SharpCap - free Astro Webcam Capture Software

[rwg]

Actually the figures didn't include dark subtraction, but that doesn't actually take much time - the things that take the most time are star detection (for alignment) and the actual stacking itself. Dark subtraction adds less than 5% extra time for me. Writing to disk/ssd at <1fps is not going to be an issue

cheers,

Robin

[alphatripleplus]

Great, Robin. Look forward to trying it out, when I get a new camera and laptop!

Regards,

Errol

[MARS1960]

Could someone please explain to a dummy how to use the FWHM focus tool.

I tried for 2hrs last night but the only preview i got (i was trying to focus on rigel which was dead centre in the eypeice, then switched to my ZWO) was a lot of RGB pixels, i tried altering exposure and gain, focusing in and out changed the numbers and the green graph only slightly.

[rwg]

Hi Mark,

check out the instructions here - http://www.sharpcap.co.uk/howto

Three key things -

1. turn down the exposure so that the star doesn't saturate (ie the maximum brightness in the star is less than the camera maximum)

2. use the selection box to limit the calculation to the area around the star

3. adjust the black level so that the area well away from the star (but inside the box) is striped - that means that area is being ignored).

cheers,

Robin

[MARS1960]

Hi Mark,

check out the instructions here - http://www.sharpcap.co.uk/howto

Three key things -

1. turn down the exposure so that the star doesn't saturate (ie the maximum brightness in the star is less than the camera maximum)

2. use the selection box to limit the calculation to the area around the star

3. adjust the black level so that the area well away from the star (but inside the box) is striped - that means that area is being ignored).

cheers,

Robin

Thanks Robin.

[rwg]

SharpCap 2.7 is now released

SharpCap 2.7 adds a number of new features, particularly to the live stacking feature that was already in 2.6. Improvements to Live Stacking include:

• Alignment and derotation added - note: must be able to at least 3 stars in each frame for this to work
• FWHM measurement and filtering on FWHM score
• Flexible levels adjustment on the histogram tab
• Log of stacking info/events
• Make Test Camera available in released code for experimentation with these features
• Much improved handling of reading dark frames - will convert bit depth and 3/4 colour planes as required
• Add options to save stack as a dark or as viewed (ie including histogram adjustments)
• Now supports alignment in 16 bit modes

In addition to the live stacking improvements, there are a couple of other significant new features:

• Dark subtraction available for all Astro cameras - look in preprocessing controls. Note that this doesn't include webcams (but you can use dark subtraction for webcams within live stacking). Also, don't select dark subtraction both at the camera level and within live stacking. It won't end well...
• Focuser position line drawn on focus score graphs if you have an ASCOM focuser selected. This helps you spot the focuser position where you achieved the best focus. Maybe this will form the basis of an autofocus feature in a future version.

Finally, there are the usual improvements to camera support. This time the big news is the addition of support for Celestron/Imaging Source cameras. Once again a big thank you to F1 Telescopes who were kind enough to arrange various sample Celestron cameras for me to work with - without which this would have been impossible.

Additionally, there are improvements to the support for the following cameras

• QHY cameras - new SDK integrated which will work with a much wider range of QHY cameras. Support for upcoming QHY5III cameras added. Support for QHY ColdMOS cameras coming soon. Thanks to QHY for help and sample cameras to improve SharpCap.
• Altair cameras - new SDK, updates to support upcoming new camera models and bug fixes. Thanks to Altair Astro for providing access to production cameras and development models.
• ZWO cameras - again, new SDK, bug fixes and changes to support new and upcoming models including ASI***COOL cameras. Thanks to ZWO for providing help, feedback and access to cameras to test and develop with.
• Basler cameras - updated to a new version of the Pylon SDK (5.0) and fixed a number of issues arising from some Basler cameras having slightly different names for controls like Gain and Exposure (sigh...). Also there is a new experimental option for Basler cameras, which updates a lot of the Basler code to be in line with the more recently supported cameras. I hope to add LX support to this experimental option in SharpCap 2.8 and then withdraw the old Basler camera code.

