majestic0110

Still having problems actually. Pretty sure PA was OK last night and I spent a good hour and a bit setting up. What happens is the guider AUTO CALs then within about 5 seconds it "loses" the star, it drifts out of the FOV. I think its "over compensating" or something as when I have no guiding on, the star drifts out of the FOV in almost the opposite direction. Is there some setting I need to adjust somewhere?

So when I am using the Polar Finder app, presumably the Polaris Peak is the same thing as Polaris Transit? Is that correct?

thanks a lot all of you, I am thinking that my polar alignment is not that great, I have only tried it about 6 times. I guess I need to do some more reading about it. Do you guys have any tips on getting perfect PA?

Hi all!

I have just bought a Synguider and a star travel st - 80 as a guider scope which I have piggy backed onto my SW 200 PDS on an HEQ5. I am using a canon 500 D camera in the 200 pds. My first attempts at imaging some stars last night were unsuccessful as I had terrible field rotation, even at 5 seconds exposures. I think I have pretty decent polar alignment, I was using the Polar Finder app for android and followed these instructions to the letter:

http://www.polarfinder.com/alignment.html

I have the GOTO handset but I did not perform an alignement with that, also - does the autoguider cable go into the mount itself or the handset?

What is basically happening is I get the star LOCKED in the synguider and then I tell it to AUTO GUIDE CAL, which it does for about 5 seconds (though the star does appear to jump quite a bit in RA), then I get the message - STAR LOST and my images come out with appalling field rotation. I am not sure how accurate my polar alignment is, as I am still pretty new to my EQ mount, but do you guys have any advice at all? I knew astrophotography was a challenge, that's opne of the reasons I decided to pick it up - but I should really be able to get more than 5 seconds on an HEQ5 without guiding surely!