About SharpCap Beta Versions
Beta versions of SharpCap 4.2 are now available so that you can try out new features. Please read the important information below regarding the possibility of encountering bugs in these versions. Installing the beta version of SharpCap 4.2 will *NOT* uninstall SharpCap 4.1, meaning that you can always quickly switch back to the older version if you encounter serious problems with a beta version when observing.
Quick Links : Downloads, New Features
Be aware: Beta versions of SharpCap have had less testing than usual and may contain unfinished or experimental features.
If you choose to use a beta version of SharpCap, please test the cameras and functionality you intend to use before an observing session to avoid frustration and lost observing time. You can install a beta version of SharpCap without having to uninstall the previous release version, so it’s easy to have both on the same machine and switch between them.
All beta versions have a built in time limit – they will only work up until a particular date (usually they have a life of a month or two). If your beta version runs out, check back at this page for an updated beta (or check the main downloads page for a new release).
You can use most SharpCap Pro features that are new in this version during the beta period without a license. SharpCap Pro features that existed in SharpCap 4.1 will continue to require a license in the beta versions.
Found a bug in the beta version? Please submit any bug reports if you are prompted and also report the problem in the Beta Testing Forum.
New Features
SharpCap 4.2 contains the following new and improved features
File format support
- The Folder Monitor Camera (and the test cameras) can read RAW image files from digital cameras via the libraw library – this includes formats line DNG, CR2, etc. This makes it easier to process digital camera captured images in SharpCap
- ‘Test Camera 2’ can now be used to play back ADV video files as well as SER and AVI files
Deep Sky Live Stacking
- New stretch options including ‘arcsinh’ stretch which can give a more realistic rendering in the darker areas and an option to ‘enhance colour’ during stretching (really more preserving the colour when stretching rather than allowing it to be washed out)
- An option to have live stacking stretch levels track gradual changes in the histogram, making manual adjustments much less frequent. This also tracks drift in the colour balance of the background
- Auto colour calibration button on the histogram tab for easy access. Additionally there is an option to apply auto colour calibration after the first frame (or the first N frames) and to have it re-calculated periodically after that.
- Improvements to Sigma Clipped stacking to help remove satellite trails – better adjustments and defaults and the algorithm can now eliminate satellite trails in the initial 10 frames.
- Improved tracking of frame FWHM and brightness values by following individual stars and how they change from frame to frame.
- Manually adjusting the colour balance in live stacking no longer requires a SharpCap Pro license. Automatic adjustment (including colour calibration) still does.
- Better consistency in autostretch results between normal and colour calibration auto stretch
- New options controlling saving raw frames from cameras – can now be saved as both ‘raw unprocessed’ and ‘processed but not stacked’ if you want
- Improvements in the wording of the prompt for renaming a live stack if the target name is changed during stacking
- Black borders caused by the drift of the image as stacking progresses have been drastically reduced or eliminated. The area where the black border would have been may look a bit soft and fuzzy as it has received less data than the rest of the image.
Solar/Lunar/Planetary Live Stacking
- Add option for 2×2 drizzling as part of the processing when using relatively small input images (up to about 1.4 megapixel). This scales up the image by a factor of 2 then processes the scaled up images and may give a quality boost in the right circumstances
- New options to set manual filename templates for planetary live stacking
- Improvements to some of the graphs to make the information more usable or relevant
- Increase the range on some adjustments
- Option to soften (‘feather’) the onset of the corona brightness boost which can be adjusted to taste
- A new button to save the progress so far of a still active timelapse so you can preview the timelapse. Only available when saving timelapse to SER due to need to reload the existing timelapse while still writing to it.
Image Processing
- A new on/off master switch can disable and re-enable all the image pre-processing functionality shown in the ‘pre-processing’ controls block on the right. This allows image processing to be turned off and back on without having to adjust the settings of each processing option
Polar Alignment
- Polar alignment now uses the ‘SharpSolve’ plate solving engine, which should allow it to work down to about 0.25 degree FOV if you have the ‘hi-res’ index installed. Note that currently it will not use the ultra-hi-res index.