One more thing worth noting is that SharpCap 2.7 is going to be the last version of SharpCap that will work on WindowsXP. SharpCap 2.8 will require Windows 7 (well, it might run on Vista, but I'm making no promises and nobody uses Vista anyway...)

Finally, a bit thank you to everyone who uses and enjoys SharpCap, particularly those who take the time to report a bug, get in touch, like SharpCap on facebook or otherwise contribute. I've fixed dozens of bugs while developing 2.7 as a direct result of bug reports, so keep those coming!

This installer can be found on the downloads page.

[vlaiv]

Robin,

Could I get access to installer for old versions of sharpcap (beta pre 2.7.1954) for testing purposes?

Recently I upgraded and had some problems with my ASI185MC so I'm trying to pinpoint the source of problem (either driver or new SDK or maybe my cam, but it looks like it is software related).

Take a look at this thread for further info on the problem: discussion thread

Maybe you can verify the behavior having couple of ASI cams yourself

Thanks, Vladimir

[rwg]

Hi Vladimir,

2.7.1885 - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7cWKVXZzvOEZzEzUGJqdUs0dHM/view?usp=sharing

2.7.1954 - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7cWKVXZzvOEVmE3aU1LTjh5bk0/view?usp=sharing

You should just be able to copy ASICamera2.dll file from the old build over the one in a newer build in most cases.

cheers,

Robin

[vlaiv]

Thank you very much. I did manage to extract only ASICamera2.dll and to use it latest SharpCap 2.7.2108.

It looks like I opened a can of worms with this one.

Now I get different behavior with each combination of drivers + SDK, different looking histogram for bias frames (???) depending on combination of drivers + SDK, I even have fits that are not aligned on 16 increment values (supposed to be 12bit ADC stretched to 16 bit, but I now get silly values all over the place).

Anyway thanks again for links, and small bug report while I'm at it: ASCOM version of driver for ASI185MC seems stuck with SharpCap (was even before I started messing with drivers and sdk), no preview is available and it reports 0 frames captured.

Vladimir

[swag72]

I'm just trying this out for the first time with my Allsky camera before I decide whether to keep it or try something else. At the moment I can't get it to do what I want and I've tried all settings at the capture stage that appear to make sense to me.

What I want is to have 1 frame captured every 30s and then added to a video....... Is this possible? So far I can get the 1 frame and the 30s interval, but it seems to save it all as an individual picture, not as a timelapse video file which is what I am after.....

Does Sharpcap do this? If not, perhaps someone knows some alternative that does?

[themos]

The old VirtualDub program does assemble frames into a video.

[swag72]

Just now, themos said:

The old VirtualDub program does assemble frames into a video.

What's that? An old reincarnation or another programme? I'm happy enough to change to another better suited programme at the moment as I've not become used to anything at this stage!

[themos]

http://www.virtualdub.org/download.html does a lot of video editing but is quite old in terms of formats support.I've used it for timelapses though.

[swag72]

I was rather hoping that there was a setting in Sharpcap that did it, or another capture programme as I don't want to put any effort into something I may only look at once in a while... if that makes sense.

[rwg]

Hi Sara,

you should be able to get this to happen with SharpCap - if you are using a webcam then look at the 'Frame Divisor' option - If you set that to (say) 128 then only one frame in 128 will be written to the AVI file.  If you are using a ZWO or Altair camera then you should see a control called 'Frame Rate Limit' which you can set to put a limit on the rate that which frames are saved. If you're using a QHY camera then just shout out and I will add that option for the next version of SharpCap.

cheers,

Robin

[swag72]

Hi Robin..... I am using a Mallincam via USB2861 (I think it's that) I've not seen any of those features available to me.......

[rwg]

Hi Sara, I think that counts as a webcam, so you should see the frame divisor option (just under the resolution, frame rate and colour space controls. Note that changing this control doesn't change the rate of previewed frames, but does affect what is written to the AVI file.

cheers

Robin

[swag72]

Thanks Robin for your quick reply..... I've found that setting. I'll have to have a play with what to then set in the capture settings to get a timelapse.

