Hello Everybody. I just buy the ccdi two weeks ago and I have been trying to collimate my telescope without good results. First I would like to know why ccdi inspector display the images very bright. It shows them very different like maxim shows them. Why is this?.....In Maxim I can see the images in good way ( blacks and whites ) but CCDI display them with too much white´s. I changed the noise threshold and the saturation level but nothing change. In Maxim I can count many stars but CCDI tells me that it founds less stars. Some tip or comments would be very apreciated.

Thank you
Paul

Hi Paul,

You can adjust the display levels by right clicking on the image and selecting Display Range. You can then increase background to make image background darker, or increase range if the stars appear too bright or too large.

Can you tell me a little about your system:

What telescope are you using?
What focal length?
What camera?
How long is the exposure?
What version of CCDInspector are you using?
How many stars does CCDI show in an image?

Regards,

-Paul

Thank you Paul for the information. I changed the display range and it looks now very well. My datas are the next:

CN212 telescope.
2630 mm fl
Monochrome SXHV-9 starlight ccd camera
30 seg exposures
CCDI 2.1.0. version
The ccdi shows more or less 45 stars.
I will test the system again the next weekend. I´m waiting for a better weather.

Thank you
Regards
Paul

Hi Paul,

Your system probably has too small a FOV to easily find a large number of stars without longer exposures.

Make sure you set the Noise Threshold back to LOW if you had changed it: anything but low will result in fewer measured stars.

You can also try to locate a really rich star cluster -- you'll be looking for at least 150-200 stars in the FOV. Note that globular clusters are not good for this purpose.

Another possibility is for you to try the new feature in version 2.1.0: single-star collimation. Here's a link to a manual page for this feature:

http://pk.darkhorizons.org/CCDI/1StarCollimation.htm

Regards,

-Paul

quote:

Originally posted by pestra01:
Thank you Paul for the information. I changed the display range and it looks now very well. My datas are the next:

CN212 telescope.
2630 mm fl
Monochrome SXHV-9 starlight ccd camera
30 seg exposures
CCDI 2.1.0. version
The ccdi shows more or less 45 stars.
I will test the system again the next weekend. I´m waiting for a better weather.

Thank you
Regards
Paul

Hello Paul.
I began to collimate my system with the single star method, but I will try to do again the next week. I will follow your guidelines and your special comments. Thank you in advance.

Regards
Paul