This function is designed to search the range of motion of the focuser to locate stars. If stars are already visible in subframes then there is no need to run this function. The algorithm will start at the current focuser position and search an area outward then inward of the starting position looking for stars. If no stars are found it will continue expending the search area whilst staying within the allowed range of motion of the focuser. Eventually either stars will be located or the whole range of motion of the focuser will have been searched without locating any stars. In this latter case, the step size will be halved and the search restarted from the beginning. The search process uses a series of jumps of 10 x step size to try and locate stars. To use this function start the focuser as near to where stars are likely to be found as possible. If you have no idea then the algorithm will locate stars but the search will likely take longer. In addition, use a step size as close as possible to a good value for your equipment. If a value too small is chosen then the number of steps will be larger and the search will take longer. If a value too large is chosen then its possible that the range of focus positions where stars are visible will be "jumped over" in the search and it will appear that there are no stars visible anywhere. If you have no idea what a good starting value is then use the default and let Focus Advisor try to figure it out.


The results table in the Focus Advisor dialog shows a single line for Find Stars. In this case, Find Stars was started at position 70,000 and the Step Size was 250 (giving a Jump Size of 2,500). No stars were found at 70,000 (point 1 on the V-Curve) so an outward sweep started at 95,000 and moved in 2,500 jump by jump until 70,000 was reached (points 2-11) when the inward sweep started. Stars were first detected at 60,000 (point 15). The algorithm then continues to Jump inwards until no stars are found (point 34). This gives the range of positions where stars were located as 15,000 (point 33) to 60,000 (point 15) with a centre at 37,500.