Auto focus while doing EAA (a guide somewhere?)

[abillionnewstars]

EAA newbie question:

I am going to start doing EAA for public outreach. I was planning to use auto focus to get the best focus possible but SC process seems to be quite confusing in that regard. Is there somewhere a guide to follow? I use NINA for my regular imaging and it autofocuses without a glitch.

Thanks

[admin]

Hi,

SharpCap requires you to have done at least one successful assisted focus scan that finds the best focus position and goes to it before true autofocus becomes available. That ensures that the parameters for focus measurement are set up in a way that works with your equipment.

See the documentation at https://docs.sharpcap.co.uk/4.0/#(Nearl ... 20Focusing for more details and the following section for auto focusing.

If you go look in the NINA settings there are I think about 14 settings that affect auto focus, which may need to be adjusted before auto focus works for you. There are probably about 10 in SharpCap. Either way, some trial and error is required initially to find the settings that work before autofocus can 'just work'.

cheers,

Robin

[abillionnewstars]

Thank you for the reply Robin.

I would have already focused the scope with a bahtinov mask. Can SC do an automated focus run from there or I would have to go through it manually?

[admin]

Hi,

in theory, SharpCap has a tool to measure how close a Bahtinov is to best focus, and the autofocus code knows how to deal with it. However it's not something I have checked for a long time, since I haven't used Bahtinov masks myself so much recently. Worth a try though, with the usual approach of a manually started focus scan first to check that things work before using the pure autofocus.

cheers,

Robin