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Old 25-01-2023, 08:50 AM
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The_bluester (Paul)
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Another vote for Voyager, which as Andy says, gives you the choice between "localfield" focusing which uses most of the field of view and "Robostar" which slews to a focus star and uses that star only. It is actually a simplification of localfield to say that it uses the full field though the developer keeps the full details under his hat. It apparently evaluates the FOV and uses a "doughnut" area, weighting the stars in the corners and misshapen stars less in the results than well shaped stars in the chosen area.

The typical advice is to use localfield if you have a setup with significant curvature and/or are chasing a target taking up most of the field of view, or Robostar if you have a good flat field or are imaging a small object in the FOV.

The big advantage to Robostar is focus runs for NB filters, the exposure times are usually around 1 second versus maybe 10-15 secs for Localfield focus. For NB it is faster in my experience to slew and plate solve and focus on a single brighter star then slew and plate solve back, than to do the localfield routine. You can also set it up to do a Robostar run if you are using Localfield and the focus fails due to dim stars etc.

The only word of warning I would have for Voyager is that it has a notably different workflow and set of assumptions to most other imaging software and it can take a little time to wrap your head around. Don't go into it expecting SGP or NINA in different clothes and give it time to get used to the workflow if you have come from the likes of SGP or NINA.
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