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The very fist thing I noticed after the first night imaging with my CB245 was how badly I had centered the CCD and the cold finger. Objects I wanted to image were not only completely out of the FOV of my illuminated 9mm reticle but also almost out of the FOV on my 26mm Plössl! Finding things was just a completely ludicrous waste of time. After asking around on the CCD list and realizing that nobody had any tips on and easy way to do this I decided to start rubbing my 2 remaining neurons together to see if I could maybe get a spark.

The idea I came up with was pretty simple. If I could get the CCD to see a perfectly centered crosshair I could then move it into the right spot.

Great! Easy! I pulled off the top of the camera head and traced a circle around it. Found and marked center with a compass and then drew a crosshair through it.

I placed the camera head cap on top of the crosshair drawn on paper and made sure the cap was centered in relation to the circle around it.

Now for the hard part: Going in to my mom’s sewing stuff. After a few mumbles and threats I managed to grab a spool of the thicker type white thread that I taped into place in line with the crosshairs.

In the first image you can see the cap with the threads and in the next one everything mounted and ready to go on the scope for testing. I made an aperature mask out of cardboard with about a dime sized hole in it. Fired up Win245 and played with find mode untill I could see something.

The little ball centered in the Meade 9mm illuminated reticule ep’s FOV and then switched for the CB245 and presto! Quick and dirty centering of your ccd in 15mins or your money back! Now if it would only stop raining! ;o)