Wanted: out of focus stars!

[badgerchap]

Evening all,

I haven't done any practical astronomy for quite a while, whilst I finish my degree. However, whilst at Uni I have come up with an idea for software for telescope autofocus. However, I'm away from my gear for quite a while and so I have no data to work with to test the idea. So my question is this:

Does anybody have any out of focus (and then at least one in focus) images of fairly plain star fields? If so, would they be kind enough to let me use them to test my ideas? The ideal set would have maybe three or four shots "either side" of focus and one or two in focus. It would have to be the same field of stars taken with the same equipment under the same conditions.

I'm not sure if anybody keeps these otherwise scrap images? If anybody could help, I'd be very grateful.

In the hypothetical situation where my ideas came to fruition, and autofocus worked, the code would be made open source.

For anyone that's interested in my idea for the programming behind this, I may post some code if I get anywhere!

Thanks,

Badgerchap

[badgerchap]

Perhaps this should have gone in DIY Astronomer....

[frugal]

Does your Uni not have an astronomy department? You could ask them nicely.

[badgerchap]

My uni does indeed have an astronomy department (I'm studying Astrophysics). Unfortunately their equipment is.......not the best. They only have Webcams on their scopes (they were trying DSO imaging with a webcam and Registax when I got there), which are all alt-az mounted. Admittedly none of this should be a huge problem, but getting time on the kit is nigh on impossible. My uni is much more geared toward solar physics, which is what all their kit is appropriate for really. Plus I was hoping for the superior quality of images that people on here have.

Besides all this, I've managed to get quite far with just a few in-focus images off tinterwebz, enough to get the project rolling anyway. Hopefully I can do some good work in the next few weeks and then get my gear back so I can finish the job!