The Settings Panel is used for quick-starting the most important settings directly. The different setting tabs are described below:


General

Save and restore camera controls...	If checked all camera controls (gain, shutter etc.) will be saved per profile/filter-channel and restored when changing the filter/profile.
Do a short beep when starting/stoping capture
Display capture-time/countdown/frames...	Displays the capture- or countdown-time togehter with the number of captured frames as big number in the preview window. The countdown-timer is specified by the delay in seconds defined in the Filters or AutoRun settings.
Show in separate window	Will show the histogram details in a separate window
Use compact layout	When checked the data panel will be shown in the vertical options panel resulting in a more compact layout
Use RAM Buffer	EXPERIMENTAL !!! In the previous versions of FireCapture the chances where high for running into an OutOfMemory when data couldn't be written fast enough. Also FireCapture experienced interruptions in such cases when the Java GarbageCollector tried freeing memory. To avoid this you may try enabling this RAM buffer option (will currently only work with AVI, SER and BMP format). With this option enabled FireCapture will pre-allocate the specified RAM size before capture. The number of available frame buffers is displayed in the data details. During capture the frames will be stored in the RAM buffer as long as there are free buffers available. If the buffer is filled capture will pause as long as there are free buffers available again.  You can use the "Test" button to check if the given RAM size is ok. Allocating memory may take a while.
NightMode-Color	The background color used in night-mode
Look & Feel	You can try different Look&Feels used when night-mode is disabled

Capture

Capture root directory	The root directory where the captured files will be stored to. Use the button "..." to select.
Current filename	Preview of how the filename would be look like depending on the selected filename properties
Filename properties	Various properties used as part of the filename
Date/Time format	The format to display dates and times.
Capture counter	When using the capture counter in the filename properties the related counter will be count up automatically with every new capture. You can change that value here.
Auto-create subfolders	Automatically creates a subfolder structure for the captured files. As name of the subfolders the selected properties (object, RGB counter etc.) will be used.
Write session logfiles	Write an additional logfile with all capture details for every captured file.
Print timestamp into data	Print a timestamp with milliseconds accuracy directly into the captured data. This is useful whenever you need to know the exact time each frame (e.g. occultation data).
Zip captured files	If enabled all capture files (except AVI and SER) will directly written into a ZIP file.
Save first AVI/SER frame as JPG preview	Write the first frame of the captured AVI or SER file as JPG-File.
Scale SER data to 16bit (AviStack)	Only available for Basler cameras ! Its recommended to enable this option when capturing 16bit data for proper display in AviStack.

Filters

Available filters	The available filters that will be shown in the related Capture panel. Use the buttons "Add/Remove" to change.
Use RGB sequence	When checked the filter drop-down boxes below gets activated and you can set an arbitrary sequence of filters as RGB sequence. This means whenever you have finished a capture for a filter that is included in this sequence FireCapture will automatically switch to the next filter in that sequence.
Delay between filter change	If set FireCapture will automatically start the capture for the next filter in the sequence after the specified delay in seconds. This is useful when using a motorized filterwheel.
Motorized Filter Wheel	If you have a motorized filterwheel you can check this and FireCapture will command your filterwheel whenever the related filter in the Capture panel changes. You need to set the correct filter positions  using the drop-down boxes below. After selecting your interface press the "Initialize filterwheel"  button. When using an ASCOM filterwheel you need to select the proper interface from the ASCOM filterwheel chooser that will be shown than. FireCapture currently supports the following filterwheel interfaces:   - ASCOM   - Homeyer   - SBig CFW10   (hasn't been tested yet)

AutoGuide

Use Autoguider	Will enable the autoguider interface in FireCapture. When enabled you can pick an interface from the list. Currently supported telescope interfaces in FireCapture are:     - ASCOM     - Cookbook CCD serial interface (by Richard Berry)
Initialize Autoguider interface	Press this button to initialize the interface. When using an ASCOM interface the ASCOM telescope chooser dialog will show up and you need to pick your interface.
Correction time (ms)	Duration in ms that will be used to fire a single correction to the given axis.
Backlash (ms)	Duration in ms that will be used as backlash and added to the correction time whenever the direction of an axis changes.
Tolerance (pixels)	When you enable Autoguiding in the Options FireCapture will track the object based on it's x/y offset to the center. Only if the off-center error is greater than the tolerance value the autoguider gets activated.
Guiding rate (°)	Only used when your ASCOM interface supports MoveAxis mode. Value must be > 0 than.
Swap direction	Flips RA or DEC axis
Guider cycle time (s)	Repetition rate in seconds of the autoguider in which it checks for corrections. If you have a good mount you can increase this value.

