[LewisM]

When I image, I take my time to get focus SPOT ON, as near as I can tell - I do my focus by eyeball and FHWM readings alone. I do not have any automatic programs to do it - just a steady hand, a dual speed Vixen focuser and time (I typically spend 30 minutes refining a focus, allowing for seeing variations etc).

On average, my FHWM readings on a typical star (not overly bright, nor overly dim - mid range magnitude) will be between 1.09 to 1.3 - above that and I will keep going. I have experienced exceptional seeing with FHWM's sub-1.0.

In discussions with a few other imagers, I got the impression that "You cannot get FHWM less than 3 manually" and they relied on focusmax etc to achieve their small FHWM's, though even then, their values were consistent with mine. This perplexes me.

I use either Starlight Xpress' focusing routine, or run the focus routine in APT (works nicely!), with my SXVR-M25C. I do NOT use a Bahtinov - purely judging initially by eye for in and out of focus size, and then fine tuned with the fine focus knob watching the FHWM.

I guess if it works, don't rock the boat, but am I missing something here? I believe on the whole my imags to be well focused (USUALLY). I could maybe get beter using software to do the focus, but is 1.09 to 1.3 all that bad, considering a typical average plus seeing night?