Using SharpCap to Capture the Planets

[@Astrolavista]

A few years after this one, I created a video on planetary captures using SharpCap, which is arguably better.: kzbin.info/www/bejne/j2eYaaCqrpqpiKs

[@MobilMobil-kv5ke]

Thanks for creating this. Like other viewers, I’m new to astrophotography. It reminds me of the day I brought my new-born son home from the hospital. My wife and I placed him in his crib and I looked at her and asked “Now what do we do?” I got a used 12 inch Meade LX200 Classic (1996 vintage), my son’s old laptop with Sharpcap and a brand new ZWO ASI224 MC. I’m at the “Now what do I do?” Phase.

[@Astrolavista]

lol don't worry, I promise planetary imaging is much much easier than bringing up kids :D What a wonderful scope you have to start with! I've very fond memories of LX200's, they were the scopes we used throughout University back in the day. A 12" SCT will be fantastic on the planets once properly cooled and collimated (mirrors aligned) Congrats on the scope!

[@Astrolavista]

****Please excuse the knocking noises, my laptops internal microphone picked up the sound of mouse pad gestures during the recording of this video****

[@EminiMe7]

No worries there... Didn't watch.

[@Astrolavista]

@@EminiMe7 Well thanks for commenting anyway, it's helpful with the old You Tube algorithm, cheers!

[@scotthall727]

Hi - you can actually click & drag the region of interest square over if the planet begins to move out of the frame - very cool, did it myself recently, saves moving the scope 👍

[@Astrolavista]

Hey Scott, thanks, that's a good point! In this instance I was trying to keep the planet as on axis as possible to try and make up a bit of ground optically. I was using a short f/5 achromat with lots of curvature you see, but I really should of mentioned this at the time and that you could move the box instead if you like. You're right, it would have been a lot easier lol

[@paultomo1000]

Were do i find ROI in sharpcap

[@scotthall727]

@@paultomo1000 Hi - if you click the ‘Capture area’ box & change it from 1280x960 to any of the other settings e.g 640x480 this will open up a region of interest box where you will be able to simply click and drag. Hope this helps 👍

[@michaelfrazier9537]

Have you done a video on SharpCap pro? Also, I have a QHYIII 462 camera. How far to I push it into the back of the telescope after I remove the diagonal? Great video!

[@robertutecht7818]

Hi I am new at Sharpcap and have a question, I went to capture a video seemed fine , but can`t find it now how do I save it , and what software do I need to view it Im very new at this

[@Astrolavista]

Hi, by default, SharpCap makes a capture folder on your desktop. Once the capture has completed, a Notification Bar will appear directly below the Tool Bar. Click the highlighted 'green' link to go directly to the folder holding the captured image. You will be capturing an AVI movie file so you can play it on a movie player such as windows media player. However, if you want to process the AVI movie file to form a detailed single image, you will need to use free software called Registax6 or Autostakkert to stack the sharpest frames, and process the image.

[@scottschuette74]

I am looking for a tutorial video for beginners. I just purchased the SV205 by Svbony and have no idea how to use the Sharpcap software. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[@TheUrbanAstronomer]

Loving the new editing style Chris!! Great video as always!!

[@Astrolavista]

Thanks Vineeth, I've been spending money on effect packages lol Right back at you with the great content :)

[@TheUrbanAstronomer]

@@Astrolavista cool 😃

[@smalloptics753]

Hey chris! This will help me a lot. I'm just dipping my toes in this type of photography, especially using"Sharp Cap." (I know, were have I been?) Thanks for sharing pal.

[@Astrolavista]

Hi Jason, I'm really glad it will be useful mate, and it's never too late to start as they say :)

[@sold9603]

Just loaded this app to my laptop. Is this free or do I have to pay to get it to work? I connected my Nikon to try it. And it’s not connecting to my camera? Please advise thanks

[@Astrolavista]

Hi, SharpCap was designed primerily for webcam based astronomy cams such as ZWO, Altair etc but you can check the drop down camera menu top left to see if your camera is highlighted? If not maybe try back yard Nikon which is software designed for your Nikon. I did find this thread on using a DLSR with SharpCap which might be worth a read: www.cloudynights.com/topic/657429-how-to-use-sharpcap-with-a-dslr/

[@drkumarharaprasadmisra5562]

For focussing is Bathinov mask used to focus over planets? I think it's should be against bright star

[@Astrolavista]

Ideally a star, but both stars and planets are effectively at infinity when it comes to focusing optics hear on Earth.

[@drkumarharaprasadmisra5562]

@@Astrolavista ok thank you. It is a very necessary tip for me 👍

[@GalaxyArtMedia]

Very nice. was interesting to see that you used the bahtinov mask to focus the planet, I used mine only on stars was not sure how good will perform for planets, maybe I will try next time.

[@Astrolavista]

Hey Loan, yeah give it a go, there is no reason why it shouldn't work, thanks :)

[@GalaxyArtMedia]

@@Astrolavista with pleasure. I have a few planetary videos and reviews waiting to be edited from this summer. It took me a month to finish the video with the Whirlpool Galaxy full frame vs crop sensor so i decided to edit them after. I recently uploaded the video on my channel.

