Planetary imaging capture for macOS. Real-time frame quality analysis. SER video recording. Native on Apple Silicon.
$34.99 · One-time purchase · Requires macOS 15 or newer and an Apple Silicon Mac.
Laminar is a native macOS planetary imaging capture application built for Apple Silicon. It records high-framerate video of planets, the Moon, and the Sun through your telescope as industry-standard SER files, compatible with AutoStakkert, Registax, PIPP, and SIRIL. Designed as a macOS alternative to Windows-only capture tools like FireCapture and SharpCap, Laminar provides real-time frame quality analysis, atmospheric seeing assessment, and automatic target tracking – features that help you confirm focus and conditions while you're still at the telescope. Laminar supports cameras from ten astronomy brands — ZWO, PlayerOne, QHY, ToupTek, SVBONY, Altair Astro, OGMA, RisingCam, MallinCam, and Omegon — making it the most broadly compatible planetary capture app on macOS. It also supports generic UVC devices through macOS AVFoundation, including iPhone Continuity Camera and USB webcams, for first-time planetary imagers who want to try the hobby with hardware they already own. Available on the Mac App Store for a one-time purchase of $34.99.
Before You Set Up
Weather & seeing conditions for planetary imaging.
Laminar detects your location at launch and fetches real-time weather data automatically—no API keys, no configuration. Two scores tell you everything: Conditions (0–100) evaluates cloud cover, humidity, and dew risk. Seeing (0–100) estimates atmospheric stability for sharp planetary detail.
At a glance, you'll know whether tonight is worth hauling equipment outside—before you commit to setup.
While You Capture
Real-time frame quality analysis.
The quality graph shows instantaneous sharpness (green), rolling average (yellow), and your session peak as you image. Use it as a live focusing aid: watch the yellow line as you adjust your focuser, and stop when it peaks.
Laminar helps you find the optimal focus position for your current seeing conditions. No more guessing. No more waiting until you stack to discover you were slightly off.
Never Lose Your Target
Automatic planet tracking keeps quality readings accurate.
Planetary targets move. SCT mirror shift during focusing, wind gusts, accidental bumps, or even the wobble from adjusting a rack-and-pinion focuser—any of these can push your planet out of a static analysis region.
Laminar automatically detects and tracks the planetary disk frame-by-frame. The Focus ROI follows the target, so your quality measurements stay accurate no matter what shifts the image.
For Moon and Sun imaging, switch to surface feature tracking—click on a crater or sunspot and Laminar locks onto that feature, monitoring focus on the detail that matters to you.
Works with targets from a small Mars disk to Saturn's rings, and from lunar craters to solar active regions.
Frame What Matters
Click and drag to frame your capture region.
Pick Custom… from the Capture Size dropdown and the camera switches to full sensor view. Click and drag anywhere on the preview to draw a rectangle. The draft stays put with eight resize handles and a numeric X / Y / W / H action bar — drag inside to slide it across the sensor, drag a handle to resize, or type exact pixel values. Every dimension snaps to your camera's actual alignment, so what you see is what gets captured.
Nothing touches the camera until you click Apply. Save the rectangle as a preset and it's one dropdown click away next session.
Especially useful for spectroheliograph imagers positioning a narrow strip on an absorption line, and for planetary recentering after seeing or mirror shift moves your target out of the previous ROI.
Native macOS planetary capture with Metal GPU acceleration.
Built in Swift and SwiftUI, Laminar is a true macOS-native app — not a port, not a wrapper, not an Electron shell. Every pixel is designed for the Mac, and every performance-critical path runs on Apple Silicon hardware.
GPU-accelerated Bayer demosaicing via Metal compute shaders — 10–50x faster than CPU processing. Live camera preview, quality analysis, and SER recording all run concurrently without dropping frames. This is what native performance looks like.
SER Video Recording
SER video recording, playback, and QuickLook preview.
Everything you need for serious planetary imaging on macOS.
SER Format with Metadata
Industry-standard SER video format with embedded timestamps, observer info, and telescope metadata.
RAW8 / RAW16
Capture in 8-bit or 16-bit raw for maximum dynamic range and compatibility with all stacking software.
Dynamic ROI
Set a region of interest to increase frame rates and reduce file sizes without cropping in post.
SER Playback & QuickLook
Review captured SER files with full playback controls, quality analysis overlay, and macOS QuickLook previews.
Microsecond Exposure
Set exposure with microsecond precision. Essential for bright targets like the Sun, where millisecond steps are too coarse to prevent saturation.
Per-Target Memory
Laminar remembers your exposure, gain, USB bandwidth, and sensor settings per target. Dial in Jupiter once — it’s exactly how you left it next session.
Zoom & Pan
Pinch to zoom and pan across the full-resolution live preview for precise focus evaluation.
Frame Drop Monitoring
Real-time monitoring of captured vs. dropped frames so you know your data is clean during capture.
Temperature Monitoring
Live sensor temperature readout from supported cameras, critical for thermal noise management.
One Tap, One Target
Pointed for Sun, Moon, and planets.
