SharpCap is a fairly comprehensive webcam and Astronomy camera capture tool. It is primarily designed for astronomical use. I wrote it because I got fed up with the awkward control over camera settings in programs like Amcap, Open Video Capture, etc. The main goals were to be easy to use when observing, and to help avoid mistakes like capturing with the wrong resolution or camera settings, or overwriting an existing file accidentally.
Main Features
- Camera controls always open alongside the capture window - no need to open dialogs
- Can save and restore capture profiles, which store all the camera settings - once you have your camera set up perfectly to capture the moon, save the settings and restore them later
- Can adjust camera settings during capture if necessary
- Automatic file name generation for each new capture - no more overwritten captures
- Camera settings written to file alongside every capture - no more trying to remember what settings you used.
- Limit capture length by time or frames, or just take a single frame
- Useful preview transforms - these preprocess each frame of the image when previewing:
- Highlight over exposed areas
- Image boost (increase gain to find faint things)
- Focus score (measures image sharpness to help focusing)
- Histogram
- Frame Stacking
- RGB align
- Support for LX modified webcams
- ASCOM Focuser support
- ASCOM camera support
- Night mode
- Zoom the preview
- Overlay a movable, rotatable reticule on the preview
- Support for Basler cameras, including unique Basler LX mode support
- Support for running a sequence of captures
Supported Cameras
- Almost all webcams
- Basler cameras that use the Basler Pylon drivers
- Most cameras with an ASCOM driver
- Special support for adjusting parameters of the SPC900 webcam in the settings panel
- LX modified SPC900 cameras (serial or parallel)
- ZWOptical cameras
- QHY cameras
Screenshots
Using SharpCap
There are some great video tutorials on using SharpCap for Astrophotography over on the Tutorials board at the
astronomyshed.co.uk forum (Note that you need to be a forum member to access the Tutorials).
Getting SharpCap
Head on over to the
Downloads page.
Feature Requests
Got an idea for a new feature? Let me know by
posting here. You can also vote on features suggested by others.
Improve SharpCap!
SharpCap is open source and extensible - if you can code in a .NET language and want SharpCap to support a new device, you can probably have a go at adding support yourself. In particular, the following items are modular and can be added to
- Camera support
- Focuser support
- LX control support
Contributions of code are welcome.
More
SharpCap News SharpCap Downloads SharpCap Change Log Support and Troubleshooting Licensing