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Had an interesting night last night..

geppetto

By geppetto
in The Astro Lounge

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geppetto

geppetto

Posted
Posted

Ashamed to admit it but I have never (till last night) had a go at proper

polar aligning using the drift method.

Nice evening with clear skies and little breeze so set up the HEQ5 with the 130mm F5 on top with

Toucam at prime focus.

Connected into a trial of K3CCDtools 3 for the capture screen with reticule.

Got a star due south in the middle of the crosshairs and tweaked every which way till I got things

right in my head about what way to move the RA of the mount. After a Little time I got the thing running

for a few minutes with little or no drift so moved to a star in the west (can't see east from here) and

tweaked away to eliminate the drift in that direction.

Anyway, for a first go, I spent maybe 45 minutes messing and then did some imaging using the Toucam

to test the results.

Pleased to say it was worth the effort. Virtually doubled my imaging time before drift and was getting a

high percentage of usefull frames up to and above 60 seconds unguided.

I marked where to put the mount next time but realise you can't just plonk it back in the exact right place.

I was so impressed by the fiddly but nil cost improvement that I'm toying with the idea of installing a pier

on the yard to take the HEQ5 head.

So, anybody who hasn't done a drift align cause it sounds too complicated, have a go, it's worth it :D 8)

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geppetto

geppetto

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Phil...Do you have a good resource for drift aligning. All seems a bit complicated

To be honest, reading all the drift align write ups put me off till now.

It's far easier to do than the instructions make it out to be.

Have a read on here...

http://www.petesastrophotography.com/index.html?mainframe=/tutorial.html&tutormain=/tutorial/polaralignment.html

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Chubster

Chubster

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Having said that, I can't get version 1 to recognise my Toucam's attatched

Strange mine works fine. Have you tried unistalling Ktools then reinstalling toucam drivers with the latest ones then reinstalling Ktools...sorry if this is "sucking eggs" but it might work
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trudie

trudie

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Hi Phil,

Chubster has already asked 1 of the questions regarding how to drift align, thanks for the link, have tried to polar align on a number of occasions but its still not accurate, okay for short exposure like I've been attempting but not great. Came to a conclusion I must be thick as could not do it.

This link does not sound too bad, so will probably give it a go. Not 2nite its clouded in at the mo.

I have the free version of K3 but are not following you with regards using it for this purpose (sorry told you I was thick)

Thanks

Trudie

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Chubster

Chubster

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Hi Trudie.

If I am understanding Phil correctly I think you use K3ccd tools with the reticule turned on. Then get a star into view through the toucam. Think it is then the same as the reticule eyepiece. Is this correct Phil?

I cant polar align as there is a tree and some flats in the way so will have to give this a go sooner or later!

Chub

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