FocusMax page !

A What is FocusMax ?

Focus max is a fantastic freeware from larry weber and steve brady, the softaware can find a perfect focus using a motorised focuser and a ccd camera.

The internet site is here : http://users.bsdwebsolutions.com/~larryweber/

B Yes, but how perfect is perfect ?

I wanted to compare focusmax result, with my old way to find the focus.

I was always using a set of of 40 images, and after each image, the focuser was moved.

This gives a V curve HalFluxDiameter versus Position.

The curves is a nice parabola, and the minimum is the best focus.

The black points are the focus position given by focusmax, really the precision is amazing !

The focus is dead center !

C Scripting focusmax

FocusMax has gives a scritpable object, so you can drive it from your own scripts with minimal computer knowledge.

My scripts finds the focus, and comes back, and starts a set of images with a little focuser move before each image.

The best focus and the couple ( Position , Half Flux Diameter ) are saved in a logfile.txt text file, so you can open it to make you own curves.

To use it :

Create a folder named focus on the drive c:

Copy the zip in it

And launch the scripts ( needs a microsoft free scripting engine )

At this time it is beta version, but it is a really nice example to see what can be done !

The wait focuser procedure is very convenient for example.

Script is here.