Can't see stars with my camera

[bigfish]

Last night we had a somewhat clear sky. I was planning on using my new Bahtinov mask to focus on a star. There were not a lot of bright stars, only a couple and they weren't all that bright to begin with. When I looked through the finder scope I could see a ton of stars that I couldn't see with my naked eye. The problem is when I tried to find a star with mt ASI183 I couldn't see any at all.
I tried all kinds of different settings, ASICap, Firecapture and Sharpcap but nothing. The camera was working fine on the Moon and Jupiter but not the stars.
Is it possible the stars just weren't bright enough? Or something else?
I have A laser collimator and as far as I can tell everything is straight.

So after fooling around for more than an hour trying to find a star my hand controller decided to die (no power at all) then a bunch of clouds moved in. I was super disappointed and packed it up without trying to find a star with an eyepiece.

[Gordon]

What did you have the exposure time set to. Could it be that it was set too fast? Typically a 10 second exposure time should give you stars.

[Gfamily]

How annoying.

Since you know you can get an image of Jupiter with the camera, I would start with that, then when you have it in the middle of the sensor and with as good a focus as you can manage; when you have both of those, go to your finder and use its adjustments to make sure Jupiter is exactly positioned on the cross hairs.
Then, without touching the camera or its settings, move across and get Saturn exactly on the finder's cross hairs.

Adjust the gain on your software until you have as good an image of Saturn as you can get.

If you can't get any image of Saturn, go back to Jupiter (only using the finder to centre it), if you can't find Jupiter this time, it's likely that there's some slackness in the optical path.

If you can get an image of Saturn, then go to Altair, centreing it again in the finder, and adjusting the gain until it's visible in the software.

Make a note of the gain settings needed for stars.

[sdbodin]

I suspect a combination of focus and exposure time. A agree, 10 seconds will usually shows stars that are moderately out of focus, so that is where I would start.

Hope this helps,
Steve

[bigfish]

What did you have the exposure time set to. Could it be that it was set too fast? Typically a 10 second exposure time should give you stars.

I did have "high speed" checked and file type to AVI.
I guess it should be JPEG?

[bigfish]

I suspect a combination of focus and exposure time. A agree, 10 seconds will usually shows stars that are moderately out of focus, so that is where I would start.

Hope this helps,
Steve

Should I have the file type set to JPEG?

[sdbodin]

Should I have the file type set to JPEG?

Should make no difference, you are not saving a file, only viewing in real time.

Steve

[bigfish]

Should I have the file type set to JPEG?

Should make no difference, you are not saving a file, only viewing in real time.

Steve

Then I don't know how to make it a 10 second exposure.
I had the exposure slider cranked up. Is there another setting? What about high speed being checked?
Thanks for your help.

[sdbodin]

OK, I don't use Sharpcap much, but this works for me when testing.

Just set whatever exposure time you want, also make sure gain and gamma are pushed up, you can change them later to make the picture better.

Steve

[bigfish]

OK, I don't use Sharpcap much, but this works for me when testing.
Just set whatever exposure time you want, also make sure gain and gamma are pushed up, you can change them later to make the picture better.
Steve

Thank you Steve!
I think I understand now.
I found the setting in both ASICap and Firecapture.