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metaguide for colimation

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10 years 4 months ago #99139 by albertw
metaguide for colimation was created by albertw
Hi,

Has anyone here successfully used metaguide to collimate an SCT better than they would have with an eyepiece?

With Jupiter coming back to sociable viewing hours I thought I'd better get my collimation spot on. My usual approach is to get concentric rings in the out of focus doughnut of a star at increasingly higher magnifications (up to about 500x).

I got the collimation close (the doughnut was a little off at 500x) using this approach then tried a camera and metaguide to achieve better collimation. Setting it to use 50 frames to average the focused airy pattern I could see that it wasn't quite right, however no amount of tweaking the exposure/gain/gamma on the camera (ASI120mm) could get the little red dot to stay put and give me a clear indication of the action to take with the collimation knobs.

I gave up and went back to doing it by eyeball and an eyepiece.

So does anyone use here metaguide successfully? It looks like great software but I wonder if it's claims of being able to work with unsteady seeing had the seeing at the side of a hill by the Irish Sea in mind.

Cheers,
~Al

Albert White MSc FRAS
Chairperson, International Dark Sky Association - Irish Section
www.darksky.ie/

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10 years 4 months ago - 10 years 4 months ago #99141 by dave_lillis
Replied by dave_lillis on topic Re: metaguide for colimation
Hey Al,
I haven't used metaguide, but I'll be giving it a shot, its tracking and PEC analysis looks interesting.
But why not use a webcam or something similar and just view the out of focus star on your screen using its regular capture program, I've been doing that for years and get very good collimation very quickly.
Way more accurate and easier then doing it with an eyepiece.

Dave L. on facebook , See my images in flickr
Chairman. Shannonside Astronomy Club (Limerick)

Carrying around my 20" obsession is going to kill me,
but what a way to go. :)
+ 12"LX200, MK67, Meade2045, 4"refractor
Last edit: 10 years 4 months ago by dave_lillis.

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