5.5.0.1 Version History

What’s New:


  1. Improvements to focus zone feature introduced in V5.1, which will allow the user to define circular Inner and Outer zones around the center of the image for star detection. During the Multi-Star focus run, the stars identified in the 'zone' will be used to determine the average HFD / FWHM across the field. This may be desirable if the optical field is not flat.
    • The Inner & Outer zone is expressed as a percentage of the image diagonal measure which is the longest image dimension on the chip. Default: Inner 0% and Outer 100% - no zone will be used. The brightest star(s) on the chip will be identified in a box for Single-Star or Multi-Star focus process. 
    • You may choose to show the Inner & Outer zone on the image
    • You may choose to mark the stars that have been identified with a '+' and  the single star used for setting the exposure time for the autofocus run with a box. 
    • If AcquireStar is used, the telescope will slew and center the target star in the user defined 'star zone' positioned along the diagonal of the image. 





  1. Focuser moves are now based on the mean hyperbola fit parameters from all of the accepted Vcurve runs which will allow the system to accurately find the focus position within the non-linear portion of the Vcurve which will reduce the focus time and the ability to use fainter stars. 


  


  1. Added the ability to 'Skip focus run' based on the first image taken during the autofocus process:
    • Method 'Focus history'  - uses focus history statistics by filter to determine a statistical 'limit', if the current HFD is < then the 'limit' then the focus run is skipped. 
    • Method 'HFD'  - will compare the current image HFD to the last focus run HFD, the run will be skipped if it is less than the user defined allowable change.   



  1. Focus run results are now kept and statistical analyzed for each filter, the results may be used to set various autofocus settings if AI is enabled. 




  1. A new calculator to determine optimum binning to achieve optimum 1.0 to 1.5 arc-sec/pixel by setting the camera control app and / or FocusMax software binning.


 


  1. A new Wizard to assist in setting 'Focus Convergence' parameters which may be used during focus runs.




  1. The Multi-Star focus position is determined based on Weighted Mean (WMean) which will give more 'weight' to focus images with smaller field standard deviations than images with larger standard deviations. 


  1. Added the ability to set the number of stars during star detection process which can be affected by CPU speed and available memory


  1. Improvements to FocusMax Temp Compensation (TC) methods.


  1. Improvements to Filter Offset Wizard and Filter Offset data analysis.


  1. Improvements to star detection algorithm.


  1. Improvements to Vcurve run process.


  1. Improved hyperbola fit display on Vcurve graph.


  1. Added code to monitor seeing at the NearFocus position to eliminate a potential hysteresis with high resolution focusers. 


  1. Added ability to import temperature compensation data exported from Excel.