- Will hint about adjustments to gain/exposure if too few stars are detected
- Will try to plate solve within 45 degrees of pole if plenty of stars are detected but cannot find a solution in the normal near pole plate solving area – this will detect cases where you start out a bit too far from the pole
Hardware
- If previously used hardware is missing (not detected) then SharpCap will show the device as selected but ‘not present’, rather than defaulting back to ‘None’ selected
- A progress window showing what is going on when using the ‘Connect/Disconnect all’ button on the toolbar to connect or disconnect devices
- Mount control changes – new buttons for park/unpark rather than a check box and a ‘home position’ button if your mount supports moving to the home position
- Stop the user interface from becoming slow to respond when using Alpaca cover/calibrator devices or Alpaca switch devices (could also happen with slow to respond ASCOM drivers for these types of devices).
- Improvements to graphs in Solar scintillation monitor tool
Target Finding
- A new ‘Observability’ plot in the full catalog Target Selection window. This shows how the target’s altitude will change over the coming night, when it is above/below the horizon, a sky brightness plot that can include light pollution and moon brightness and (for SharpCap Pro users) a satellite density forecast for the target.
- Custom horizons and light pollution levels can be entered in the new ‘Observer Location’ tab of the settings.
- Add a new tool to allow the mount to be synced to a set of co-ordinates or an object selected from the catalog
- Add an option to the ‘Goto Catalog Target…’ tool to use the ASCOM mount’s target co-ordinates (which can be set by other software like a planetarium app) as the target to goto.
- Improved progress reporting when using some options for GOTO in the ‘Goto Catalog Target…’ tool
- Improved interaction with deep sky live stacking to ensure a new stack is ready to go after moving to a new target (not continuing an old stack)
- You can hold down <CTRL> when selecting the ‘Goto Target’ or ‘Push To’ tool to move straight to the full catalog target selection window.
UI
- A new option in the ‘View’ menu to reset the UI layout to the default, which can be helpful if you have moved the various panels around and can’t work out how to get them back to how they started out.
- Highlighting of settings that are currently set to ‘Auto’ to increase awareness of them
Focusing
- Add a readout of the FWHM in arc-seconds on the FWHM based focus tools (only shows if plate solving info has been calculated, which allows SharpCap to convert pixels into arc seconds)
- Improved detection of faint stars (applies in other parts of the software using star detection too)
- Automatically disable temperature compensation (if currently turned on) during autofocus measurement runs – it will be re-enabled after autofocus is complete
Feature Tracking
- Calibration now copes better with fast movement (in continuous calibration) when using phase offset tracking
- Ensure mount is stopped if calibration is cancelled
- Can now be controlled via python scripting
- Add option to track movement by disc edge detection in addition to existing tracking mechanisms
Satellite Forecasting
- Increasing satellite numbers are making deep sky imaging harder, but by chosing to image at the right times and in the right parts of the sky, you can reduce the chances of problems. SharpCap can now help you make these choices by calculating the chances of seeing satellites in view in different parts of the sky – see https://forums.sharpcap.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=9513&p=53006
Other
- Improve highlighting of situations where an offset frame is shown – the rectangle highlighting the borders of the actual frame data is now brighter and easier to see.
- Improved memory handling to reduce chance of out-of-memory situations during deep sky live stacking and other processing – there is now only one memory slider.
- Sequence editing – steps can now be commented out and then uncommented, additionally there are new steps available
- Many bug fixes
Many of these improvements are discussed in more detail in posts in the Beta Testing Forum.
Note that SharpCap 4.2 is only being made available as a 64-bit version. There will be no 32 bit versions, even when the beta is over. SharpCap 4.2 requires Windows 10 or later – it will not install or work correctly on older versions of Windows.
Also note that SharpCap 4.2 requires a processor that supports the SSE4.2 instruction set. If you have an extremely old 64 bit processor then SharpCap 4.2 may not be able to run – SharpCap will show an error message and close down shortly after startup. This is only likely to apply if your CPU was purchased prior to 2013.
