Star Adventurer DSLR Alignment

[daveangie0110]

Hi All (Newby Here)

I am about to purchase a Skywatcher Star Adventurer Astro Bundle this will be my first time imaging the night sky using just a DSLR.

Once I have polar aligned the Star Adventurer and attached my DSLR and turned it to what I would like to image how do I know if the camera is looking directly at what I want to image, my camera has live view but would a faint DSO appear on my camera screen? I will also be using BYEOS.

Many Thanks

[Alien 13]

There are a few options, you can buy or DIY a hotshoe mounted RDF/finderscope  or take a few exposures of a couple of seconds to verify you are on target.

I find Liveview quite sensitive and will show any of the brighter stars near a target and much fainter stars when zoomed in. 

Alan

P.S I find the camera live view screen is much better than a PC with BYEOS/APT

[Tinker1947]

Easy way is take a image, you DSLR will be wide field anyway so your get something in the sensor, just tweak it with the micro adjusters on SA, get the PA right and the balance you can expect no star trails for 5 minutes or there abouts.....

[AndyUK]

You can also crank your ISO up to increase the sensitivity whilst checking framing as well... but don't forget to set it back down again afterwards

[michaelmorris]

I'll second the usefulness of a red dot finder fitted to the hotshoe of the camera. 

http://www.365astronomy.com/Blitz-Hotshoe-dSLR-Camera-Adapter-and-Red-Dot-Finder-COMBO.html

Properly aligned, I find it allows me to get the target pretty much bang on, even using a 200mm lens.  The camera is monuted on the tracking mount using a reasonable quality ball head (Manfrotto 496 I think)  I then use a few test shots to adjust the framing.

[Alex23]

I also just bought the Star Adventurer and used it a couple of times now with my Canon 700D, the Canon 70-200 2.8 IS II and a Manfrotto MH055M0-Q5 ball head.

First of all I use an app called "Sky Guide" (there are for sure many others) to roughly find out where the object is in the sky is. Then I'll try to find some brighter stars to roughly align the camera in that direction.

Then you got a couple of options (some already mentioned above):

• Use a wide aperture (2.8 in my case), crank up the ISO to max and try to frame the object in the live view of the camera (in case you're using a zoom, start wide e.g. 70mm and then zoom in while adjusting the focus)
• You can use the "Frame & Control" panel of Backyard EOS. It gives you a lot of options for the live view to enhance brightness, edges, contrast and some other algorithms (click on the button "Star HD"). This also helps you to focus later. 
• Using a laser. Just read about it, never tried it. Some people shoot it through the polar scope to be sure that they hit Polaris. Guess you can also mount one on the cameras hotshoe and see the beam in the sky.
• Last but not least - quick snapshots with high ISO (one click in the "Focus & Frame" panel). Honestly... that's what I'm using most of the times

Just the thoughts of another newby. Anyway... hope it helps