Alignmaster - it just doesn't do it for me!

[Star Gazer]

I squandered last nights excellent conditions, but that's another story; so towards the end of my session I decided that I should try and get to know Alignmaster properly.

I did 7-8 iterations of the necessary steps in Alignmaster adjusting for Alt and Az as it suggested. The thing is I could get accuracy in Alt down to 0^ 0' 5" which was very nice, but I could never get the Az error below 0^ 30' 0" which was not so nice. With every iteration I seemed to be yo-yoing between more-or-less the same error, even when I used a different star paring.

I used Alignmaster and Backyard EOS drift align screen, so I can almost get the stars pixel perfect positioning in the cross hairs (much more accurate than a reticle eyepiece I think)

I love the idea of Alignmaster but it is obviously not working for me. If I could get 5" accuracy in Alt and Az id be a much happier bunny. Any ideas on what might be

going wrong?

EDIT

I thought it might be useful to list the steps I have been using just in case my methodology is not correct.

1. Level mount.

2. Polar align using scope (should get me close-ish)

3. Move mount to known star (say Betelgeuse) align using red dot finder.

4. Using the reticle view (drift align view) in Backyard EOS and the ASCOM control tweak the mount so that Betelgeuse is in the middle of the cross-hairs.

5. Using handset sync the mount with Betelgeuse.

6. Now start up Alignmaster (AM) and pick two stars and choose 'Next'.

7. Click 'GoTo' in AM so that the mount slews to the first star.

8. Using the ASCOM controls tweak the first star so that it is in the middle of the cross-hairs

9. Click 'Next'.

10. Click 'GoTo' in AM so that the mount slews to the second star.

11. Using the ASCOM controls tweak the second star so that it is in the middle of the cross-hairs

12. Click 'Next'.

13 Now the AM reports the Alt and AZ error.

14. Click 'Next' and choose 'OK' to correct Az.

- Star moves away from the centre of the cross-hairs

15. Using only the Az screws on the mount, I move the star into the centre of the cross-hairs.

15. Click 'Next' and choose 'OK' to correct Alt.

- Star moves away from the centre of the cross-hairs

16. Using only the Alt screw on the mount, I move the star into the centre of the cross-hairs.

17. Click 'Next' and answer yes to repeat from step 6.

May be steps 3, 4, 5 are really necessary but since I am getting such a large error I think these steps might make my initial error a bit smaller for AM to correct.

Does anyone see any issues here?

[Capricorn]

Just read the alignmaster instructions, they say to start from Polaris not any other star.

Surely that means that when you are on Betelguese and start Alignmaster that alignmaster assumes it is aimed at polaris and slews off to some strange position.

If the first star is Betelgeuse and you simply click through the menu then Alignmaster will get no data to compute the errors from Polaris to Betelgeuse so you are not allowing it to gather data.

Your steps do not match the instructions that are on the web site.

[Star Gazer]

Hi Capricorn,

I don't read the instructions in the way that you do. For instance it says:

Do a rough alignment of the mount to Polaris in the Northern Hemisphere

I don't read that as starting at Polaris. In any case I am doing this by using my polar scope.

Also the Alignmaster web site says:

The programm slews to two stars and uses the error information (offset

after second slew) to calculate the misalignment to the polar axis.

After calculating this offset the program slews to the difference, now

turn the alignment screws (ALT and AZ) of your mount, so that the star

is in the center again

So as long as you have a rough alignment any of the star pairs it suggests will be fine for the calculation of error.

[Slim]

I'm still to try and use alignmaster but surely you have to start the process from a known position of your scope? I would assume that you would have to start from the home position?

I found this vid which shows someone using it.

[Star Gazer]

Hi Slim,

I believe that as long as you have rough polar alignment it does not matter where you begin.

Getting back to my original post. I now have Alignmaster working a little bit better. I realised that I was 10 seconds adrift in my latitude for my location, now the yo-yo affect has gone. However the accuracy in Alt and Az is only down to 1 minute; which isn't good enough IMO.

What is worse after settling for one minute inaccuracy In both axes I played with a few shots of the horse head. Because that didn't go well I thought I'd try a few more iterations of AM. To my astonishment AM was not reporting 10 second error! Not sure were this is coming from unless it is just flexure in the focuses / Powermate I was using.