SharpCap 4.2 Beta Downloads
Latest Version
|
Download Version 4.2.15166.0 (64-bit) 21 September 2026 md5:ac9c550a71afe242b0016f40cace4b36 sha1:4906d6aa49570c6562e81a0f8094be0e4715aa84 Virus Total Scan Report |
|
Previous Versions
|
Download Version 4.2.15142.0 (64-bit) 14 September 2026 md5:ca3d9d1f898d6053a9aa4ed6e6fafdaa sha1:870644d8208d3222f47a828e33ac8268bb0c10cd Virus Total Scan Report |
|
|
Download Version 4.2.15118.0 (64-bit) 07 September 2026 md5:9d10211ef9a80cd95485e2d4654aa1a4 sha1:5782d795c672bae41de4569bd81d3044e4980eed Virus Total Scan Report |
|
|
Download Version 4.2.15098.0 (64-bit) 31 August 2026 md5:7100c7fceee181f9d2b7b19b779407f4 sha1:9aeeb8fc90f781a4259536f4c0d3801d3be0de23 Virus Total Scan Report |
|
|
Download Version 4.2.15079.0 (64-bit) 24 August 2026 md5:2144fbe116fbb91787624833025ce2d7 sha1:a905f6a712caa7bffb7fe23664e5bfdaed14c55b Virus Total Scan Report |
|
|
Download Version 4.2.15037.0 (64-bit) 10 August 2026 md5:a16b5aa7b522ebd989d61d977a84c506 sha1:e505d787982cab51bb963d78fb4a8af46f8e0242 Virus Total Scan Report |
|
|
Download Version 4.2.14994.0 (64-bit) 03 August 2026 md5:eec70166e3c07a3b9144f8c03d2315e9 sha1:a416c1571456f5006533b97bcd3147b29b68423e Virus Total Scan Report |
|
|
Download Version 4.2.14968.0 (64-bit) 27 July 2026 md5:a2f04d67e46890e7a429b063458ed12d sha1:39903439ce6c601a92dd886b73573c15394f6950 Virus Total Scan Report |
|
|
Download Version 4.2.14920.0 (64-bit) 21 July 2026 md5:0ca8d67517ecaa917be20e40de832e4b sha1:1bcd81ce78ca3de892381e50ce91040f0f5489d7 Virus Total Scan Report |
|
|
Download Version 4.2.14901.0 (64-bit) 13 July 2026 md5:34234c1954bcdc93b62052cda0c1fde7 sha1:9a7c07735cb83228cb24d112d67b4613b6da7e63 Virus Total Scan Report |
|
|
Download Version 4.2.14877.0 (64-bit) 06 July 2026 md5:0c99f586d0d7d69be280bc35eaf8e09a sha1:439c62b4f0ec5a6920c310e839bea2971dddd11d Virus Total Scan Report |
|
|
Download Version 4.2.14844.0 (64-bit) 29 June 2026 md5:92df68174738c998e79be721443dc9f3 sha1:6f61bc8fbea4ee1a4c33edeb5ff6a62909c49fdc Virus Total Scan Report |
|
|
Download Version 4.2.14790.0 (64-bit) 22 June 2026 md5:8aba3f6feb595116c7e95aa02386800e sha1:6dabb63b03f4fa518033e204c73c2db47fc10b4b Virus Total Scan Report |
|
|
Download Version 4.2.14767.0 (64-bit) 17 June 2026 md5:48ba710d63cede8ea1994f438cacbb37 sha1:750005756d468083486cff688eae6443479f454b Virus Total Scan Report |
|
|
Download Version 4.2.14701.0 (64-bit) 30 May 2026 md5:8f0e9eefe554e014b9a3fd9d59185f4d sha1:c5b976ba2f93f8e4d68b8e938aca5c3b41f5fb80 Virus Total Scan Report |
|
|
Download Version 4.2.14691.0 (64-bit) 28 May 2026 md5:e79a477a8cb1fc7dbc8abb884b66db10 sha1:5880b8b041cbf18c287934b96a086aebcc78d54e Virus Total Scan Report |
|
|
Download Version 4.2.14681.0 (64-bit) 26 May 2026 md5:8c3b8a574139c88b396226972f869f4a sha1:7fbbe4ff3119e98e7c2705657ff5b26c00d516a7 Virus Total Scan Report |
|
|
Download Version 4.2.14656.0 (64-bit) 21 May 2026 md5:f8d64cc4c197850a689377388a8e34d4 sha1:29c2753a86a00e3888ba57ef79f5455820a3fa70 Virus Total Scan Report |
|
|
Download Version 4.2.14629.0 (64-bit) 15 May 2026 md5:ff8e77e8165c77ad3d33983d86fbbc37 sha1:2f069039702ea85fa742c76565583fb9ac26d615 Virus Total Scan Report |
|
|
Download Version 4.2.14539.0 (64-bit) 04 May 2026 md5:c2f9a638f32760f9f2710d517d5e1c2e sha1:ca22b66ba824e70d01a5ce86c5b91be3cc875a67 Virus Total Scan Report |
|