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INDI Library v2.0.6 is Released (02 Feb 2024)

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Collimation Circles

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Replied by Marc on topic Collimation Circles

As I'm stuck home because of this @%##d! virus, I've started writing a little something ... The capture says it all.
You can of course adjust the size of the circles, change the color, etc... I'll publish the source so everyone can build it 'per se' .
It's a standalone program. Should be finished soon.

- Marc

The following user(s) said Thank You: Radek Kaczorek, MH
Last edit: 4 years 1 week ago by Marc.
4 years 1 week ago #50876
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Replied by David Tate on topic Collimation Circles

Eric... this is precisely what got me thinking about this in the first place.

I was doing the very same thing (using guiding to keep the star centered). I thought, wow this could be slightly tweaked to have the added and enlargeable collimation circles to be able to center the donut!
4 years 1 week ago #50877

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Replied by David Tate on topic Collimation Circles

Marc, that's it! Well done.

I assumed you did it in C++ using Qt framework. Nice! <em> (Oh, I just looked at the price of that app... am I missing something? That's crazy expensive!!!)</em>

The only suggestion is to make the circles change-able in size, or maybe just add another couple more. And the overall window a bit larger... maybe 500x500 (I was using 501x501 to make the centering of the target lines easier... centering on 250x250)
^^^
Doh, I re-read your post and that's exactly what you said.

Something like this might just be added to the toolbar in the FITS Viewer.
Last edit: 4 years 1 week ago by David Tate.
4 years 1 week ago #50879

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Replied by Doug S on topic Collimation Circles

Nice job Marc.

@Meggido: (Oh, I just looked at the price of that app... am I missing something? That's crazy expensive!!!)
If you're referring to SkyGuide or CCD Inspector, the answer to your question (am I missing something) is that these programs perform quantitative analysis vs qualitative analysis on the image. People are pretty good but not perfect at seeing concentric circles, but to perform beyond "eyeballing it", you need some math. I own CCD Inspector, and it is expensive (~1.7x SkyGuide's price). Had I known about SkyGuide's WFE analysis before I purchased CCD Inspector, I probably would have gone for SkyGuide instead. Even so, the price is not that bad given we've got equipment worth an order of magnitude (or 2) more! If you want peak performance, quantitative is the only way to go. Think about focusing without an HFR value..... As kstars/ekos gets even better, we'll want the collimation tool to provide some analysis on the unfocused image (as well as the circles).

If Marc want's to go the distance while this crazy virus is keeping us down and add some quantitative analysis on the unfocused image (only half kidding), that would be AWESOME!
Last edit: 4 years 1 week ago by Doug S. Reason: minor edit
4 years 1 week ago #50882

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Replied by Marc on topic Collimation Circles

David: You resize the window and it resizes the outer ring. Then you roll the mouse and you adjust the size of the inner ring :)
Right click changes the color.
The window always stays on top, so you can move whatever window you have under for alignment purpose.

It's written in C under GTK. As I barely know Qt, it would take me much more time to do this same trivial thing.
And it's easy to add to the fitsviewer a new icon launching my offspring :)

- Marc
4 years 1 week ago #50883

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Replied by David Tate on topic Collimation Circles

Price-wise, I was talking about the purchase price of the QT Framework... it's >$5000. Yikes! I have to be seeing that wrong.
4 years 1 week ago #50885

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Replied by David Tate on topic Collimation Circles

Ah, I was playing around with CodeLite on the Raspberry. I saw C under GTK.

But very nice Marc!
4 years 1 week ago #50886

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Replied by Eric on topic Collimation Circles


Yes! I just wanted to formalize the procedure so we could imagine an assistant.

@Marc2b: Could you formalize how you expect the circles to extend or shrink? Is there a relation with aperture? How would you manage elongation, and what information would you gain from it?

-Eric
4 years 1 week ago #50890

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Replied by Andrew Burwell on topic Collimation Circles

I'm not a fan of this living on the focus tab, unless you can save your settings and reload them. So much room for error if you don't forget to put it back the way it was. I lose whole nights of imaging when focus goes bad.
4 years 1 week ago #50891

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Replied by Doug S on topic Collimation Circles

I would concur with Andrew about probably needing a new home (tab) that goes beyond the issue of putting focus tab settings back. Should we be considering a "collimation" tab? If you think about what features might be included in time, one could imagine a looping track control for the out-of-focus image, concentric circles, metrics for WFE quality, and potentially inward focus/outward focus comparision. An aid for the collimation screws/direction to adjust could be even longer term desirable.... I think a collimation tab might prove useful.
4 years 1 week ago #50893

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Replied by Marc on topic Collimation Circles

Ok this is a test run...

So, you start sct-colim, then adjust the size of the window so the outer ring fits the exterior brim of your donut.
Then you use the left click/right click to adapt the size on the inner ring to the circle of the secondary mirror. (wheel mouse in the dark... not good, too easy to roll it unwillingly). And you can change the colour (RGB) with the central click. Window is always on top.
Program is x86_64. Haven't tried to build it on a raspi so far. Hope for clear skies tonite. ;)
Please test it if you can. I'll publish the source as soon as everything is OK. You need GTK+2.0 GDK and cairo libs installed.

- Marc
The following user(s) said Thank You: MH
Last edit: 4 years 1 week ago by Marc.
4 years 1 week ago #50894
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Replied by David Tate on topic Collimation Circles


I assume you mean we should do: sudo apt-get install libgtk2.0-dev

I did and was able to build and execute the sample Codelite GTK 2.4C.
4 years 1 week ago #50897

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