CCD Inspector

[Paul Haese]

Anyone used this program for collimating their telescopes? Just wondering if it is worth buying the program.

It looks good for testing scopes but not sure about the collimation routine.

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

I've read about others using it and I've read very good reports on it. Probably well worth while.

Dave

edit: ccdstack, ccd inspector, maxim dl, and sky 6 are all on my to do shopping list ;-)

[rat156]

Hi Paul,

I have tried using it, but I found the results to be inconsistent.

Of course this may be a user limitation...

I find a star and an eyeball work quite well.

Can you use a laser for the RC?

Cheers
Stuart

[KenGee (Kenith Gee)]

Pual, I use it to check my RC, once I've aligned it with I a Tak scope. Using both of these should keep it all stop on. The program takes a little getting use to and you should run it through a few times but it will give you good results. Their pem pro and polar alighment stuff is very good as well, and you can try before you buy, so give it a go.

[Paul Haese]

Thanks guys,

Stuart, I don't know if I can use a laser on the RC. I guess that is a good question but I suspect it will be like any compound OTA and not allow the use of one.

I was using live view the other night and this worked well but this is at native prime focus but collimation should really be conducted at higher magnifications.

Ken, I take it you mean using a Tak collimation telescope?

[Terry B]

Paul.
Have you looked at metaguide for collimation assistance?
see
http://www.astrogeeks.com/Bliss/MetaGuide/index.html

[Satchmo]

Does the secondary have a center spot? The laser collimater would allow you to square on the secondary with the focusser and ensure secondary is optically centered. Then all that remains is to tilt adjust the primary and center it. If the primary is glued down then you are stuck with whatever centration they set at the factory so hope they got it right. Otherwise you need a lateral adjustment on the focusser to fix that error.

Mark

[KenGee (Kenith Gee)]

Originally Posted by Paul Haese

Thanks guys,

Stuart, I don't know if I can use a laser on the RC. I guess that is a good question but I suspect it will be like any compound OTA and not allow the use of one.

I was using live view the other night and this worked well but this is at native prime focus but collimation should really be conducted at higher magnifications.

Ken, I take it you mean using a Tak collimation telescope?

Yes

[Paul Haese]

Terry, I have not tried that, but will take a look at it. Thanks for the link.

Mark the primary is fixed tight, from what I saw when I first got the OTA, it all looked pretty centred. I will take a look at the new focusor when it arrives to see if it has a centering function.

Ken, no I did not use a Tak collimation scope. Not a really wealthy man to own such a device. Yep I own Tak gear but cannot bring myself to buy a Tak collimation telescope.

[g__day (Matthew)]

I trialled it - found it excellent - but too dear a buy, so after I got collimination spot on I never moved or bumped the OTA!

[loc46south (Geoffrey)]

Hi - I have it and use it all the time - it works once you get used to it - I use it on a C9.25 SCT and it does give better results than manual collimation - around 0.5 to 0.75 FWHM.

Cheers
Geof

[multiweb (Marc)]

Ditto. I used it a lot to help tuning my different rigs. I also use it everytime I process a stack to decide which sub is the best as a reference to align on. At the time it was also the only way to have CCDIS working in CCD Stack. They did a separate plugin later.

[gbeal]

Paul,
never used it, I have an aversion to software, too hard. Reading Marks comments about the laser and center spot though, I have a Howie Laser, and it has the grid, so I "guess" you could use something like that, with the shadow of the secondary fitting neatly in the grid, or not if it wasn't centered. Would this work?
Gary

[Paul Haese]

Sounds good Geof, might give it a whirl after all. Do you have any tips on how to use it? It does not seem very intuitive as a program.

Gary, not sure that a laser would work. I know that laser use on SCT's often produce unreliable results. I tried this early on with my LX200 when I owned that. I can generally get my scopes collimated pretty well (as I should be able to, give my preoccupation of hi res imaging), but I was just wondering if this program would make the process easy.

Off to see if they have a tut on using it.

[loc46south (Geoffrey)]

Hi Paul - CCD Inspetor will allow you to adjust your collimation in real time - I used to avoid collimation like the plague because of the problems involved but now I can adjust and fix the colimation while telescope is cooling down.

The biggest thing is to make sure CCD Inspector is set up properly. Settings/Default Image Properties must be correct for it to work. Select you camera control prog - must be either Maxim of CCDSoft - I use CCDSoft. Pick a part of the sky with lots of stars and focus the telescope (important - the better the focus the better the result)

I set the camera up so the RA axis is left to right and corresponds to the 2 bottom adjustment screws on the secondary and the top screw corresponds to the Dec Axis. Fire up the camera and select Real-Time/Curvature Map and I set Images to average to 4 or 5.

I bin my images 2x2 for quicker downloads, usually 10sec exposure -let it run a couple of cycles - check the results are consistent then start adjusting - I adjust the bottom screws first to centre the RA and then the top and bottom combinations to centre the DEC. Once you get it within 10 arc sec DON"T TOUCHA DA KNOBS ANY MORE - otherwise you will drive yourself nuts.

If the software starts bleating that there are not enough stars - then it is time to refocus.

I also found the prog good for evaluating Focal Reducers and their set up distances from the chip as you can see curvature maps and adjust accordingly.

If you have more questions PM me and I'll help where I can

Geof

[sadia]

Thinking of bying it as well. I was impressed with what I found during the trial period.

[rat156]

All right you've all convinced me, I'm going to get it while the A$ is high. I was going to go for the CCDIS plugin, but I'll give it another go.

Cheers
Stuart