Thank you Jasem for spreading the word! I really appriciate that a lot!
I looked at metaguide. It's interesting. But I dont know much about SCT's.
With CollimationCircles everything is manual. No fancy algorithms in background.
But I belive you can always use bathinov mask on SCT too and perform precise final colimation using the mask and bathinov patern in CC.
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There is new version 3.2.0 beta5 available!
Changes are:
Finally camera controls should work for UVC cameras on Windows (through DShow) and Linux (through V4L2).
Performance improvements
Full change log: github.com/sajmons/CollimationCircles/co....version-3.2.0-beta5
github.com/sajmons/CollimationCircles/releases
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I saw initial release of sky map in version 0.0.130! Denis, that is really great stuff!
Thank you very much for all your time and effort you are putting into astra_lite!
I saw that sky map has option to enter longitude and latitude. When I enter coordinates application hangs.
I have GPS dongle connected to my Raspberry PI running indiserver. Would it be possible to astra_lite get GPS coordinates from indi_gpsd driver automatically?
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Yes I think that's the best option. If your ZWO act as standard usb camera, you can activate it's video stream directly from CC application, see version 3.2.0-beta3 here github.com/sajmons/CollimationCircles/releases.
If your camera supports absolute focus, you can control that too from CC (see camera controls button for that). With that you get hassle free colimmation of secondary and primary mirror. All you have to do is to change your camera focus distance from within CC app.
I'm not quite sure if this is working in latest version, but I'm working on it and will be available in final 3.2.0 version.
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My first attempt to climate telescope was with phone camera too. But I quickly realised, that is impossible to place phone at exact center of focuser tube. That wouldn't be issue if at least you could place phone at exact same spot near the center, but that's is just impossible. At least it was for me. What's the point in collimating telescope if your optical path constantly changes? Sure you can do collimation each time you take phone off and back on, but good luck with that. It will be OK for visual observation, but not for astrophotography.
That's why I'm using raspberry pi camera with special case designed and 3d printed, the way that it can be screwed on top of my focuser. This way optical path stays the same even if I take my camera off and put it back on.
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Kurt, I totaly agree with you. Raspberry Pi Camera Module 3 seams to be a great option. But I need something more versatile, USB plug&play. No drivers needed.
That's way I'm looking for UVC compatible cameras.
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Latest version of libcamera INDi driver crashes when I conect Astra_lite to it. Previous version worked OK.
Latest KStars have no problem with it.
Log file in attachement.
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Yeah, for colimation we need simple UVC Web Camera or something simmilar. If you found one to be sutable for use in telescope eyepiece, please let me know.
Curently I'm using my Raspberry Pi HQ camera for the process, but manually adjusting focus is real pain.
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