TiffsAndAstro

I'm bit shocked I've never noticed it. I believe you but still gonna check asap. i just looked and the base of the mount has only a female 3/8inch hole. nothing else.

I'm really sorry I did work out what he meant. I didn't get the optional mount as it looked no sturdier than my random brand tripod so I dont have an az pin.

Worse is using specs to look through polar scope. Oh yeah and my back. Asi air looks more tempting by the day, but I might have a play with nina first on a laptop.

Fantastic link ty. Will follow you steps if clear tonight, but will also do a polar align in app after I do a two star alignment. I might also try a 3star alignment as its possible my mount is using a cone error from my last 3 star alignment, some time ago, which I may have botched.

01:00 so after doing a second pa i looked in information: id=2'28.5' ch=00.0' np=00.0' mel=00.1' maz=06.4 tilt=03,8' Sorry it was un a different post Apologies if my replies are clunky. I'm on a phone atm and I'm old also excited to ##$% it up again as its 3pm and see some blue sky

I took a photo of my mel maz things other night see if anyone could share any light on the values then googled the terms. They seem to be a measure of pa accuracy, maybe? Synscap app wont let me doing an in app polar alignment until it has mel maz values from a 2 or 3star alignment.

It does ty astromuni. It's also what I think I was managing to do. I was doing further polar alignments in conjunction with the alt/az bolts and synscap app. I posted my mel maz and now vaguely understand what they're for, but not the meaning of the values as I have no context. If clear tonight will follow your steps exactly and do 1 3 and 5 min subs to test.

I do read them and massively appreciate their time and effort. however theres seems to be conflicting ideas at least to a noob like me and stuff that doesnt even seem to apply to my mount. For example I seem to be being told to line up Polaris in the scope via slt/az bolts and ra now and both can't be the correct approach to a noob like me. Bare in mind a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. For me I mean.

ty so much for this malcom, but, like the video you reference its confusing me few questions: 1 - i screw the mount onto the 3/8 inch thread on the tripod. "The two Azimuth adjustment bolts should be open enough to fit the spike on the tripod between them" - my tripod doesnt have a spike. 2 - the manual contains nothing about setting up the polar scope. i have watched videos on general alignment but don't want to try to use that on my mount. as a test, if i center polaris in the cross hairs and rotate ra, polaris seems to stay centered. 3 home position - watching a video now from AstroFarsography. pretty sure i've never done this part - will find a spirit level for tonight after i watch the rest of the video. 4 "Slacken of the RA lock and rotate the mount until the bubble or markings on the polar scope is in the same "hour" of Polaris is in its rotation around the NCP and then lock off the RA axix" i think is the main bit of my confusion. the bubble that appeared on the video you linked does not appear on my polar scope. At this point as polaris should be on the middle ring at 12 oclock, i rotate the ra until polaris is in the postion shown by synscan app? bit lost here with the next part, sorry "Use the Az bolts and Latitude bolts to place Polaris on the ring and in the bubble / markings (as shown in that video I linked to)" as if i rotate ra so polaris is in the correct position i wouldn't need to adjust alt/az bolts? also a ra setting circle mentioned in the home position video i found doesn't seem to exist on my sw gti. also there seems no dec setting circle as in the video too. ive tried googling ones for my sw gti mount but very few about and none in detail 5 "This is a very simplified routine... but the main area where you are going wrong is that you are performing multiple polar alignments when they are not needed - It's a one off procedure done before any observing session" i was expecting a polar alignnment done via the app/alt/az bolts would refine my polar alignment further.

yeah the asi air looks like a very useful thing. i'd really like to improve my polar alignment skills manually, but might have to just get one.

i saw a post elsewhere about the hand controller and PA with another sw mount. it looks to me that the synscan app is trying to replicate the features of the hand controller. if so, repeated PA on different stars is supposed to improve on the PA accuracy. i will give what you say a go next chance i get. PA through scope. 2 star alignment in app PA in app (but using alt az bolts as needed) 2 star alignment in app and i'm good to go? one other thing - there are what looks like two larger alt locking bolts on the mount. should these be loose during the process and then righted up afterwards, or ? the user guide literally doesn't seem to mention what they even are lol.

I'm bortle 6. Garden itself is surprisingly dark but not far from many street lamps. Keep histogram under halfway?

Ty for this. I only touch the alt az bolts for polar alignment, I've had it explained star alignment is almost unrelated. So the grinning curving star streaks I saw would be fixed by guiding?

Orion is still my priority but I'm running out of time. If there's holes in the cloud this evening I'll repeat my pa set up but revert back to 50mm pentax f1.7 and see if I can at least get round stars and get what I can of orion.

So last night I polar aligned through scope. Did 2 star alignment (mount found both within pixels of center of screen) Did a pa via synscan app could center star as directed using alt and az bolts. Did another pa near my target. Got curving trailing stars on 5 minute sub. So either my pa is still [removed word], my tripod is [removed word] in a 5 min cycling type of way my mount is broken or....? IMG_8307.CR2

yeah one minute seems ok but i must have a major issue somewhere. my polar alignments were repeatedly bang on in synscan. ill post some images as soon as i get a chance. here is an example sub from the 500second test. Does the arc shape they make suggest any one thing more than another? IMG_8307.CR2

so after doing a second pa i looked in information: id=2'28.5' ch=00.0' np=00.0' mel=00.1' maz=06.4 tilt=03,8' is that good or bad? anyone with a good link expaining mel and maz would be fantastic i did a test shot at 500mm crop sensor at 300sec and trails about 10 times width of stars doing some 60 sec ones instead

Don't tell anyone but I quite enjoy just telling the tracker to point at something and then seeing it on liveview.

well my crap 135mm i won't stop me improving my polar alignment, so at least i can get on with perfecting that

well i hope so. in theory i can work on perfecting all the other proceedures and then look at a decent lens. samyang 135mm looks ideal, but they're like £400 - might as well buy something more specifically astrography.

in a perfect world, i'd agree with you, but my budget went on the mount, hence the cheap lens. i had a look at the lens and a couple of videos and it doesn't look like something i'd want to mess with. there is a very slight rattle somewhere, but the front lens feels pretty solid. ill have a go with my 200mm f3.5 see if that is any less bad as soon as its not cloudy

Ok will give it a go if I find small enough screw driver ty

yeah sorry. i use 800 for that reason, but with light pollution and longer exposures i've tried dropping to 400 even 200. seems ok, maybe. need to test more. i stopped the lens down from 2.8 3.5 4 and 5.6 and barely noticed any decreasing of the birds size. maybe a tiny bit at 5.6. but if i use 5.6 i'd need to do three times longer exposures/times to compensate? i just think, as a total noob, the extra light hitting the sensor outweighs the slight looking reduction in birds. maybe i can reduce them in post a bit.

my budget went on the mount lol. my thinking is i can practice a bit with crap glass before deciding to spend more.

er i don't think i saw anything about trying iso800 5sec and f8 on it what would it prove/demonstrate? im v noob remember i think i got a better focus tonight and did 30 mins with 183sec subs (don't ask) at iso400 (i think will check when i copy the images later) on m31 andromeda. hopefull should be enough.# ill google a video on reseating the front element but i think it might be beyond me. screws are v small