Quote:
Originally Posted by RickS
FocusMax has an AcquireStar coimmand that slews to the nearest star with a magnitude in the appropriate range, focuses, and returns. It works nicely with ACP. I'd presume it works with the Bisque stuff too, but I'm not sure.
Cheers,
Rick.
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Thanks Rick.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Haese
How my system works is that every hour or after every sub if you like (the time is up to me to set in the command programme) the command programme (in this case CCD autopilot) stops all operations and hands over to the focus programme. It takes an image of where it is and plate solves. Then it heads to the meridian (I set it to do that and you can focus within the same field if you like but it is not as good as straight up) to focus on a 4-6 mag star. After it finds focus convergence it will return slew to the same position, do a plate solve to get back in almost the same place and then hands back the reigns to the command programme which will then further plate solve to get the system back to within the tolerance you are after. I have said in my systems I want 15 arc seconds and it does this in 2-3 slews. It all takes about 5 minutes to complete the operation. So you don't lose much time.
Now you can use focusmax on its own to simply go and focus after you have clicked on one of the buttons and it will do that. That means you need to go out now and again to make that happen. Ok if you like that sort of thing, but for me I am done with that. So a command programme is what I am recommending too.
Maxim has dithering and CCDAP does filter offsets if you like. I don't use offsets as focus looks good across the board on both sets of my filters. So I just use my Lum filter to focus with and get into the imaging. I could be more thorough and get CCDAP to do and offset measurement but it is not apparent that this needs to happen. My images seem to confirm that.
Maxim and CCDAP both allow for as many filters as you want. I reckon you ought to get into some semi automation so you can have the system doing focus for you and doing the imaging without having to go out and do that yourself. Roof operation is another matter and might involves some phone calls. That can be a bit tricky to get that working well.
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Thanks for the detailed response Paul. I intend to implement that.
Greg.