[@Astrolavista]

@@GalaxyArtMedia I saw the thumb nail for that, it's on my watch list for the weekend :)

[@GalaxyArtMedia]

@@Astrolavista Good to know ;)

[@aquatone01]

Great explanation of the use of bin. Thank you.

[@Astrolavista]

You're welcome, thanks!

[@abdulla1st964]

كيف اسوي زووم اوت القمر حيل قريب

[@astronebulee578]

Can't wait for the follow up video on how to process the video, I usually capture mine as ser files, but like to know a good way of processing as there so many out there all with different ways, clear skies

[@Astrolavista]

Thanks Lee, it will be my next upload :)

[@MansHobbsInterests]

Hi mate, great tutorial. Did you get the follow up done. Would love to see it👍

[@Astrolavista]

Cheers! Here's a planetary processing workflow tutorial, and I have all sorts of videos on my channel if you click on my avatar, thanks :) kzbin.info/www/bejne/b6SUqZuYjrSZiM0

[@mech_magic]

You left out the most important pieces of information... The histogram. How you chose the exposure, and gain. Is there a follow up where you show the histogram and the end result?

[@Astrolavista]

I've been meaning to redo this video, I was never really happy with it.

[@mech_magic]

@@Astrolavista That would be amazing, thanks for the quick reply! I've been getting VERY mixed info on gain and historgram. For histogram I've read/seen: 10%, 15%, 20%, 50%, 60% and 80-90% according to Christopher Go. The guy who said 15%-20% promptly set his to >30% and said there you go, 15-20%, then later used some 80%?!?! Maybe some people are referring to the peak and some to the dynamic range? My gain seems to look bad above 200. Christopher Go says 400dB is good, which would be 4,000 on my imager... So confused. Maybe I just need a lot more frames? Halp.

[@icingdeath]

Lol at public area. I so can relate to the stares. Thanks for this informative post!

[@Astrolavista]

lol It shouldn't feel uncomfortable as we're not doing anything wrong, but it does. Thanks for watching! : )

[@CE4JDM]

I have Sharp Pro v3.2.6482 And camera is SVBONY SV205. In the "Camera Controls", the exposure time is greyed out. I cannot change it. It says 15.6 ms. And the slider bar to change it is greyed out also. Why is this happening? The camera is connected.

[@Astrolavista]

Hi MTgeezer, I watched a review of a SVBONY camera by Ruzeen from the channel Astrofarsography a while back, and he had the same or a similar problem with the SV planetary cam. I think he found a solution so if you drop him a message I think you'll hopefully be sorted.

[@astroinceptor]

Hi, thank you for your explanation but I still have a question, I wonder if you could help me, I used sharpcap and a planetary camera for the first time today, I adjusted colors to capture Jupiter and on the screen the colors were fine, but then when processing with pipp the color changed, the fringes of Jupiter are blue! And I don't know how to fix that, I would appreciate your time to answer my question

[@Astrolavista]

Hi, it's sounds like it could be either chromatic aberration from using an achromat refractor, or atmospheric dispersion from imaging the planet low down in the sky, and the processing as brought this out. If you pop the image into Registax 6 there is an RGB align tool which should improve things. Watch this video from about 9 minutes onwards so you can see what I mean :) kzbin.info/www/bejne/b6SUqZuYjrSZiM0

[@dorinlj]

Great video! Can you make a video on how to program SharpCap?. I want to program it, to shoot 20 sec videos at high speed, than change filter and then again to to shoot a video and so one.

[@Astrolavista]

Thanks dorin, I'm not much of a coder but I did once try and make a simple game in Unity which used a few C# scripts. I believe SharpCap uses Python or similar? It's something I can look into further, but I do have a few projects on the go so it wouldn't be anytime soon. It does sound cool though so I will look into it :)

[@dorinlj]

@@Astrolavista Thanks for the answer. I will try to program myself, I am really keen to automate this actions.

[@bobuk5722]

Hi Chris. I've subscribed. I'm trying to resurrect an old interest in astronomy. One of my problems is the effort required to set everything up each time so your DIY shed observatory is very interesting. Cheers. BobUK.

[@Astrolavista]

Many thanks Bob, There are lots of portable 'grab n go' setups available, but I do agree an observatory makes setup a lot quicker so you're more likely to go out and observe and image. I remember that from the last one I built. This build is almost complete now, I've just finished painting the inside so I can get the mount and scope setup. When it's fully complete I'll do a start to finish video :)

[@SlimAgnus]

Your SharpCap seems to already have been configured, when starting it up. I'm getting a very different view from you, with my camera capturing images instead of video and not having any options to switch to video. I assume there's some configuration that needs to be done, but that doesn't seem to be included in this video.

[@Astrolavista]

What camera do you have plugged in? If you go to the drop down menu top let labelled camera and select your camera from the list, it should bring up all the settings it has available on the right hand side of the screen under the camera control panel. Then click on the drop down menu where is says output format and select AVI file. Under that you should see you selected frames per second, gain and exposure settings.