[rwg]

@vlaiv - I think you might be best reporting your findings on the ZWO forums. I'm sure Sam will have a better idea of the details of how the camera deals with offsets and so on. Mind you, it is the chinese new year coming up, so you might not get a quick response.

@swag72  - no problem, let me know if you have any problems

cheers,

Robin

 

[vlaiv]

Yes, I did open a topic there (on zwo user group), and Sam was kind enough to look into this matter. He confirmed the issue with latest software and said that they will try to deal with it after their holidays.

Thanks, Vladimir

[galljj]

Robin:

I'm Playing around with my first foray into video astronomy, and find I'm having a tough time capturing my video feed.

I've picked up the Revolution Imager System, which came with a pretty generic video capture USB device.  The system is basically a modded LN300, which appears to be used in the UK.

When hooked to the camera, and to my laptop (windows 7, 64 bit machine), i can see the image on SharpCap, and when I try to capture a video, it tells me that the capture is underway, and gives me the stats on the number of frames, etc.

But when I go to view or import the .avi into Registax, there's nothing there.  Well, there's one frame, but not the 2,000 or the one minutes worth that Sharpcap said it received.  All .avi's are the same size (875 kb), regardless of the number of frames captured.

I can get a FITS image out when I do I live stack, but I have some doubt that it actually reflects a stack, rather than the last frame received.

Thanks for any suggestions you could offer.

John

 

[rwg]

Hi John,

can't think why frames might go missing in the output AVI file unless you have turned up the value of the 'frame divisor' control which limits the number of frames going to the capture file to 1 out of N (if the control is set to N). The size of 875kb sounds about right for a single frame 640x480xRGB24 though.

Have a look at the .capturesettings file that is saved next to the AVI (open it in notepad) to see what settings are being used which might lead to something.

The fits save is definitely the stack - one way to confirm is to turn off the alignment feature and deliberately let the stars trail in the stack (stop tracking maybe) and then save the fits file and confirm the fits has the trailed stars. One possible reason for getting only a single frame in the stack is having the alignment turned on but SharpCap isn't able to find 3 stars to align on. If that happens no more frames get added to the stack.

cheers,

Robin

[galljj]

Thanks for the quick get back.  I don't think it is the frame divisor - Here's the camera setttings.txt file from one attempt:

[OEM Device]
Frame Divisor=1
Resolution=720x576
Colour Space=YUY2
Brightness=128
Contrast=128
Hue=128
Saturation=128
Sharpness=128

And, although the camera seemed to capture a FITS file in a live stack, all those files are the same size - 4.8 mb.  After I got the latsest release, it put out 3 kb .png files.

 

Here's an excerpt from the log file,:

SharpCap.Cameras.NewDirectShow.DeviceEnumerator.GetDeviceMenuItems() :: Adding device : OEM Device to menu
Info: 12:31:34.1473467 SharpCap.Cameras.NewDirectShow.DeviceEnumerator.GetDeviceMenuItems() :: Adding device : OEM Device to menu
Debug: 12:31:34.1583473 SharpCap.Cameras.ASCOM.NewAscomCaptureProvider.GetDevices() :: Adding ASCOM Camera Name = Camera V2 simulator, ProgID  = ASCOM.Simulator.Camera
Debug: 12:31:34.1583473 SharpCap.Cameras.ASCOM.NewAscomCaptureProvider.GetDevices() :: Adding ASCOM Camera Name = Simulator, ProgID  = CCDSimulator.Camera
Debug: 12:31:34.2393520 SharpCap.MultiCaptureProvider.OpenDevice(DeviceTagData deviceTag) :: Opening device : OEM Device
Debug: 12:31:34.3383576 SharpCap.Models.Camera.ApplyDefaultProfile() :: Started
Debug: 12:31:34.3393577 SharpCap.Models.Camera.ApplyDefaultProfile() :: Ended (No default defined for this camera)
Info: 12:31:34.3413578 SharpCap.MultiCaptureProvider.StartPreview() :: Starting preview on OEM Device
Debug: 12:31:34.3493583 SharpCap.Cameras.NewDirectShow.CaptureProvider.StartPreview() :: Started
Debug: 12:31:34.7263798 SharpCap.Cameras.NewDirectShow.CaptureControlFactory.GetPinControls() :: Pin controls being added
Info: 12:31:34.7473810 SharpCap.Cameras.NewDirectShow.FrameRatePropertyControl..ctor(ISampleCaptureGraphBuilder builder, IAMStreamConfig streamConfig, IPreviewControl captureControl, IBaseFilter baseFilter, IWin32Window windowHandle) :: No IAMVideoControl interfaces - interesting...
Info: 12:31:34.7633819 SharpCap.Cameras.NewDirectShow.CaptureControlFactory.GetCameraControls() :: No native IAMCameraControl
Info: 12:31:34.7643820 SharpCap.Cameras.NewDirectShow.CaptureControlFactory.GetCameraControls() :: IAMCameraControl interface not found - no camera controls will be available
Info: 12:31:34.7653821 SharpCap.Cameras.NewDirectShow.CaptureControlFactory.GetProcAmpControls() :: Proc Amp controls being added via native IAMVideoProcAmp
Debug: 12:31:34.7903835 SharpCap.Cameras.NewDirectShow.CaptureProvider.LogPreviewDeviceParams() :: Trying to start preview for colour space : YUY2
Debug: 12:31:34.7903835 SharpCap.Cameras.NewDirectShow.CaptureProvider.LogPreviewDeviceParams() :: Resolution is : 720x576
Debug: 12:31:34.9283914 SharpCap.Cameras.NewDirectShow.CaptureProvider.RenderPreviewGraph(Boolean useSampleGrabber) :: preview graph rendered to sample grabber and UI
Debug: 12:31:34.9303915 SharpCap.Cameras.NewDirectShow.CaptureProvider.StartPreview() :: capture graph rendered to frame filter and preview sink
Debug: 12:31:35.0914007 SharpCap.Cameras.NewDirectShow.CaptureProvider.InitializedDroppedFrames() :: Ended (Camera driver cannot report frame capture and drop information)
Info: 12:31:35.0934008 SharpCap.MultiCaptureProvider.SendCaptureEvent(Object sender, CaptureEventArgs e) :: Capture Event : StartPreview
Debug: 12:31:35.2424093 SharpCap.Cameras.NewDirectShow.CaptureProvider.StartPreview() :: Ended
Debug: 12:33:42.9217122 SharpCap.Cameras.NewDirectShow.CaptureProvider.MakeMenuOptions() :: Started
Debug: 12:33:45.6288670 SharpCap.Cameras.NewDirectShow.PropertyPageSource.ShowPage() :: Started
Debug: 12:36:09.2940842 SharpCap.Cameras.NewDirectShow.PropertyPageSource.ShowPage() :: Ended

Oddly, wxAstro does save a .avi file.  
 

j

[rwg]

Hi,

the closest device I have to yours is an Ezcap frame grabber (one of these -  http://www.ezcap.tv/ ). I've just tested it out and both capturing and stacking work fine, I get a 116Mb capture file from 200 frames and the stacking output is a 4mb+ fits file.

I suspect that the small png file is the result of using the 'save as viewed' option in the live stacking, which saves the stacked image as seen on the screen in PNG format. Saving as raw stack creates the fits file.

Please feel free to send me the full log by PM (after you've attemted to capture an AVI and stopped the capture).

cheers,

Robin

[swag72]

This may sound really petty - I'm loving this programme. It's taking timelapse images every 1m and then I just run through them to check the clouds! The thing that's bugging me is that the capture screen always seems to be in or around the middle of the image so while I'm awaiting another frame it's there in the way - Is there a way to tether it for the duration of the captures to one side of the image? I hope the screen grab shows what I mean.