One-tap presets optimized for each target's size, brightness, and rotation rate.
Switching from Windows?
How Laminar compares to FireCapture and SharpCap.
The most popular planetary capture tools, side by side.
| FireCapture | SharpCap | Laminar | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Platform | Windows (Java, runs via Wine on Mac) | Windows only | macOS native (Apple Silicon) |
| GPU Acceleration | No | CUDA (Nvidia only) | Metal (all Apple Silicon Macs) |
| Real-time Quality Graph | No | No | Yes |
| Seeing Score | No | No | Yes |
| Auto Target Tracking | No | No | Yes |
| SER Recording | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Camera Support | ZWO, QHY, Altair, TIS | ZWO, QHY, Altair, TIS, ASCOM | ZWO, PlayerOne, QHY, ToupTek, SVBONY + OEM brands, plus iPhone & UVC webcams |
| Filter Wheel | Yes | Yes | Planned |
| Price | Free (donation) | Free / $20 Pro | $34.99 (one-time) |
FireCapture and SharpCap are excellent tools that have served the planetary imaging community for years. Laminar is built for Mac users who want a native experience without Wine, CrossOver, or Boot Camp.
One Ecosystem
From photon to archive.
The Mac Observatory Suite covers the entire planetary imaging workflow. Capture in Laminar, stack and sharpen in Strata, catalog in Meridian.
Swift & SwiftUI · Apple Silicon Native · Metal GPU · No Subscriptions
Compatible Cameras
10 astronomy brands. Plus the iPhone in your pocket.
Laminar supports the most popular planetary imaging cameras through direct SDK integration, plus generic USB cameras (including iPhone Continuity Camera) through macOS AVFoundation.
Fully Supported
ZWO ASI
All ARM64 USB models (SDK v1.41). Excludes Air / WiFi models.
SupportedPlayerOne
All models, including Mars-C, Neptune-C II, Uranus-C, Apollo-M Mini, and Sedna-M.
SupportedToupTek Astro + OEM Brands
ToupTek Astro, Altair Astro, OGMA, RisingCam, MallinCam, and Omegon — all share the ToupTek SDK and run through the same backend.
SupportedSVBONY
SV305, SV305C PRO, SV505C, SV705C, SV605, SV905C, and the rest of the lineup.
SupportedEach vendor's SDK integration has been hardware-validated end-to-end. If you hit an issue on a specific model, send a diagnostic log export and we'll address it as a bug.
Beta — Pending Hardware Validation
QHY
QHY5III planetary series (V1 and V2), QHY268, QHY600, QHY533, QHY294, and more. Backend is architecturally complete; first hardware session pending.
BetaCelestron
NexImage 5 and NexImage Burst connect through Laminar's UVC pipeline. Code path is in place but we haven't validated against Celestron hardware directly. If you own one, send a diagnostic log.
BetaTry It With What You Have — UVC Devices
iPhone Continuity Camera & USB webcams
Through macOS AVFoundation, Laminar captures from any UVC device — your iPhone over Continuity Camera, a USB webcam, or a UVC-class astronomy camera like Celestron's NexImage line. Requires iPhone XR or newer signed into the same Apple ID as your Mac.
An iPhone clamped to your eyepiece with a $30 phone adapter won't out-resolve a dedicated planetary camera, and it never will — small sensor, big pixels, limited frame rates, no raw data. But it's the cheapest possible way to find out if you actually enjoy planetary imaging before you commit to a $400 ASI462MC. Best on the Moon and Sun (with a proper solar filter). Workable on Jupiter and Saturn. Skip Mars and the ice giants.
Not Compatible — WiFi Cameras
ZWO Air series & standalone ASIAir controllers
ASI585MC Air, ASI2600MC Air, ASI678MC Air, ASI220MM Mini Air, and the ASIAir Plus/Mini controllers integrate an onboard computer and are only reachable over WiFi — there's no USB camera mode. Laminar connects via direct USB SDK integration because planetary imaging needs 60–200+ frames per second of uncompressed data, which WiFi cannot sustain.
For Air cameras, use ZWO's ASIAIR app or ASIStudio (both WiFi-based). If you want Laminar, the non-Air versions of the same sensors (ASI585MC, ASI662MC, ASI678MC) work over USB out of the box.
Hardware-validated cameras
Pricing
No subscriptions. Buy once, own it forever.
Laminar
One-time purchase · No subscription · Yours forever
- Full camera capture & control
- SER recording, playback & QuickLook
- Sky Quality scores (Conditions + Seeing)
- Real-time frame quality graph
- Automatic planet tracking
- Surface tracking (Moon / Sun)
- Rotation warnings
- Editable Custom ROI · Preset library
- RAW8 / RAW16 · Color balance · Per-channel histogram
- 10 astronomy brands + iPhone & UVC support
Requires macOS 15+ · Apple Silicon
Download Laminar for macOS.
Start capturing planetary images tonight. No account required.
Download on the Mac App Store$34.99 · One-time purchase · Requires macOS 15+ · Apple Silicon
Common questions about planetary imaging with Laminar on macOS.