[@SlimAgnus]

@@Astrolavista Thank you for the description. I'm using a Canon EOS camera, but under the output format I don't have the option of selecting an AVI file, only image file formats. If the AVI format is supposed to be available here, without any further configuration, I assume that the ASCOM camera driver I'm using, doesn't implement the functionality needed to capture AVI files.

[@mubarakhayath]

Very cool intro Chris 😎🔥😍

[@Astrolavista]

Thanks Mubarak, I like to experiment :)

[@geoffmarcy677]

Very helpful! Thanks!

[@panzerdivizzion]

I cant even get here because Sharpcap tells me my roi is to large, but when I change it, it dosent mke a difference. Im using fwhm for focus.. In freezing weather, uphill both ways.. I pay for Sharp Cap for the polar alighnment. everything else is just bonus material. Would be nice to get to the level of lights,darks, and flats .

[@themoonchannel7210]

Sharpcap is my go to with lunar and planetary astrophotography with my zwo asi 120 mm-s.

[@Astrolavista]

I've heard good things about FireCapture also, but SharpCap has always done such a good job that I'm in no real rush to try it. I probably should try it one day though just to make sure :)

[@caviestcaveman8691]

I hope you invited those people over to look through the tele or at least show them what you are doing. That's probably why they gave you a weird look lol

[@raueugen9047]

Why not tell values chosen.You talking spels or with holy Ghost ?

[@Astrolavista]

No point. Unless you are imaging the same object with the same telescope and camera the values won't apply. I'm getting a lot of necro posts on this old video recently.

[@bushcraftandastronomer.3775]

Hi Chris. Thanks for sharing this little video and I know it will be so useful to me when I get my new laptop etc. You heard that a gas has been found to link life in the clouds of Venus? Image life at Venus as you'd think.life can't be at Venus. Few nights ago I photographed mars with my Hauwei p20 smartphone despite the clouds. Mars is so interesting as beyond it's surface there could be life! You think life is on mars? Wouldn't it be awesome life was in the clouds of Venus? Very enjoyable video!!!

[@Astrolavista]

Hey John, thanks. Yes watched the press release with great interest. It's the last place in the solar system I would have imagined there to be life because of the super strong sulphuric acid rain, plus the immense pressure and temperature on the surface, but in the clouds where things are more temperate its a real possibility now, amazing! Well done on capturing Mars on your phone, that lovely orange glow in the sky is great to see at the moment. I think there could be extremophile bacteria under the surface of Mars somewhere, I think there is a real chance of that. Cheers John :)

[@kendalsmucker4899]

I can’t read your text graphics fast enough, please add 30 seconds each.

[@e.stanis5656]

Thanks for the info but you keep smacking the microphone and its really annoying.

[@Astrolavista]

Sorry about that, this was a bit of a rustic situation . The noise was actually from the mouse pad when I double tapped on icons. This was filmed with me in a public place with my laptop balanced on a chair with me speaking into the PC mic. People probably thought I was mad but at least it was dark. With a lot of my videos I'm able to access the sky from my garden thus setup proper external mics lighting etc, but sadly I had to venture out to get access to the planets. It's often the case that you don't notice audio problems until after you've recorded. In hindsight I could have taken a second chair out and an external USB mouse. but hey oh you live and learn.

[@moonmonkey9595]

Hey buddy I’m doing this right now !!!

[@Astrolavista]

How did it go?

[@moonmonkey9595]

DIY Astro it went ok bud I’m still confused as to what the bits in autistakkert do honestly but I need to watch more videos however the image I got with my tiny setup was pleasing 😊😊😊

[@Astrolavista]

@@moonmonkey9595 I cover a fair bit about Autostakkert in this tutorial if it's helpful: kzbin.info/www/bejne/b6SUqZuYjrSZiM0&t. Glad you got a good image :)

[@moonmonkey9595]

DIY Astro ok so watched that tutorial thanks buddy !!!! Really useful to know how best to do this stuff going to run it through all the software then get back to you many thanks my friend

[@moonmonkey9595]

DIY Astro last question can you go through what an IR filter is and it’s uses I think filters are kind of a secret art (at least to me 😂😂) stay safe bud

[@raueugen9047]

you're talking with yourself...

[@EminiMe7]

Your mic is in the way...Your incessant bumping it makes the video unwatchable.

[@Astrolavista]

Hi Steve, yeah the microphone is inside the laptop near the mouse pad so every time I moved the curser it made the noise. I have 75+ videos a lot of which use an external mic, multiple camera angles, lighting and special effects. This was more of a quick video for the benefit of two people who asked me how to use SharpCap. It's not meant to be anything special, just recorded with screen capture software whilst I was out in a public place capturing the planets. The people who asked for the video thanked me so I guess it answered their question which is good. Surprisingly this very quick rustic video has attracted many times the subscribers compared to some videos which took days of work? I can only conclude that most people aren't that bothered by the bumping which is lucky. I will however add a pinned comment warning people not to watch if they are bothered by knocking noises as everyone is different. Many thanks for your comment and clear skies :)