Long exposure with SharpCap

[neilm]

Apologies to those of you holding your head in your hands and going "not that question again" but ..........

I've done some lunar captures and quite pleased with the results, but as my school report always said "could try harder", so that's an on-going learning curve.

In the absence of a bottom less pit of money I was hoping to try other things out, some of the easier messier objects with the web cam and looking for a long exposure function in SharpCap. So is this just a case of setting a high exposure and running at 30pfs, or high exposure an say 5 fps or go away and stop posting silly questions!

Cheers

Neil

[Cornelius Varley]

There is no long exposure setting in Sharpcap. The capture program is designed for planetary and lunar webcam imaging so there is no need for a long exposure facility. Wxastrocature can handle long exposures if the webcam has been modified for long exposures.

Peter

[Breakintheclouds]

I faced a similar issue recently, and after a lot of research came to the same conclusion as Peter: wxAstrocapture for long exposures of DSOs (if your video camera can produce them, i.e., if it's an integrating camera) and SharpCap for planets.

If you have an ordinary webcam type of video camera then it just won't do long exposures. Only certain video cameras can do this - there's a lovely Watec for sale on the for sale board right now.

[neilm]

Thanks for the info. I had a feeling that I was barking up the wrong tree with SharpCap but was hoping I was wrong! I'll take a look at Wxastrocature, and start saving up some pennies at the same time .....

Cheers

Neil

[astromerlin]

Question, Why bother with Sharpcap when WxAstrocapture can do Planetary, Moon and DSO's?