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Old 06-08-2014, 07:31 PM
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Peter Ward
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Peter Ward is offline
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: The Shire
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Interesting result.

I'd question whether all AO's are created equal.

The groundwork to SBIG's devices was done by Brad Wallis (Awarded a NASA prize his programming skills during the Cassini mission) and Benoit Shillings, ( BeOS creator and Software engineer with few equals). SBIG went through a very thorough evaluation process to determine what benefits an AO might offer, some time prior to offering it to the amateur market. ( I recall being asked to provide data for this early assessment some 15 years ago)

If the system hysteresis, acceleration and dampening is not well understood, modelled and controlled, it would not surprise me in the slightest to see tip/tilt systems making images worse.
(BTW AO acceleration and displacement is user/software adjustable with SBIG's systems)

But this has not been my experience using AO7, AO8, AOL and AOX units. I have always found stellar footprints were as small and intense with AO enabled as without. When the seeing has been good, I have constantly seen 30-50% improvements in both. As has been pointed out earlier, one need only look at Martin Pugh's recent AO data and compare that to his earlier, non-AO, images to see the benefits.
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