SHARP FOCUS

Jesus Rodriguez

Problems focusing? These are now nightmares from the past...

THESE DAYS SHARPFOCUS PAGES ARE UNDER CONTINUOUS CONSTRUCTION. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN THIS SUBJECT, BOOKMARK THIS PAGE BY PRESSING "Ctrl. D" IN YOUR KEYBOARD AND REFER TO IT FREQUENTLY

Have you ever experienced frustration over the focus quality of your images? At NTO we have, and that was the reason that drove us to find a solution to the problem.

The system we have developed consists of a combination of software and hardware. Let's look at the abilities of the system and its requirements.

What SharpFocus does:

• Autofocus your CCD camera with no user effort, and in any optical system.
• Calibrate the focus position of a set of up to 6 filters. After calibration, select any filter, and your motorized filterwheel will go to it. The telescope will be automatically focused in a few seconds.
• Calibrate the focus movement due to temperature change effects in your optical system. After calibration SharpFocus will notify you if refocusing is required. If you accept your telescope will be refocused in seconds.

What SharpFocus needs:

• A serial port of the same PC you are using with your camera.
• SharpFocus, the windows/95 software that will run all the process. This application is FREEware.
• A 1.8 deg. stepper motor. Sounds difficult? Just find an old 5,25 diskette unit, open it and you'll find the one you need.
• A microprocessor with motor motion commands recorded.
• About 20 electronic components and a solder.
• 2 worm gears to move your focus knob.

Supported cameras:

• SBIG's ST-7 and ST-8.
• CookBook 245 (soon).
• Other cameras??? Are you really interested? Provide us with enough information and we will include them.

Supported filterwheels:

• SBIG's CFW-8.
• SBIG's CFW-6 (soon).
• Homeyer (soon).

Actual instalations:

• BOOTES: LAEFF's Burst Observer and Optical Transient Exploring System. A robotic telescope that will provide rapid follow-up observations of GRBs detected by Batse, BeppoSAX, RossiXTE and future experiments, as well as clarify whether optical transients -related or not to GRBs- are indeed of cosmic origin. It is considered part of the preparations for the ESA's satellite project INTEGRAL.
• NTO - Observatorio Pozuelo

More information:

• Important information for SCT owners: With SharpFocus you will never have again shift problems. You will not need any kind of "Crayford" or other type of focusers that increase your backfocus and induce flexures to your system. This means that installing SharpFocus will: save you money, give you extra backfocus to install any kind of accessory (AO-7, flip-mirror,...), and give more rigidity to your optical system. SharpFocus has been developed in a Celestron C11 and a Takahashi CN-212, both suffered this problem because both are focused moving it's primary mirror.

Contact us at sharpfoc@nto.org