maiking this new version for os Robin.   Unfortunately, the link on  http://www.sharpcap.co.uk/sharpcap/downloads is stone dead, so it is not easy to check V2.5.1548 out.  

Bedst regards, Leif.

[rwg]

Ooops, sorry about that... Fixed now.

cheers,

Robin

[Landbo]

Ooops, sorry about that... Fixed now.

cheers,

Robin

Tnx Robin. It's in working order now. 

[ngwillym]

Robin,

thanks for the bug fix. I'm not going to have the chance to image for a few days, but I'm sure you've tested it thoroughly anyway

[rwg]

Robin,

thanks for the bug fix. I'm not going to have the chance to image for a few days, but I'm sure you've tested it thoroughly anyway

I promise it worked at least once on my machine

cheers,

Robin

[Thom]

I reported a bug directly from the programme this morning, buy didn't put any contact details in, so not sure how you'd get back to me (failing a crystal ball!) [emoji38]

I'm using a QHY5 -II, which is picked up fine but when I try to change any if the values (exposure, gain, gamma etc) it just freezes. Have restarted both the prog and the comp but still freezing.

Can you help at all please?

Thanks.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

[rwg]

I reported a bug directly from the programme this morning, buy didn't put any contact details in, so not sure how you'd get back to me (failing a crystal ball!) [emoji38]

I'm using a QHY5 -II, which is picked up fine but when I try to change any if the values (exposure, gain, gamma etc) it just freezes. Have restarted both the prog and the comp but still freezing.

Can you help at all please?

Thanks.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

Hi,

From your bug report it looks like you are initially getting frames from the camera (so presumably the frame count will begin going up). As I understand it as soon as you try to change any of the camera parameters you stop getting any frames from the camera. Does SharpCap freeze completely at this point, or is it just the frames that stop arriving?

I have just tested my QHY5LII-C (same camera as you I think) and mine works correctly both initially and when I change the settings. I am using Windows 8.1 (x64) and the 'Ver 14-12-12' QHY drivers from this page http://www.qhyccd.com/en/top/download/

Some suggestions that spring to mind are :

* try turning down the 'USB Traffic' and 'High Speed' settings first before altering any other controls - some of these cameras can be very sensitive to USB timings when run at full speed which vary from machine to machine

* try using a different PC if you can - not a permanent solution , but helps work out more about the scope of the issue

* try using other capture programs to see if they have similar problems. If FireCapture works fine then it's a SharpCap issue, if you have problems in other programs then it's something a bit deeper in the QHY SDK or drivers or the USB system

cheers,

Robin

[Thom]

Thanks Robin. I've downloaded the new drivers and set the speed and usb traffic to 0 and I think we have progress!

I've just plugged my cam in to try and I can change things without it freezing up. I'll try it in the scope later (hopefully) but it looks good so far.

Much appreciated.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

[rwg]

That's good news - now that you have a working baseline, it's worth turning up the speed and USB settings carefully to see what levels you can get to reliably. It might just be that the new driver was all that was needed.

cheers,

Robin

[rwg]

In case anyone is interested, SharpCap now has a facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/sharpcap

I will be posting news, ideas, history and more there, and it would be great to see some photos taken using SharpCap too, so if you have any cool ones then post them to the page.

cheers,

Robin