Live Stacking

[MPS (Mathew)]

I was wondering if there was such an astro camera that has the ability to do live stacking while attached to the scope. I have sharp cap pro which has a tab that does this. With my entry level zwo planetary camera I am not able to do this due to a prompt that tells me there are not enough stars in focus. So does anyone know of a model if there is one to do this. For my own interest and outreach work. I've been following the development of the evscope
https://unistellaroptics.com/
Which does EXACTLY what I want but for the cost of around AU 3000......maybe later. Any reccomendation?

Cheers Mat

[ChrisV (Chris)]

Any astro camera should be able to stack in sharpcap - just as long as it will talk to sharpcap. Ive done it with an asi224/290/071 and older analig camers. What camera are you using?

You just need to tweak a few settings so that it detects stars for aligning. First get the gain/ exposure so that single subs produce a histogram thats somewhat shifted awAy from the black end. Then in the live stacker - adjust threshold etc. I dont have it in front of me so cant remember the things to alter off the top of my head. I can look later.

You can also stack without star aligning just to check it works. Your gear should be good for live viewing. Theres a fair few on cloudynights using the etx80 for this

[multiweb (Marc)]

The old SBIG STVs used to do that. Monte had one and I remember watching a live stack on the HH from Parramatta park during an astro outreach.

[MPS (Mathew)]

Originally Posted by ChrisV

Any astro camera should be able to stack in sharpcap - just as long as it will talk to sharpcap. Ive done it with an asi224/290/071 and older analig camers. What camera are you using?

You just need to tweak a few settings so that it detects stars for aligning. First get the gain/ exposure so that single subs produce a histogram thats somewhat shifted awAy from the black end. Then in the live stacker - adjust threshold etc. I dont have it in front of me so cant remember the things to alter off the top of my head. I can look later.

You can also stack without star aligning just to check it works. Your gear should be good for live viewing. Theres a fair few on cloudynights using the etx80 for this

Hi Chris
Thanks for reply I have the zwo asi 120MC-s model. And yes I can't work out how to get it to detect stars for aligning in sharpcap. I have fiddled with gain and exposure with little result. Says the same prompt when I try to live stack the moon or Jupiter as well. The GSTAR ex3 I think is advertised to be able to do this but this camera has so.e mixed reviews.

[Hemi]

Any chance you could post a screen grab?

Are your stars in good focus? That is quite important. Stacking and alignment doesn’t work well with star bloat.
Press the reset/clear button when you change the settings until it starts stacking.
Small sensor, so you can reduce the number of stars to stack/align. Try reducing to 10.

Try gain 300, 4s exposure, auto WB, 10 alignment stars. Press reset once the settings have been adjusted.

Hemi

[MPS (Mathew)]

Originally Posted by Hemi

Any chance you could post a screen grab?

Are your stars in good focus? That is quite important. Stacking and alignment doesn’t work well with star bloat.
Press the reset/clear button when you change the settings until it starts stacking.
Small sensor, so you can reduce the number of stars to stack/align. Try reducing to 10.

Try gain 300, 4s exposure, auto WB, 10 alignment stars. Press reset once the settings have been adjusted.

Hemi

Hi Hemi
Thanks for that. I will definitely get a screen shot when the weather is clear and post it for some help. Thanks. In the meantime I will try those settings.
Cheers
Mat

[sil (Steve)]

there's also the Hiuni telescope in developement. Same as that unistellar but half the price. its a kickstarter and i hope it completes and i get one. not expecting mind blowing performance but with a physical disabiliy am hoping for more accessible astronomy for me my other gear cant provide.

I know i've used another capture program that stacks live and works well, jut stacks the video frames, no focus analysing, if you bump th scope or dont focus it just stacks the frames live regardless. if i recall its aimed at planetary captures and does nothing but display the cam video and stacks it live, givingyou options to save the stacked frame not the video.handy for sharing a live view to a group of people. probably called JupCap or PlanetCap or something. As I said it JUST does this, nothing else.

[John W (John Wilkinson)]

The Atik Infinity does Live continuous stacking. Check it out on the Atik web site. There are also lots of tutorials on You Tube. Cheers, JW.