SharpCap 2.8 Available

I’m going to call 2.8 a preview release for a couple of days – just in case there are a few bugs lurking. As always with a new version, test in daylight before risking valuable clear skies time!

What’s new in 2.8?

  • Notification Bar – replaces many message boxes and the capture sequence wait dialog.
  • Quick Capture – new Quick Capture toolbar button with various frame and time options.
  • Performance – Improved performance with high speed USB3 cameras, especially capture speed
  • Performance – Frame write speed test on the filename settings page for testing.
  • Histogram – improved look, range bars below histogram and now scaled in percent on the horizontal axis
  • RAW Mode – Debayer On/Off is now a separate control, no longer part of Colour Space selection.
  • File Naming – added option for WinJUPOS compatible file names. Uses mid point time in the capture for the WinJUPOS name
  • Dark Capture – new tool to help capture dark files in the Capture menu.
  • Dark Library – Darks automatically get saved into a folder structure based on camera name and parameters.
  • Dark Library – When you browse for a dark file it will start in the correct part of the dark library.
  • Focus Score – switch between recording average and best values.
  • Focus Score – Now always requires a selection rectangle to avoid hang on large frame sizes
  • Live Stacking – improved file naming including number of stacked frames
  • Live Stacking – Stop accidental double dark subtraction – Astro cameras can only subtract darks from the camera controls now.
  • Live Stacking – Switch between raw/stack immediately even for long exposures.
  • Live Stacking – fix FWHM filter not working unless the limit value was changed.
  • Live Stacking – Save as Dark removed from Live Stacking – use the ‘Dark Capture’ option in the Capture menu.
  • Many bug fixes from bug reports.

Note that this version will still work with Windows XP, but this will be the last major version of SharpCap to support XP.

Download Links