What is SharpCap?
SharpCap is an easy-to-use and powerful astronomy camera capture tool. It supports a wide range of dedicated astronomy cameras as well as webcams and USB frame grabbers.
A wide range of features makes SharpCap suitable for many types of astro-imaging including Planetary, Lunar, Solar, Deep Sky and EAA (Electronically Assisted Astronomy). A clear and logical UI makes the program easy for beginners to use. Comprehensive documentation will also help those who are just getting started.
Latest News
SharpCap 4.1 has now been released. Read more about what’s new and then download here.
Features
| Intuitive and Easy to Use | Logical application layout using standard, familiar Windows UI elements |
| Video and Still Capture | Capture video to AVI, SER, WMV and ADV formats; still images to PNG, FITS, TIFF and JPG |
| Planetary, Solar and Lunar Imaging | Support for high-speed cameras including USB3 speeds for lucky imaging |
| Deep Sky Imaging | Exposure time only limited by camera capabilities. Camera can be run in still mode. |
| Image Processing | Apply dark frame subtraction, flat frame correction, background removal and banding suppression and more directly within SharpCap. Flat frames can be applied for high speed imaging. [PRO] |
| Live Stacking/EAA | See live deep sky images build on screen, each frame aligned and derotated before adding to the stack |
| Planetary/Solar/Lunar Live Stacking | Revolutionary live stacking, sharpening and enhancement of planetary, solar and lunar images while you watch inside SharpCap. |
| Polar Alignment | Polar align using your guidescope – the easiest to use polar alignment tool available! [PRO] |
| Automated Imaging | Configure sophisticated imaging sequences to run automatically using the SharpCap Sequence Editor and the Deep Sky and Solar System Sequence Planners [PRO] |
| Deep Sky Framing Assistance | No more guessing how far to nudge the mount to center a target using click-to-recenter. [PRO] |
| Push-To Assistant | Find targets easily without a GOTO mount by using plate solving via SharpCap’s Push-To assistant [PRO] |
| Solar/Lunar Mosaic Automation | Run Solar or Lunar mosaics using SharpCap and your GOTO mount – SharpCap will plan the panels required and capture them automatically [PRO] |
| Full Control of Camera | Full set of camera controls available alongside the capture area |
| High Quality Histogram | Ensure proper exposure settings – use selection box to show histogram of a limited area |
| Flexible File Naming | Every capture file gets a unique name, you can configure how they are organised by target, date, time, etc. Advanced users can setup templates for maximum flexibility. |
| Capture Settings Saved | Camera settings used saved alongside every capture file – no forgetting what settings you used. |
| Quick Capture | Pre-defined video lengths by frame count and time to get capturing quickly |
| Flexible Capture | Run captures of custom lengths, run sequences of captures at regular intervals |
| Focus Aids | Assistance in measuring quality of focus for planets, stars and surface images. Six focus score algorithms. |
| ASCOM Hardware Support | Control your ASCOM hardware, including focusers, telescope mounts, filter wheels, rotators and switch devices from within SharpCap |
| Remote Hardware Support | Control remote hardware (and cameras) via ASCOM Remote and Indigo |
| Plate Solving | Plate solve using SharpCap’s built in plate solving engine (no additional application installs needed) or use AstroTortilla/ASPS/Ansvr/Astap to sync your ASCOM mount to the correct position automatically. |
| Zoomable Preview | Zoom the preview in to see fine detail, zoom out to see entire frame from high resolution cameras. |
| Reticule | Movable, resizable reticule for alignment, centering, collimation, etc. |
| Scripting Language | SharpCap doesn’t quite do what you want? Add your own functionality using Python scripting. [PRO] |
| Autofocus Assistance | Auto scan for and return to point of best focus [PRO] |
| Smart Histogram | No more guessing at deep sky imaging settings [PRO] |
| Feature Tracking | Automatically track image features during high speed imaging [PRO] |
| Seeing Monitor | Keep track of the quality of seeing in an objective way |
| Seeing Triggered Capture | Automatically capture when the seeing passes a set threshold [PRO] |
| Sensor Analysis | Let SharpCap automatically measure the characteristics (read noise and e/ADU) of your astro camera |
| Optimized Memory Use | Use your PC memory to reduce dropped frames when capturing [PRO] |
| Mini Histogram + Display Stretch | Always on mini histogram with display stretch tools – see the faint stuff on screen without altering saved data. |
| ADC Alignment | Assistance in adjusting your atmospheric dispersion corrector to get great planetary images. |
Supported Cameras
Supported Astronomy Cameras
- Altair Astro cameras
- AstcamPan cameras
- Atik cameras
- Basler cameras that use the Basler Pylon drivers
- Celestron/Imaging Source cameras
- Mallincam SkyRaider CMOS cameras
- Moravian Instruments CMOS cameras
- OGMA cameras
- Player One cameras
- Point Grey (now FLIR) cameras
- QHY cameras
- StarlightXpress Cameras
- SVBony Cameras
- ToupTek cameras
- ZWOptical cameras
- Other brands that have an ASCOM driver
Supported Webcams / Frame Grabbers
- Almost all webcams
- Most frame grabbers
- Special support for adjusting parameters of the SPC900 webcam in the settings panel
- LX modified SPC900 cameras (SharpCap 3.0 and earlier versions)
Screenshots
Using SharpCap
There are some great tutorials on using SharpCap for Astrophotography over on the Tutorials board at the SharpCap Forums. You can also find more SharpCap video tutorials on Youtube. If you prefer written documentation, you can find it here.
Getting SharpCap
Head on over to the Downloads page.