Focus and balance

[drumsolo]

Hi, I have just started to try and image again after a 12 month break and having a few problems with focus and tracking. I used a bahtinov mask last night and had the center spike in the middle but the attached image looks out of focus, should the stars in the background be more pronounced as they don't look whole!

Also my 3 star align was off everytime, i checked the balance after a while and it was slightly off balance. Would this be enough to mess up the star alignment process?

Thanks in advance and hopefully less hair pulling out next time!!

Stuart

[drumsolo]

forgot to attach image!

[Cornelius Varley]

Some of the stars in the centre of the image are appearing as doughnuts which suggests that the telescope is not quite focused.

[swag72]

There's a good piece of free software called bahtinov grabber - You can use that in conjunction with your B mask to really help you nail the focus.

[Freddie]

In terms of your alignment, slight off balance shouldn't be an issue. Things to check would be using US format date (MMDDYYYY) and daylight saving set.