Spring Moon (Camera/SharpCap Test?)

Seems like I am turning into a lunar photographer as of late since this is my second image within a month. Actually, like my last image, I was using the moon for testing once again. The moon is great for doing equipment and processing tests. In this case I was getting familiar with SharpCap again and testing my equipment for solar work.

My main solar setup consists of:

1) Orion ED80 - FL 600mm/F7.5

2) ZWO ASI178MM Pro

3) DayStar Quark Chromosphere

4) Orion Sirius Equatorial Mount

5) SharpCap capturing software

I used SharpCap to collect a video using the following camera settings:

Capture Area = 3096 x 2080

Gain = 290

Exposure = 0.2050ms

Duration = 20.189s

Frame Count = 496

Actual Frame Rate = 24.5680fps

I used AutoStakkert preprocessing processing software to stack the video frames selecting the best 20% or 99 frames. I did minimal final processing in PixInsight and Photoshop to produce this image. It came out pretty well but not as good as my single exposure shot from last month (https://www.astrobin.com/gv30xe/?nc=collection&nce=712). 

However, it is not really comparable since the slightest seeing conditions can affect the quality. Also, and maybe more important, they were with two completely different setups. Another thing that Niall MacNeill pointed out to me last month, was that lucky-stacking may work really well for closeup surface shots but for whole moon images single exposure shots show more detail. The following table lists the specs of each setup. Column 3 is my Solar Setup with the Quark and Column 4 is with the ASI174 (which I currently do not have) in place of the ASI178.

	Edge800 ASI294MC	Solar Setup ASI178	Solar Setup w/Quark ASI178	Solar Setup w/Quark ASI174
Telescope	Edge800	ED80	ED80	ED80
Reducer/Barlow	0.7x	none	4.2x	4.2x
Focal Length	1432mm	600mm	600mm	600mm
Camera	ASI294MC	ASI178MM	ASI178MM	ASI174MM
Pixel Size	4.63µm	2.4µm	2.4µm	5.86µm
Resolution	4144 x 2822	3096 x 2080	3096 x 2080	1936 x 1216
Sensor Size	19.1 x 13.1 mm	7.4 x 5.0 mm	7.4 x 5.0 mm	11.3 x 7.1 mm
Scale	0.67 arc”/pixel	0.83 arc”/pixel	0.2 arc”/pixel	0.48 arc”/pixel
Video Rate	19 fps 10bit/ 16 fps 14bit	60 fps 10bit/ 30 fps 14bit	60 fps 10bit/ 30 fps 14bit	164 fps 10bit/ 128 fps 12bit

The image scale are very close at 0.67 vs. 0.83 arcsec/pixel but there is no way to make up the difference between a 1432 mm Focal Length and a 600 mm Focal Length system. The whole point of using such a large scope is to get more detail.

The other thing I noticed was that the frame rate was ~24 fps which indicated that I was probably using 14 bit and for solar imaging it may be better to use 10 bit to take advantage of the higher capture rate. Of course I have no idea how to do this at the moment. Lastly, I may purchase the venerable ASI174 which has proven itself to be an excellent solar camera. It seems the price has come down a slight amount for that camera over the years most likely because ZWO has a newer and slightly more expensive solar camera, the ASI432.

Spring Moon (Camera/SharpCap Test?)
Date: 4-16-24
Camera: ZWO ASI178MM-Pro
Telescope: Orion ED80
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 600mm 
F/7.5
Focal Reducer: None
Mount: Orion Sirius Pro
Filter Adaptor: None
Filter: Camera UV-IR
Focuser: None
Autoguiding: None
Exposure: 99 x 0.2050 ms
Gain: 290
Offset 0
Temp: 15 C
Processing: SharpCap, AutoStakkert, PixInsight, Photoshop

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