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are successful, a box will pop up saying so. Note that when the
window opens it automatically tries to communicate with the camera
on the selected COM port, starting at 9600 baud and working it way
up in speed. If it successfully finds a camera it tells the camera to
switch to a higher baud rate and try that. If it cannot communicate at
the higher baud rate, it reverts back to the last successful baud rate.
This all happens automatically without user control. The reason you
need to know this is if you try the camera indoors on a computer with
a fast link, and then move outside to a laptop with a slower link, the
camera will not communicate. When this happens, the camera can be
reset to 9600 baud by turning off the power, and holding down the
Guide On/Off button while powering up the camera, and holding it
until the status LED turns red. Then when the Serial Port command is
run it will start out at a baud rate that will work on any machine
(9600).
Once you have successful communication, start the focus
operation by clicking the Start Focus button on the Main Software
Screen. The camera will start out by taking very short exposures and
gradually working its way up to longer exposures until it senses
adequate signal levels. The images displayed are binned 2x2 to speed
this process up. When you start this command, you should have the
AllSky camera in a well-lit room with something on the ceiling above
it you can focus on (other than a way too bright light bulb!). When
an image with adequate brightness is collected the software will ask
you to select a region to focus on. Pick a structured area in the center
half of the frame and the software will go into a rapid focus mode
zoomed in on that area. Focus the area carefully and, when done,
select STOP FOCUS to end the process and return to the Main
Screen.
Once you have a pretty good focus, you might want to select
START FOCUS again and work on the centering. When that looks
good, you can select the START CAPTURE command which will
capture and display full resolution images. You can use these images
to set the final focus. Adjusting for best focus across the CCD by
tilting the lens is best done outside with the unit looking up at a star
field. Focusing the AllSky camera can take some time to get perfect,
so don’t be in a rush to get through this step. Fortunately focus holds
over temperature changes fairly well. Sometimes the day/night
temperature cycling can initially cause some focus shift, but it should
settle down after that.
