darrenl

Hi all, I've been using SharpCap for the last month or so and it has become a game changer for me with the HEQ5 and a 150PDS. I've been capturing very good (for me) unguided 60+ seconds exposures after alignment whereas before this I was failing to correctly align and only managing about 10 seconds before the inevitable trailing and lack of detail! I use my ZWO 120 mono mounted at the back of the tube through a 50mm Orion guide scope, the guide scope is very roughly aligned and yet SharpCap manages this alignment process effortlessly and very quickly. Generally I'm aligned after a couple of minutes with an indicated error of sub 20 arc seconds. I then move the camera to prime focus knowing that I'm sorted for the evening followed by a simple one star alignment on the handset. Next step for me is sorting out the HEQ5's very horrible bolts and learning PHD to get longer exposures (need to dig out my very old Philips SPC900 and see if can get it to work under windows 10). The only gripe that I had with it was that I failed to follow the very clear instructions for the final step, only one wasted nights imaging! I was adjusting the RA and DEC before clicking forward to the final step. The software shows the adjustment offset indicator after rotating the RA through 90 degrees and because I saw this, I automatically started adjusting bolts without thinking. I could not understand why when I repeated the steps again to confirm the alignment that I was way off! Thanks to Robin for a great piece of software, will have to cross the PoleMaster off the Christmas list and think of something else to add to it! Darren