FocusMax Script

[steppenwolf]

I am shortly going to be experimenting with autofocus using FocusMax/MaxIm DL/PinPoint (full version). The following is a quote from the FocusMax Manual:-

At the push of a button or from a script, AcquireStar will (depending on user settings):

1 Take an image and plate solve the current telescope position

2 Open a star catalog of choice and identify three stars that match the user set up requirements

3 Slew the telescope to the first star

4 Center the star

5 Initiate the Auto-focus routine

6 Re-slew the telescope to the starting position

7 Take an image, plate solve the current telescope pointing position and fine adjust the telescope pointing

Astronomers are using AcquireStar with automated telescopes to perform a periodic focus update to assure
that images acquired during the night are perfectly focused. AcquireStar can be operated manually by a
push of a button or through automation within a script.

Sounds cool ..... Has anyone written such a script to do this? Unfortunately, my 'programming' days finished with FoxPro about 10 years ago

[Martin-Devon]

Steve, I don't use a script, nor do I use Acquirestar, but I routinely do something very similar in Focusmax. Essentially for narrowband filters, I just chose a magnitude 5 star near to where I want to image then just put the RA/DEC into SGP or CCD Commander, followed by plate solve then focus commands. Since I have a focus-fussy TakFSQ106 I automate the refocus every 30 minutes - it's no problem though and takes just 2 minutes to run the focus procedure. Acquirestar just finds the nearest star of a defined magnitude that you specify nearest to your target but it's just as easy to use Stellarium or similar to identify the nearest mag 5 star. After focusing, SGP or CCD Commander then takes the scope to the adjacent imaging field, plate solves, sets the guider running, then takes the subs. You can swing back/forth all night long between the focus field and the imaging field at whatever intervals you want. I suspect that the "script" commands that you are referring to are in effect the automation commands, and yes, if you know what you're doing then no doubt folk can write these themselves as well, but SGP/CCD Commander has taken away the pain of doing this.  

Martin

[steppenwolf]

Hi Martin,

Thank you for that great information and, yes, I have read up about SGPro and it certainly will do the procedure as you suggest but there is just the tiniest problem with me using it!! I use MaxIm DL for all my imaging and guiding and sadly SGPro doesn't support MaxIm.

I could use SGPro and I know it is becoming very popular but I have invested time (and money) over the years in MaxIm which is a very capable piece of software if you spend the time to get to grips with it and I am loathe to move over to a system that takes it out of the equation.

Pain taken away in one area but added in another

Hmm, the very briefest of looks (literally about a minute) at CCD Commander shows that not only does is work with MaxIm DL but it also supports the Le version of PinPoint !!

How does CCD Commander compare with SGPro generally, Martin, as you seem to have experience with both?

[Martin-Devon]

Steve, I use CCD Commander over SGP for exactly the reasons you mention. Both will do excellent automation jobs, but CCD Commander uses Maxim for guiding, Focusmax for focusing and PinPoint for plate solve - I prefer all 3 of these over the alternatives that you have to use in SGP. Nothing wrong with SGP at all and I know folk who get superb results with it, but I've bolted down CCD Commander now and having compared the two, it's my outright preference, simple to use and similar price to SGP. I find guiding in Maxim to be rock solid, plate solving via Pinpoint works every time without fail in 5 seconds or less and is highly accurate, and Focusmax is the probably the gold-standard focus package.

Give CCD Commander a try, there's a free trial period. Let me know if I can help in any way if you have issues.

Martin

[cfpendock]

It seems to me that MaxPilote does exactly the same job - slewing to focus and then back to target, and it uses Maxim, Pinpoint, Focusmax, Cartes du Ciel and PHD or other guiding systems.  

And it is free....

Chris

[steppenwolf]

Hi Martin,

That's very interesting indeed. As you know, PinPoint LE ships with MaxIm DL and I use it all the time and can confirm that provided you give it half reasonable starting co-ordinates and the correct pixel scale, it works flawlessly and quickly.

I note that FocusMax (which I intend using) will do the jump to a nearby bright star, plate solve, re-focus, jump back to the object, plate solve and fine tune the pointing BUT it specifically states that it will not use PinPoint LE but must use the full version of PinPoint. If you use CCD Commander and FocusMax (with MaxIm, of course), does that remove this limitation - i.e. can I use PinPoint LE and avoid the additional cost of the full PinPoint software?

It seems to me that MaxPilote does exactly the same job - slewing to focus and then back to target, and it uses Maxim, Pinpoint, Focusmax, Cartes du Ciel and PHD or other guiding systems.

Thanks Chris, I did have a play with MaxPilote a while back but unfortunately, it was a little unstable on my system and kept crashing which would be a nightmare during an imaging run!

[Sp@ce_d]

I know Steve is asking about FM here, so don't want to go OT too much. However, once you start looking at scripting you are on the slippery slope of automation

So, just to add a snippet of my recent experience involving autofocus & automation. Add to the list CCDAutopilot and ACP, for a not inconsiderable increase in outlay. I now use ACP.

