Ad Astra Observatory

Art Morton wrote:
>
> Did you do the FM setup where it builds the V curve for your

> optics? This is very important to have a V curve for the optics you
> are using.
The Vcurve fails every time.

I center a bright star. I was using Aldebaran last night, then (when
that didn’t work) I moved off of that to some of the stars in the
Hyades; there were at least 5 bright stars on the screen at the same time.

The initial photo gets taken, but as soon as it tries to grab a

subframe, it loses the star, and can’t find it again.

Maybe the DSLR doesn’t allow subframes from a particular part of the
CCD? Like it’s always getting the upper left corner (or something). I
just read up on teh Max website and it’s true– DSLRs don’t allow
subframes. But you can click the “subframe” box and click “mouse” and it

will let you choose which area you want; the whole image downloads and
then Max’s driver chops that chunk out and displays it. I don’t know how
this would work with Focusmax though.

I have tried setting the size of the subframe box to everything from
100px (the default) all the way up to 800, with no luck.

Maybe I can figure out which corner is being read, and then push the
star into that corner. I don’t know how effective that will be, but

maybe it’s worth a try…
> ********* Turn on FM logging and send me the log! **************
OK, I’ll see if I can get a logfile to you. I wish I could stream video;
the thing looks like it’s finding a good star, but then the subframe
stuff loses it.

The same thing happens when I try to autofocus using Max.

By the way, Max won’t autofocus if you have your focuser hooked up to
the Gemini instead of a LazyFocus/Robofocus controller. sigh.

I spent about an hour trying to get either Max or FM to focus. I
eventually gave up and tried to shoot some sky, where I found that my
pointing model was all screwed up, so I rebuilt the model, which is when
I found that I’m at A:7 E:2 instead of A:5 E:1. Then I could get targets
where I wanted them, and I shot 100m of M101, stars look round enough;

the focus was more or less there. The guiding was really rough last
night. I might have been on a too-bright star. Once autofocus is
working, I’m going to autofocus the guider, too. That might help.

Anyway, what with 2 nights of shooting stuff that is too big for my FOV,
and trying to figure out how all the new gear works together, I feel
like I’ve been wasting some clear nights. But I guess that I just have
to put in my time or I’m never going to learn this stuff.

So I swapped out the Gemini focus controller for my LazyFocus one. Uses
an extra serial port, but I like having an “absolute” focuser. The
Gemini only provides “relative” focuser control.

Do you use the “Robofocus” controller as your ASCOM driver, or do you

use “FocusMax Focuser Hub”?

Does Max ever crash on you? When it does, do you often have to mess
around in order to get it to reconnect? I’ve figured out that sometimes
it leaves the Gemini ASCOM Driver running as a separate process, and I
have to kill that or it won’t reconnect to the mount (or the focuser if
the focuser goes through the mount).

I am using 4 USB ports and a serial port to get everything hooked up. I
need a hug.

J