Restore guide location after autofocus

Hi-

I have a request that may or may not be MetaGuide specific.

Right now when imaging with MG an autofocus run causes guiding to stop and then resume later - but the guidestar location isn’t forced to be where it was previously. If there is any slight shift after autofocus the guide star may drift away.

I’m not sure if this applies to other guide software used by SGP - but I would like an option to use GuideXY instead of Guide when returning from autofocus. This would be similar to the existing oag-specific option to turn off guiding while focusing.

For MG you would use the remote message Lock and Guide when first guiding on a new object. And when you begin autofocus you would say UnGuide then UnLock - which already happens and works well.

But after autofocus I would like it to do Lock and then GuideXY. That will cause it to place the guidestar where it was before (except for dithering, which is handled by MG).

I’m not sure if this is general or not - but normally when you start guiding you would choose the best guidestar and start guiding wherever it is. Then when you resume guiding you would place it back where it was.

So - I would add a new option saying “Restore guide position after autofocus” - and that would cause the guide command after autofocus for the same object - to be GuideXY instead of Guide.

Thanks,
Frank

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