Had an interesting night last night..

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

It works by telling you the rate of drift. Even if you can't see the drift K3CCD will calculate it and show you. Very useful to see when you have gone a touch too far with the adjustment as it changes from + to - and vice versa. Dead useful for drift aligning.

Captain Chaos

[Chubster]

Looking at all the drift aligning procedures on the net they all mention orientating the eyepiece crosshairs with north-south and east-west axes of mount, how is this possible with the reticle in k3ccd tools or am i missing something ?

Chub

[GazOC]

Turn the Toucam?

[Chubster]

:? What will they do

Coat ready in anticipation

[GazOC]

Oh dear!! Nothing, you're quite right.

Guess number 2. Rotate the laptop.....

[trudie]

I'm watching and reading in anticipation waiting for the answers, but I'm now hysterical and the mental picture of all us newbies rotating all our laptops !!!

Trudie

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Have a look at this http://stargazerslounge.co.uk/index.php?topic=10821.0

My write up of the technique, it might help.

Captain Chaos

[trudie]

I am watching and reading with anticipation, but I am now hysterical at the mental image of all us newbies rotating our laptops !!!

Trudie

Sorry posted twice, must be the tears of laughter

[Chubster]

LOL Trudie........as if we would do that

Cheers CC....Thats better and in English too.

[trudie]

Course not, :nono: :nono: :nono:

[Vega]

A great thread, I too discovered the toucam drift alignment ritual a couple of weeks ago. It is defnatly worth the effort. Just out of interest does anyone make a note of which stars they use in the South and East (or West). I use one just above the Beehive in the South (just below in the finderscope). In the East I usually pick one slightly to the right of Arcturus. You'll have to excuse me not using the star names/references as I have no clue :?

Matt

[geppetto]

Blimey

You come to check the forum and theres folk twisting and turning their laptops

all over the UK

Firstly, apologies to CC, if I'd used the search, I would have found his great little write up :oops:

Yep, turn the webcam in the focuser till the RA tracking runs along the reticle line.

Get the southern star in the middle using the RA/DEC controls and then cure any up/down drifting by adjusting

the mount RA bolts. Then do the same with an eastern star and correct with the DEC bolts

Still can't get version 1 to see my Toucam, will play with that later

[Chubster]

See what ya started Phil

Now this might be another stupid question but does the webcam have to be a modified one..cant say I have even seen a star when I have my webcam in

Chub

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

No Chub, any webcam will do it if you pick a bright star. The positions aren't critical, but you get there faster if they on the meridian line as the drifting happens most there.

Captain Chaos

[themos]

Now this might be another stupid question but does the webcam have to be a modified one..cant say I have even seen a star when I have my webcam in

I have an unmodified one and it took some time to find even Polaris on the webcam. The problem is that the field of view is so small. Next time I will wait for the moon to be up, it's an easy target to use for getting the focusing done first. Also, I use an aluminium barrel that I recycled from spare bike parts and I "mount" the webcam on it with sticky tape. But I am still using the Philips tools to capture, must get the K3 suite. I will post my first Saturn video on youtube soon.

[themos]

I found the alignment guide in that link good at explaining the procedure but bad at applying it to my circumstances. Here's my quick-guide (for northern latitudes)

Azimuth: If the southern star appears to RISE, turn your mount clockwise (viewed from the top).

Altitude: If the eastern/western star appears to RISE, you are pointing too high/low.

[Trevor]

Just been reading all the above, all I can say is I now have a headache, but this might just help find the white spot on Pete’s photo of Saturn.

Over the weekend I spent 5 hours outside with the Heq5 polar aliened and when I checked the polar alignment after the session Polaris was at the 7 o’clock position about 1/3 the diameter of the polar alignment circle below where I started.

Is this good or bad? And what was the cause? Please.

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Trevor, Polaris will appear to rotate round the alignment circle over time. 5 hours is plenty to notice the movement as it will move like the hour hand of a clock, going backwards at half speed. 1 full turn per 24 hours.

Or the mount was on a soft surface like grass and had sunk a little.

Captain Chaos

[GazOC]

The cause is that Polaris isn't exactly true north.

[daz]

Chubs - the articles refer to a reticule eyepiece (one with an LED in it). You don't need one with K3 as it does all the work for you.