A while back I tried CCDComander & SCP & decided (at the time) to go the SGP route as it seemed to have more potential, there is a lot more active development & talk of dual imager with dither support. I was (trying to) using multishooters at the time. However, I couldn't get the guiding automation to work as well as Maxim, missed the ease of using FM and realised I wanted the Obsy to start up again & continue if the weather became safe. Having tried out ACP I realised I had really been throwing money in the wrong direction trying to maximise sky time with multishooters & expecting to get any sleep, hold down a job and have a life with Ms Sp@ce_d

Now, that means I started to use Aquirestar. Its great watching it work however, I've not managed to get this working 100%. It takes some tweaking & so far I can say that using FM manually will be quicker. Especially with NB filters sometimes it fails when a perfectly usable star in there in the field at a mag in the selected range. So the time spent searching for suitable stars & plate solving (SGP with local astromety was far quicker most of the time for me than Pinpoint & blindsolving BTW) isn't worth it if you are there imaging hands on. IMO. Just point the scope at a suitable star & hit focus in FM. Or have preselected focus stars in your plan.    

[Martin-Devon]

Steve, although I have the full edition of Pinpoint I actually use the Light Edition (LE) version for CCD Commander - it just seems to work faster. I've never used the plate solve facility within Focusmax, and unless you want to specifically use the Acquirestar feature then really you don't need the full edition of Pinpoint at all. As I mentioned earlier I just instruct CCD Commander to slew to a mag 5 star, plate solve using LE Pinpoint/Maxim, focus with Focusmax, then slew back to my imaging field, plate solve (LE again) then guider automates, then subs automate. There's no need whatsoever to use Acquirestar in Focusmax. Pinpoint gets it's RA/DEC from the slew co-ordinates you enter, and without fail my Mach-1 mount gets very close so Pinpoint doesn't have to work very hard at all and solves every time within seconds. With SGP, even using Pinpoint I found it would often fail and default to a blind solve that takes many minutes in my experience. If your mount doesn't slew very accurately then I can imagine that Pinpoint will have to go into the spiral search option, but even this solves fairly quickly as well.

Martin   

[steppenwolf]

Just point the scope at a suitable star & hit focus in FM. Or have preselected focus stars in your plan.  

I think FM is a given and I am not yet in a position to go fully automated as that means making a dome rotator and aperture opener (in fact, I am not convinced I ever want to go fully automated as I enjoy 'being out there') so I may well take this one step at a time so thank you for your input - my main interest here is making focus more reliable both with regard to temperature changes during a session and filter changes (despite my filters apparently being afocal!). Some manual input from me is not a problem although it would be handy to use a master control program to just whisk off to a test star and back again!

unless you want to specifically use the Acquirestar feature then really you don't need the full edition of Pinpoint at all. As I mentioned earlier I just instruct CCD Commander to slew to a mag 5 star, plate solve using LE Pinpoint/Maxim, focus with Focusmax, then slew back to my imaging field, plate solve (LE again) then guider automates, then subs automate.

CCD Commander is looking like a good solution especially as it is PinPoint LE compatible (I just can't quite bring myself to pay for the full version of PinPoint when I already have a perfectly serviceable version that I know works well!

My only final concern now is CCD Com's reliance on 'The Sky' planetarium software as I am all set up and completely happy with Cartes du Ciel controlling my mount and there is no mention of using other planetarium software. Not having the software here and running, I can't quite envisage where the planetarium software fits in as currently (in MaxIm/C du C) I select the object I want to image using C du C, C du C commands the mount to slew to its position and then I set up a sequence of images in MaxIm's sequencer. I assume that CCD Com gets the object's coordinates from 'The Sky' and needs these to swap back and forth from the test star? Alternatively, it could get the coordinates from the the mount itself in which case how the mount got them in the first place may be irrelevant!

If CCD Com will work with C du C and I don't need to buy 'The Sky' then I'm up for it but if I do have to buy 'The Sky' then I guess I'll have to lose that automation completely and just do the slew to a test star focus and back again completely manually which would be a shame.

Do I need 'The Sky' for this aspect of automation?

[sloz1664]

Hi Steve,

I found this quote on a website regards CCD Commander. "You can use it also with Cartes du Ciel if you sacrifice object search or input AR and DEC manually|

Steve

[Martin-Devon]

I don't use the Sky nor CdC, since I'm not hopping from target to target each night i just get the RA/DEC of my imaging target from Stellarium and plug it into the slew command box of CCD Commander. 

[steppenwolf]

I don't use the Sky nor CdC, since I'm not hopping from target to target each night i just get the RA/DEC of my imaging target from Stellarium and plug it into the slew command box of CCD Commander.

..... and that my friend is just about what I am going to be doing as well for now - thanks again!

I found this quote on a website regards CCD Commander. "You can use it also with Cartes du Ciel if you sacrifice object search or input AR and DEC manually|

Thank you for that, I used your text in a Google search and there was the full discussion.

I am now awaiting delivery of the autofocuser

Thank you all for your input - golden nuggets of information as always and I have a confirmation from CCD Com that their software doesn't talk to C du C as I had assumed. Further, they do recommend the full version of PinPoint as "LE works, but it is not terribly robust due to how CCD Commander has to invoke the plate solve functions." However, Martin's experience of PinPoint LE seems very positive and that's good enough for me!

[steppenwolf]

Just a quick update and a thank you to everyone who has contributed to this thread.

The SharpSky Pro Autofocuser has arrived and although I have only used it on the test bench, I am very impressed with the design, build quality and ease of integrating it into my existing software.

I am still contemplating my next move but CCD Commander is looking good to me at the moment.

Sent from my iPhone from somewhere dark .....

[russellhq]

Hopefully not too late to this, but here are a couple of links to post I created on scripts/plate solving/focusing:

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/226124-maxim-dl-scripts/

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/229416-scripting-image-capture-some-examples-of-my-own-including-plate-solving/

Hope they help.

[steppenwolf]

Thanks for these, Russell, really good food for thought - I really do need to get down to at least a basic understanding of  vbscript/jscript