Sharpcap has a feature called Smart Histograms. It allows you to point your scope/camera at part of the sky with few stars/objects and get an analysis of the light pollution and shooting conditions. Then, it suggests an optimized gain setting (you can choose Unity Gain as a target) and an exposure length to use. Additionally, it allows you to request an hour worth of camera time and it will tell you whether to do 60 second exposures with 60 images or 120 second exposures with 30 images. Maybe the ideal method for ASIAir Pro would be to auto-slew to your object, use a selection tool to draw areas in the photo that do not contain nebulosity and has fewer stars, and then it calculates the exposure time and number of exposures. While you are at it, maybe allow for easy override of the calculated exposure to something that matches your existing dark library exposure time(s).

Hello

thanks for the nice suggestion
We will convey this to our R&D

I just read a separate post that requested more options for the exposure settings. In this case, they were wanting to take lunar pictures. My suggestion above would solve this issue if you also added an autoexposure option for planetary and lunar objects.

    charding
    autoexposure option for planetary and lunar
    => Yes that would be a nice solution

      3 years later

      This is a super important feature for DSO. Sharcap has it (Smart histogram) and it's useful. The math already exists out there in multiple sheets:
      Best one: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1EnRw69iA5_kTBxObnU9CKj5GilnZW8VJ

      It could work that way

      • Take target magnitude from the database (atlas)
      • Measure skyglow ADU from a single shot - or take a user input Bortle value
      • Measure bias / dark ADU from calibration shots or take it from specs
      • Use dark current/readout noise from the camera spec sheets
      • Option: use user supplied filters specs
      • Propose combinations of exposure / integration / gain to maximise target signal over skyglow + noise under certain consttraints (e.g. total integration time, max exposure time, minimum signal to noise ration wanted) etc ...

      That would be very useful and can be integrated either in preview mode or in the Autorun/Planning mode in order to make sure people maximize the outcome out of their night as today this thing is not as easy as 1,2,3 :-)

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