Maxim DL Guide

Screen Stretch
You can activate Screen Stretch by clicking on the fifth button from the left. It opens a window which allows you to change the minimum and maximum brightness. You can do this in two ways:

• manually, moving the green and red arrows
• choose from preset options (moon, planet, etc.)

Information Window
Activate this window by clicking on the sixth button from the left. (It looks like a set of crosshairs.) This window will give the cursor's coordinates, and shows various properties about the annulus settings. If you set the Mode to "Aperture" using the drop down list, the information window will also display the star's magnitude.

By right clicking on the image, you can set the annulus radius and other similar properties.

Useful Stuff

Clicking on View Zoom Window will start a new window that shows a close up of the area where your cursor is.

Ctrl+L allows you to chose various graphs to display image data

• Choosing Line from the drop-down list will allow you to draw a line on the image and displays a 2D map for the counts on that line
• Choosing Horizontal Line displays a 2D map for the horizontal line through the cursor
• Choosing Vertical Line displays a 2D map for the vertical line through the cursor
• Area Plot will give you a a topical map of the area around the cursor
• Use Alt+PrintScrn to copy the the graph, and then use paint to view it by selecting Edit, Paste to view a capture of the graph

Camera Control

Click on the 8th button from the left to activate the Camera Control.

Under the Setup tab, you can choose the camera. (The Camera in the Brackett Observatory is ST-9E, and the filter wheel is CFW-8.) Click on Cooler to turn it on and set the temperature.

Under the Exposure tab, you can set the minutes and seconds for an exposure, set filters, and the image type.

Under the Settings tab, you can choose Autodark correction for when you take images. YOu can also choose Full Callibration to reduce your CCD image. (The same option can be reached by selecting ProcessCallibration Wizard.)

Under the Sequence tab, you can arrange a sequence of images. Choose the autosave filename, number, and which number to start at. Click on Set Path to set the location for the files to be saved.

Under the Focus tab, you can select a star, and then click Start Focus for the computer to start adjusting the focus. (Make sure that the Continuous box is checed.) The information window will display FWHM (full width half max). Stop the focus tool when the FWHM is the smallest value you can get.

For Color Pictures

Select ColorCombine Color.
Choose the images that correspond to each color.
Click on Align to make sure the pictures match up. You will be prompted to choose stars to match up.