I shall check out Maxim DL for pin point. It sounds similar in some respects to maxpoint, I wonder what the differences are. Thanks for the information and detailed post - very much appreciated. I will look at the plugins as well. I'm only using a Canon DSLR at the moment, but a QHY9 is potentially on the cards in the future.
If you could do a word document with screenshots, that'd be much appreciated. I'm currently digging around the net to try and find as much tutorials as possible for the weekend. I'm hoping (health and clear weather wise) to do some solar viewing/imaging on Saturday and have a crack at m8 and then m31 and maybe tuc 47.
By all accounts, maxim dl is a very difficult beast to use, and is not very user friendly. I do hope to overcome this one day
Dave
Quote:
Originally Posted by madwayne
Hi again Dave
No it is not Max Point, I hadn't heard of that till it was mentioned here and in another post by Sandy (White Rabbit). It is definitely Pin Point, to find it you click on analyse in the main Maxim window then pin point astronomy. Click on the process tab on the window that pops up and Maxim goes off searching the star fields on the image. Once it is finished it beeps and the close button lights up. You close that window, click on the observatory tab and then go to the telescope tab. Click on sync and then solved postion. Then you go to the catalogue tab on the observatory window, select your object from the menu and hit go to. Maxim then centres your object. It will sometimes take two goes to get it dead centre but that is all. Do all this while you aren't guiding of course. A quick 30 second exposure and then just to confirm everything click on the zoom tab in the observatory window. Right click and select overlay image, Maxim will then plate solve your image again and then you can view your overlayed image in Maxim's planetarium on the zoom tab and it will show all the dim fuzzies that you cannot see as well as any other objects that may be just outside your fov if you wanted to reposition everything. For example I can just fit M8/20/21 in my fov, by using the above process I can get it framed in a minute or two including exposure times. Be warned that the star catalogues are very big downloads. If you would like some screen shots please pm me your email address and the next time I am imaging I will do you up a word document with screens shots. I'm hoping to get out Saturday night but the forecast is not looking good so you might have to bare with me.
Sky flats and also Focus Max are free downloads, the URLs are on the Maxim site but if you get stuck trying to find them pm me and I will get them for you or post on the forum and I am sure someone can find them if I don't see your post.
If I were in your shoes I would get hold of Maxim and get to master it, you might just save yourself many hundreds of dollars in other software that you can reinvest in hardware.
It really is a beast of a package. I don't get the image processing part of it, maybe one day, but the stacking and calibration wizard are so easy to use and once stacked I use Photo Shop any way.
All the best with your adventure and sorry for the long post.
Wayne
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