Fokuspokus Quickguide

General Remarks

 

  • The camera should always be in the East-West or North-South direction. This means: a star should move over the screen horizontally or vertically when you switch the mout off
  • Check the flags "Look West" and "Upright" on tab "control box"
  • The navigation is dependent on the declination. That's why you should always synchronize the mount on a star with Cartes du Ciel. Otherwise, the navigation with mouse click and guiding would work inaccurate.
  • You should always check whether the setting for focal length and Barlow are correct


Capture a Video of a Planet

 

  • Position the telescope to see the planet in the center of the eyepiece
  • Replace the eyepiece by your webcam and focus with Fokuspokus (Tabs: Eyepieces and Control Box)
  • If you do not see the planet in the Camera Window, use the search function to find him.
  • If you see the planet, click on the planet to move him to the middle of the window (Click-Navigation) 
  • Start video recording (Tab: Record)


Webcam Long Exposure


  • Direct the telescope to a bright star close to the target object and synchronize the mount with Cartes du Ciel
  • Use the Webcam and move the star to the middle of the Camera Window by clicking on him. 
  • Focus the start. The focus aide will help you. The switch on long exposure and check if it is still focussed. 
  • Use Goto to move the telescope to the faint target object. (Cartes du Ciel). Probably you need to synchronize again before Goto.
  • Now take some darks and switch on the dark subtraction. So it is easier to see the target object with the next long exposures. 
  • Check if the target object is in the middle of the window. If not use the click-navigation to position it exactly to the middle.(Camera Window)
  • In the camera window, put the blue target point to a star by rightclick and switch on Guiding. The star will be moved to the target point then after each exposure, before the next exposure starts.
  • Start the series of exposures with the start button (Tab "Webcam")

Using the DSLR Interval Timer

 

  • Direct the telescope to a bright star close to the target object and synchronize the mount with Cartes du Ciel  
  • Connect the DSLR via USB and parallel port 
  • Start the manufacturer's connection program (e.g EOS Viewer Utility and EOS Capture) from the Camera Window (Menu: Image)
  • Release a first test image from Tab "DSLR". Use the click navigation to position the star exactly to the middle of the image. Release some more images to focus exactly. The focus aide may help you.
  • Starte Cartes du Ciel from Fokusposus, synchronize again and the use Goto to move the teleskope to the target area.
  • Check if the target area is in the middle of the image. If not, use click navigation to position it.
  • The are two alternatives, to keep the target exactly on it's position:
  • Either you switch on Guiding. Then after each image the telescope direction will be corrected. However, you need then a long pause time between the images to save an image, open it, move the telescope and wait a little bit before the next image starts. But all that will be done automatically by Focuspokus.
  • Or you just put the blue target point on a star and do the correction of the telescope position manually using the click-navigation after every couple of images. You can do the click-navigation when the camera captures the dark frame. So you save a lot of time.

Capture a Mosaic of the Moon With the Webcam


  • Direct the telescope to the moon and use tracking speed "Moon". Better you synchronize with Cartes du Ciel.
  • Start the Webcam, position to the terminator and focus on the mountains and shadows.
  • Navigate to the north pole and enter "Top Middle" as starting position on Tab "Webcam"
  • When you have a focus length of 1200 mm and a Toucam, use Panorama Size "7x7" and start the series.  
  • I recommend to take videos with 200 frames each for this purpose. Some of them will be dark in this example, as they are captured beside the moon. The post processing can be done with Giotto and HuginPanorama

Save and Use Eyepiece Positions

 

  • Start with an eyepiece witch has a short focus length.
  • Focus on it and save the position on tab Control Box or if it was already saved before, synchronize on it on the eyepieces tab.
  • Enter another eyepiece (or camera) into the focuser.
  • Use Fokuspokus to focus (Tab "Control Box") and save the new position as new eyepiece
  • Later on, when you want to focus again, focus on one of the eyepieces and synchronize. Then use the "Focus"-Button to move the focuser to the other eyepieces' position.

 

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