A few clusters....

[Gordon]

I've been playing with Sharpcaps Live Stacking for the last few nights. Last night I finally got a few things worked out. My focuser is now working great and I decided to let Sharpcap handle the exposure time and gain setting automatically. The results were a surprise. It works pretty darn good.

Carolines Rose Cluster NGC7789

The Dragon Fly Cluster NGC457

The Fuzzy Butterfly Cluster NGC654

And last but not least, The Lawnmower Cluster NGC663

Captured 2-23-2021
Scope: ES80ed-cf
Camera: ZWO ASI533mc-pro
Mount: Orion EQ6g
Guided
Captured using Live Stack in Sharpcap with automatic settings.
Images were stacked in Sharpcap and processed in StarTools.

[Kerry C.]

Pretty cool Gordon.
I just downloaded Sharpcap Pro last week. To start with I just wanted to use it for the Polar Align function and then expand from there. Two night ago I was able to practice the PA and I was well pleased, though we haven’t had clear skies enough to try imaging with the more precise alignment. Tonight is supposed to be clear...
Anyway, nice captures!
Kerry

[Makuser]

Hi Gordon. Nice, very nice cluster images with great contrast. Hopefully someday soon, I will upgrade my old ZWO ASI120mc camera for a newer better model and the latest Sharpcap software. Thanks for putting these captures up on here for us to enjoy Gordon, and keep up the good work.

[Graeme1858]

Nice clusters Gordon

I didn't know it was possible to let Sharpcap handle the exposure time and gain setting automatically when live stacking!

Regards

Graeme

[bobharmony]

Very nice images, Gordon. So if I have this right, you just roll all the stuff outside, turn it on, and sit back for a cool beverage or three! Sounds like you have it knocked Ah, the life of the AP maven.

Bob

[TheButcher]

Very Nice Gordon!

[Gordon]

Very nice images, Gordon. So if I have this right, you just roll all the stuff outside, turn it on, and sit back for a cool beverage or three! Sounds like you have it knocked Ah, the life of the AP maven.

Bob

That’s about right! 5 minute setup, sit at my desktop computer and work everything from there! Let Sharpcap do the work. When I’m done it’s about 5 mins to take everything down.

It wouldn’t work quite as well on DSO’s but worked great on clusters!

[SkyHiker]

Nice images certainly since the Moon was out.

I have been wondering about the benefits of live stacking I know that the DSS live stacker is not as good as the regular batch one. If it is meant to entertain an audience, live stacking is probably pretty boring to watch so one might as well take a single exposure that is long enough.

[messier 111]

very nice capture of all , thx .

[MariusD69]

Great images! Well done, Gordon!

[BABOafrica]

Great capture. Sharpcap worked wonders that time.

And I love the names of the clusters...

BABO

[AstroBee]

Nice images certainly since the Moon was out.

I have been wondering about the benefits of live stacking I know that the DSS live stacker is not as good as the regular batch one. If it is meant to entertain an audience, live stacking is probably pretty boring to watch so one might as well take a single exposure that is long enough.

There are plenty of benefits of LiveStacking multiple shorter exposures over a single long one.
1. In my Bortle 8-9ish skies, with a Luminance filter I'm limited to about 30 seconds, maybe 40-45seconds depending on which direction I point.
2. With liveStacking and using the Pre-processing darks and flats option, you get rid of any dust bunnies and amp noise.
3. Stacking 4x 15 second exposures vs. a single 60 second exposure helps to clean up the sensor nad walking noise common in most CMOS cameras.

When I'm doing my live events I always tell people the first couple of minutes is going to bring out almost all the detail that you will see but the next 2-5-10 minutes is going to clean up the noise.

[AstroBee]

... I decided to let Sharpcap handle the exposure time and gain setting automatically...

Can't do that if you use the pre-processing dark and flats feature. Your master dark needs to be the same settings (gain/exposure) as your imaging.

[SkyHiker]

Nice images certainly since the Moon was out.

I have been wondering about the benefits of live stacking I know that the DSS live stacker is not as good as the regular batch one. If it is meant to entertain an audience, live stacking is probably pretty boring to watch so one might as well take a single exposure that is long enough.

There are plenty of benefits of LiveStacking multiple shorter exposures over a single long one.
1. In my Bortle 8-9ish skies, with a Luminance filter I'm limited to about 30 seconds, maybe 40-45seconds depending on which direction I point.

I'm curious about that. The photons produced by LP and target accumulate linearly in time, stacking is linear, so if the sensor is linear and we stay within the well depth, many short exposures vs one long one should not matter if we subtract the background, say in a 32 bit editor. So there must be some nonlinear effect that causes short exposures to deal better with LP?

I don't disagree BTW, I feel like I'm limited by LP just looking at the LCD images on my DSLR - the background lights up excessively with long exposures due to LP. But that's possibly not the right thing to consider, since it's filtered in unknown ways.

Regardless, I will be receiving a 2600 soon so I am curious about the exposure vs. gain arguments. Any pointers are welcome.

[OzEclipse]

Very Nice Gordon. Thanks for sharing.

Joe

[jthommes]

Great cluster shots Gordon. I really like NGC457 - the Dragon Fly. I have also heard it called the Owl cluster, but I like the name Dragon Fly better.