AutoAlign

Alignment method	For special tasks (e.g. AutoAlign, Autoguiding, Quality-Estimation) FireCapture uses a real-time blob detection algorithm that will be used to centre the object. The fasted and most recommended method is "Planets (centre of brightness)" which is the default setting for Planets.
Alignment tuning (Treshold, Width, Height etc.)	Even if the default values should be work fine you may use these values for fine tuning the alignment box. On Planets the alignment box should enclose the whole disk of the Planet. Change the treshold slider as long as the box is big enough. On large Planets like Jupiter you may need to increase the max width & height as well. Simple click "Done" when finished and the Auto-Align function should work properly on Planets. FireCapture will store the treshold value in the profile so you need to setup this only once. For reducing CPU load and getting higher framerates when using auto-align you can increase the "Alignment boost" value (see: "Performance" below).  On non-spheric object like the Moon setting up the alignment tuning is much more difficult. Because of the changing seeing conditions the blob may gets lost through phases with lower image contrast. So you must play with the min width/height and border distance sliders in order to find a blob which will be reproducible detectable on the same surface detail. Despite I'm able to get this working on the moon in most cases I don't recommend to use this currently !
Use alignment box for quality estimation	This option is only used for the Pre-Filter "Quality (JPEG)" (see PreFilter document). When capturing Planets simply leave the defaults there. It will use the alignment box size to cut out a sub-image for quality estimation. When capturing Moon/Sun the current alignment box may not be big enough to get a good quality information out of the related sub-image or the alignment box may not cover the surface region you are interested in. For that case deselect the "Use alignment box for quality estimation" checkbox and insert a box size. In this case the quality pre-filter it will show a green quality box with the given size in the centre of the image. This box is now used for quality estimation. You can correct the box position by pressing CTRL+ArrowKeys on the keyboard.

Performance

Recommended settings	A lot of time has been invested into squeezing out the best performance the underlying Java architecture allows. The performance tab is used to setup the various values related to this. It's recommended to use the recommended settings based on how fast your computer is.
Save/Cam Thread-Prio	Reading frames from the camera and saving them to disk runs in different threads in FireCapture. Here you can specify the related priority of the threads which may be useful on slower machines for fine-tuning.
Refresh rate (ms)	The refresh rate in which the data details (fps, saved count etc.) will be updated.This has been identified as one of the major reason for higher CPU load when previewing at high framerates. So on slower machine set the refresh rate to a higher value.
Histogram mode	Histogram calculation mode when displaying the histogram. For reducing CPU load you can choose a higher calculation mode. 3x3 just means that only every 3rd image row/column is used for histogram calculation.
Alignment boost	Similar to histogram mode but used for the AutoAlign blob detection algorithm.
Boost while capturing	You can set a higher Boost accelerator value during capture. This may result in a higher framerate.
Packet mode	Only available for Point Grey cameras ! I recommend  not touching this  ;-)
Disk buffer / Direct disk write	On some machines using a disk buffer or enabling direct disk writing may achieve a higher transfer rate. You can test this by pressing the "Test optimal disk buffer" button which will run a bechmark test using various settings. This will take few minutes and based on the results you can enable these options or not. Leave the default settings if you're not sure.

Profiles

Available profiles	Using the "Add" or "Remove" buttons you can change the available profiles that will be shown in the profiles drop-down box (see: Capture).
Name / Prefix / Target etc.	The name is the filename of the profile and the prefix will be used in the filename of your capture files. Select a planet as target for this profile which will used to calculate the ephemerides when showing the object details. The ROI defines the image size of the camera when selecting this profile. The CutOut will define the cutout region when using the CutOut option.

HPC (Hotpixel-Correction)

Enable hotpixel correction

With this option you can correct hotpixels by interpolating neighbouring pixel data. Even a single hotpixels doesn't hurt much its annoying because it can disturb the histogram. Use a program like Photoshop to measure your hotpixel positions and insert the values comma-separated as given by the example.

Log

Log	This tab shows the FireCapture log file. Whenever you contacting me because of errors or problems please attach this outout (or the related "log.txt" in the FireCapture main folder)

Scope

Scope / Observer / Location	Insert your observer details her. These values will be used in the ImageMagic tool (see: SessionBrowser)
Capture comment	You may insert an optional comment that will be stored in the session details.

Debayer

Debayer data and capture 24bit color RGB	Only available for color cameras ! If checked the incomming frames will be debayered in real-time using the selected debayer algorithm and bayer pattern. This may be useful only on very fast machines. Capturing having this option checked will store RGB (24bit) color data. If you unselect this option your data will be stored as raw undebayered Y800 data and you can debayer the data using the standalone Debayer-Tool afterwards.
Debayer algorithm	The algorithm used for debayering your data.
Bayer pattern	The bayer pattern of your sensor.  See your camera spec for details.

DeRotate

Derotate	EXPERIMENTAL ! This has been my playground long before WinJUPOS introduced a derotation function so consider all this as higly experimental. To use this function align the planet with North or South at the top of the camera. Depending on this you need to select the correct rotation.
Rotation	If Jupiter rotates right-to-left in your image select the W<-E rotation icon and FireCapture will derotate the images from left-to-right.
Use optimized sequence	If you have preset a fixed time limit for all channels in your RGB sequence you could enable the "use optimized sequence" option where it will set the derotation 0-point just in the middle of your RGB sequence.

AutoRun

Number of runs

The number of runs you want to capture. When running no RGB sequence this will be the same as the number of captured files. Having the RGB sequence enabled this will be the number of full RGB series that will be captured. In order to use the AutoRun function you need to set a limit in advance for your current filter channel (or for every filter of an RGB sequence if used). If you don't have that this limit a warning will be shown below.

Delay between runs

Delay in seconds between each run for that the capture will be paused.

PreProcessing

PreProcessing

This is just the same drop-down box as the one shown in the Options pane. See PreProcessing for a detailed description of the available pre-processing functions.