PHD & drift alignment

[cloudbuster]

Hi peops!

i use PHD thru my equinox 66 riding piggyback on the equinox 80 thru which I image using my 314L.

can someone please kindly tell me how best to polar align?

hope u can help

cheers

bob

[mallorcasaint]

What mount do you have? It is the mount that is polar aligned not the scopes.

[swag72]

I never really found a good way to polar align and it was always out and I got quite a bit of drift in my subs. I tried the EQMOD polar alignment tool, but that didn;t seem to work for me either. You could give that a go if you use EQMOD? Also, Skywatcher put a PA tool into their latest firmware update, so if you've got a handset, you can update it and give that a go.

I bit the bullet and bought an piece of software in the end - PemPro - What a fantastic programme. Makes it so much easier!!

[Ibbo!]

passed on to me by Robbie

use polar scope

then calibrate phd as normal

turn off dec guiding in phd (in the brain settings)

find star on ecliptic in south

start guiding phd

any drift will be in dec

adjust azimuth till no /very little drift in south

go to either east or west

turn on guiding as before ie no dec guiding

but this time adjust altitude till little or no drift

you can go back and check then to improve it

you can do same in maxim and I would guess AA(not used it for ages)

Steve

[RikM]

passed on to me by Robbie

use polar scope

then calibrate phd as normal

turn off dec guiding in phd (in the brain settings)

find star on ecliptic in south

start guiding phd

any drift will be in dec

adjust azimuth till no /very little drift in south

go to either east or west

turn on guiding as before ie no dec guiding

but this time adjust altitude till little or no drift

you can go back and check then to improve it

you can do same in maxim and I would guess AA(not used it for ages)

Steve

I do exactly that and it works a treat

[RobH]

I use the above method as it's really simple. Make sure you have the graph enabled as you'll be able to spot drift very quickly.

Remember to align your camera so north/south is up/down on the screen.

As for which way to adjust, it doesn't matter....just see which way it's drifting (on the graph), then give the adjustment a good crank one way, watch again (you'll have to lock onto another star as the first one will have moved). If the drift has got quicker (steeper curve on the graph) then you've gone the wrong way. Simple.

For Azimuth, use a star in the south near the celestial equator, for altitude, use a star in the east or west.

In both cases, ignore any lateral drift.

After doing this a few times, you'll get very quick at it.

Cheers

Rob

[Ibbo!]

Rob is right once you have done it a few times

if you drift it then check your PA scope and adjust or remember how far it is off next time will be quicker

about 10mins for me now

Steve

[cloudbuster]

thanx guys and gals....thats soooo helpfull! wednesday is looking good, so will give it a bash then! would love to get this right, to enable me to get longer subs. steve: im gonna copy and paste your guide into my increasingly large notes!

cheers all!

bob

[cloudbuster]

thanks Rob as well! appreciated muchos!

[joncarruthers]

Have you tried a Pulse Analyser from AWR? it helps with drift alignment as well as testing/diagnosing guiders.

http://www.awrtech.co.uk/pulsetest.htm