Hi all
This little program may interest people who want to get the best out of their telescope. It is called Metaguide (
http://www.astrogeeks.com/Bliss/MetaGuide/) and it is design to help collimate telescope using a webcam. I have been using it to collimate my 14" SCT over several nights and I am at the stage now with the program where I am down to the fine adjustment, that is just a tweak on one collimation screw.
The program work in the following way 1. it gives you a live view of the star in the main screen. 2. The program then takes the best images of the said star and stacks them and displays this image on the lower right hand side of the screen, It does it so well that you can see the Ary Disk. This mini screen also displays a red squire, this indicates the direction of misalignment.
To collimate, all you need to do is make adjustment to the collimation screws until the red squire is over the centre on the Ary Disk nothing can be any easier and this is done in real time.
Anthony
P.S. By using this program I have seen great improvement in my SCT I hope to display the fruits of my labor in the form of a image once the weather clears.