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I doubt it. Its too vague. CCDInspector measures the stars. Handling tilt is a precise action and flats are too vague to tell you anything.
Here's my procedure for handling tilt as I have had to do it a lot over the last year and gotten some good results.
0. Make sure all your adapters are snug, that they are all the way in and not stuck with a gap on one side or hitting something that is preventing one side going all the way in (early on with my CDK the MMOAG guide camera section was blocking an adapter from engaging fully by perhaps only .5mm and hard to notice. It wrecked images badly). Replace any obvious weak points with solid screw in adapters. I use Precise Parts as they are well made, easy to order and they work. Expensive but worth it. This a physical examination step. Grab the camera and try to rock it, the filter wheel, any focuser movement etc. See how much force (without damaging anything of course) it takes to make something flex. Make sure the guide camera is well seated and can't rock. A full physical check of connections and strength is what this step is about. Does you filter wheel rock or are the filter carousels or filters have slop?
1. You need to work out how the image relates to the physical camera. I orient from looking at the physical camera from the behind it.
Now take a focus image say 5 seconds and put in a delay of say 7 seconds so you have time to get in front of the scope. With a not too bright torch dimmed down with some fabric put the torch on the upper part of the OTA objective.
Now go look at the resulting image. Is the bright patch on the top of the image or the bottom? In my case with a Honders Riccardi and CDK scopes they both have 2 mirrors and a corrector. The top and bottom are reversed.
So top of the scope for me is the bottom of the image on the screen.
Repeat this process until you are certain of the relationship for top and bottom of the screen - is the top of the computer image the top or bottom of the camera is what you are trying to work out.
2. Repeat this process but now its orienting left and right. So a torch on the left of the scope and see where the bright patch is on the computer image - left or right?
Again in my case both my scopes are reversed left and right. So for me I have to reverse top and bottom and left and right on the computer displayed image to orient on the camera looking at the camera from behind.
So to adjust the bottom left corner on the computer image then I pack the top right corner of the camera.
This is similar to drift alignment but if you don't do this step then you are left with 4 possibilities when seeing a bad corner and you can get lost and spend hours (believe me, I've wasted hours and hours).
2. Now let's say the bottom left has eggy or radiating stars but the other 3 corners are nice and round. The next step really is to tell whether you need to pack it out and get it in compared to the other 3 corners (ie. pack out the other 3)..
Focus the image whilst looking only at the bad corner in the image. Do the stars get tighter when you move the focus in or out?
If the focus gets better moving the focus out then you simply need to pack out the correct corresponding corner on the camera. If the focus gets better moving the focuser in then the other 3 corners need to be equally packed out.
3. The amount of packing would vary with scopes and possibly focal length. Not sure about, perhaps not. But its usually a fairly small amount.
I got some .3mm brass shim from a steel supply shop. You can cut it with scissors into little rectangles that you can handle easily. I also got some thinner shim which is .08 for fine shimming.
As a guide at one point my Proline on the Honders required .32mm on the top left and .34mm on the top right. So its not huge amounts that cause tilt.
I hope this is of help to some as I had to work this procedure out for myself as not much is written on this topic yet its an image wrecker when not addressed.
When packing out I use a 5-10 second focus image with a luminance filter and check the 4 corners and the sides (sometimes a whole side is not in focus compared to the other side). Don't use 2x2 as it averages the tilt out and will hide a certain amount of tilt. 1x1 shows all the warts!
All this is done at night. Get adept at it and fully set up and you can do this procedure in perhaps 30 minutes and then its done.
I would also recommend taking notes about the position and the amount of packers once determined so if you take off the camera later then you know next time what the packers are and where without having to repeat this process.
CCDinspector can be useful as well but again you need to know which corner of the camera relates to the image and the direction of tilt it is referring to. I find that extra orientation step of working out the direction of tilt a bit unclear in CCDinspector so I prefer the above procedure which is very clear and certain.
Greg.
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