Align-master / Backyard EOS / EQMOD

[mrjonathanbrown]

Hi guy's, last night was a good night to set up the astrophotography gear and I was happy to hopefully get my first picture.. 

I soon ran into a lot of trouble and was very frustrated. I guess I was rushing a little to quickly into things and need to take my time more but I would like to ask for some help. Firstly, Last night i set up all my gear and well I did a rough polar alignment (Pointed the scope north alt @ 55 Degrees. Is this good enough? I'l mention just now, I couldn't use my polar scope as the reticule has moved some bit (I'm almost certain it has moved) I'l check this tomorrow afternoon. 

I ran align master along with Backyard EOS and Cartes du Ciel. I ran into trouble straight away every star I tried to align too was obscured by houses and trees all the best possible star alignment options seemed to be at the horizon. So I'm guessing I need to be in an open field? 

So I could't properly align which was a shame and I also realised later on that in the setting menu for "Alignmaster" I hadn't checked the box for day light saving time. Not sure how much of a difference this makes? 

Lastly, well this is more difficult to explain so I'm going to try my best but I'm finding it difficult to understand Backyard EOS. I would slew to a part of the sky that I knew had a bright star and then I would try and get that star to appear on my Live View but things didn't quite seem right to me. I feel I haven't got the settings right could someone point me in the right direction? 

I also wanted to ask see after I have set up my scope and I am ready to align should I first do a rough polar alignment? Can you define what a rough polar alignment is? Then should I do a 1 star alignment? and finally run align-master? 

Any Help would be appreciated guy's as I say last night I was finding things really frustrating having collected all my gear from my garage to then drive up to my partners backyard to set everything up and we all know this is a heavy duty set up. Set everything up to be confronted with these dilemmas. It did put me off last night after packing it all up but I felt better this morning and I am eager to continue. 

Right now I am just at that stage where I am trialling/error-ring as this is very early stages for me as you can all tell. 

[PhotoGav]

Hi, don't be down hearted by the frustrations. Unfortunately they are part and parcel of the whole astrophotography challenge. However, they do make success a million and more times sweeter!

It sounds to me as though your mount is not at all aligned to the sky, hence no bright star showing up in liveview when you slew to it. I strongly suggest that you sort your polar alignment scope out as this is the first key to a successful session. There are some good tutorials out there to help you do this. It can be done in daytime. I strongly recommend using EQMod for polar alignment too. Again good tutorials on line to show you how.

Once you have the polar scope set up ready for action you can successfully polar align. This will make everything else much easier. Your PA won't be perfect at this point, but good enough.

The next thing is to use Alignmaster to improve the accuracy of your PA. If you have loads of obstructions on the horizon it does make finding a suitable pair of stars tricky, but hopefully not impossible. Don't be frightened to use pairs that ore only 'OK' and not 'Best', it will still work!

If that works, you should have pretty good alignment and your slews to target should not be too far off. If you have your finder scope attached that will help you to get on target or, alternatively you can set up Astrotortilla (plate solving software) on your laptop to help you find your targets.

Good luck with it, I'm sure you will get on target next time. I reiterate that you really do need to get the polar scope up and running first to make it all easier.

Hope that helps.

[Bizibilder]

It can take quite a while to get your complete set-up working and for you to learn how to operate it!!  The best thing to do is practice, maybe one bit of "kit" at a time - you will soon learn it all and things will become easier as you go.  Try a "rough" set up and take a snap of the Moon  - that should set your enthusiasm going!!  Then try just getting your mount polar aligned.  You have EQMOD so you can use the polar alignment tool.  That will get you close enough for some deep sky images - maybe 30sec exposures. As you have an 1100D you should have the Canon "utilities" software - you can use that to get started (I use it for all my DSO imaging) as it is simple to use.  When you have mastered that you can move to the more complicated set-ups.  Eventually all your software will become second nature to use and you an start to concentrate on improving your images and image processing.

[mrjonathanbrown]

Hi guy's thanks for the response. I did check my polar scope reticule and all is good. So no need to adjust that. From reading align master I gathered I only needed a rough alignment but I am wondering maybe you guys can tell me how rough is a rough alignment? Like I said earlier on I literally set the mount up and pointed north and alt at 55 Degrees. I have watched the videos regarding polar alignment using EQMOD and from what I can remember they are excellent tutorials easy to follow. 

Once I have done my rough polar alignment should I do a 1 star alignment? 

and after that use align master? 

I need be careful on how I put this across as I mentioned on my last post this is very difficult to explain. When I am looking through my live View and I do have a star in sight should I expect to see the stars as I seem them myself? I'l try and explain this a little better, When I look up at a patch of the sky, I see one very bright star and then many dimmer stars around it, some very dim and some not so dim. 

When I view that very bright star from my live view I only see that one bright star and not any of the other stars is this okay? 

and to make matters more complicated when I tell you I have slewed to a star in the sky, I'm not even sure what star I am pointing at because I haven't obviously got Go-To as I have not aligned. So I am not sure wither I am pointing at star that i see with my own eyes that is very bright or the scope is pointing not so far from that point but another star. 

This probably sounds like gibberish but I can't explain it any better right now lol. 

I do apologise for my writing.. 

[PhotoGav]

Hi,

I think that is normal behaviour for liveview in BYEOS. Only the brightest stars will show up. I can't remember exactly how it works, but you might be able to up the ISO to increase liveview sensitivity? Anyway, for alignment, only seeing the bright star is actually a help, it can get very confusing otherwise! When it comes to framing, it's better to shoot an exposure at high ISO and view the single file rather than trying to use LV.

A rough polar alignment is what you will acheive with the polar scope.

You don't need to do a star alignment before using Alignmaster.

As for not being certain what you are looking at through the scope... Oh yes, that is one of the problems! Your finder scope is your friend there. Make sure it is aligned with the main scope and then you can use that to get the star in the field of view. Then move to liveview to centre up the star. Alternatively, use Astrotortilla to let the laptop do it all for you!

Good luck.

[mrjonathanbrown]

@PhotoGav cheers mate for the reply, I haven't attached my finderscope to my scope as it is to awkward to look through. I have the skyliner 200P (1200mm / 200m) Its a big scope on the EQ6 its a nightmare lol. I will be purchasing very soon the Skywatcher 130P-DS I think this might be more manageable and obviously it is designed for astrophotography. I can only imagine once I have polar aligned and I slew to the brightest star in the sky that should make a good reference? I can see how far off I am. Finally run align master.