App to automate lunar eclipse imaging?

[seeker372011]

We have of course an upcoming lunar eclipse later this month and I wonder if there is program to automate capture? Something similar to that available for solar eclipses?

Would be nice to set it up and then just sit back and enjoy the show rather than fiddling with gain and exposure and so on manually every few minutes


thanks in advance!

[bojan]

I was considering LetnC for CE Cairns/2012, but went for Eclipse Orchestrator.
Maybe this time I will try it.. It can do Lunar as well
https://robertnufer.ch/06_computing/letnc/letnc_page.htm

[seeker372011]

Thanks I will check it out!

Edit
Just did - briefly- looks great. Now to test it!

[Craig_]

Any good software for automating capture on a ZWO camera? The software mentioned here seems geared towards DSLR.

I normally use Sharpcap for my lunar imaging but given the fairly regular changes in exposure time that will be needed throughout the eclipse I was wondering if there's something better out there.

[Tulloch]

I'm not planning anything especially difficult. Lunar/planetary imaging requires constant attention, just watch the histogram and adjust the gain/exposure time accordingly.

Mind you, the weather in Melbourne has turned to crap, so at this stage I'll be lucky to see anything :(

[pmrid]

I used it last night. Set up an exposure rate of 1 per minute. Between start and totality, acquired 100 or so images with no further input from me other than the occasional visual recentering with the mount’s hand control.

The question now is how to stitch those images into a video sequence. I’m well out of my depth there. Any suggestions welcome.

[Camelopardalis]

Peter, if you batch process them to TIF or PNG then PIPP should be able to stitch them together. It can even detect and centre the object and crop the image and output an AVI. There are controls for output frame rate as well.

[pmrid]

Thanks Dunk. I’ll have a go at it that way.