Alignmaster not doing its job correctly or is my usage incorrect!?

[Gib007]

Since Alignmaster is a pretty well-established program, I'm fairly sure it's the latter (me not doing something correctly). I just want to clarify. The other night I went out for some astrophotography and decided that after doing my usual EQMod polar alignment, I would use Alignmaster to correct most of the error in the polar alignment. I had read that before using Alignmaster, I should clear the align data in EQMod and ensure I set the mode to Dialog Based and not Append on Sync. Anyway, I ran Alignmaster, left the city location to whatever it had set by default but set my GPS coordinates as accurately as I had set them up in EQMod and Stellarium. I set the correct time though so that Alignmaster displayed my laptop's system time.

I went through the initial procedure and it displayed one pair of stars as Best. These were Capella and Dubhe. Alignmaster slewed to Capella, I centered it in the eyepiece crosshair with EQMod's slew controls and then went over to Dubhe, centering it as well. The polar alignment error was displayed and I was asked to proceed with the correction procedure. I answered Yes to correct the Azimuth. The telescope was slewed slightly (the error amount) from Dubhe and my aim was then to center the star but using the mount's Azimuth bolts. Unfortunately Alignmaster had slewed my telescope in a way that did not allow me to center Dubhe with just the Azimuth bolts. The following is a Microsoft Paint diagram of what I mean:

The star was initially in the centre of the crosshair but when Alignmaster applied the polar alignment error, it set off the star to where you see it above. Moving the mount's Azimuth bolts left or right would only move the star in the direction shown by my yellow arrow above, i.e. nowhere near the crosshair bullseye. At this point I aborted using Alignmaster, redid my polar alignment with EQMod and accepted that as it was. I of course set Append of Sync for alignment and did a GOTO alignment with Stellarium. However, I was overall dissatisfied with not being able to use Alignmaster as I had hoped.

What am I doing wrong?

Is there something I should/should not do?

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!

[Gib007]

By the way, just in case it is relevant, my mount is Skywatcher NEQ6 Pro. All my software is up-to-date and the EQDirect cable is working perfectly.

[tbird]

I can't help, but I've had the same problem. Usually I park the scope and start again, quite frustrating when you want to get on imaging

[Bizibilder]

Nothing wrong - often on your first Alignmaster runthrough you won't get the star on the crosshair perfectly. Just get it as close to the "X" as you can and then do the Latitude in the same way (ie "near as"). Alignmaster asks if you want a second go? Say "Yes" and, this time, you should get the star "dead on" the crosshair. If you were initially way out, you may need a third go.

[Gib007]

Nothing wrong - often on your first Alignmaster runthrough you won't get the star on the crosshair perfectly. Just get it as close to the "X" as you can and then do the Latitude in the same way (ie "near as"). Alignmaster asks if you want a second go? Say "Yes" and, this time, you should get the star "dead on" the crosshair. If you were initially way out, you may need a third go.

Ahh, I see, ok, that makes sense. I didn't think it was normal, if you know what I mean. I initially expected the star to be offset exactly along the Azimuth axis and later to be offset exactly in the Altitude axis.

Anyway, star movement during Azimuth and Altitude adjustments should be perpendicular to each other so I can always picture in my head where I should stop adjusting Azimuth so that later the Altitude adjustments will ensure the star intersects the crosshair as closely as possible. As you say, numerous iterations of this process should make it increasingly simpler and therefore increasingly accurate.

Thank you for the tip. I will give this a go at the weather's earliest convenience...

[sloz1664]

You will find if your mount is not level Alignmaster does not play ball.

cheers

steve

[Gib007]

You will find if your mount is not level Alignmaster does not play ball.

cheers

steve

Fair enough, thanks. I always make sure it's completely leveled though.

[SteveA]

I had exactly the same issue, which I've now managed to solve thanks to an FAQ on the EQMOD project site

http://eq-mod.sourceforge.net/faqs/alignmaster.html

"Just a word of caution about using EQASCOM in combination with Alignmaster. You must make sure that the EQASCOM pointing model is disabled whilst alignmaster does it's stuff. So star by clearing out any existing model and put EQASCOM into "dialog mode" for alignment. This is because Alignmaster works by issuing a sync and you want this treated as standard ASCOM sync rather than as a trigger to add an alignment points. Once finished with Alignmaster you are free to reload an existing pointing model and switch to "append on sync" mode (if you prefer it)."

Hope this helps.

Steve

[Gib007]

I had exactly the same issue, which I've now managed to solve thanks to an FAQ on the EQMOD project site

http://eq-mod.source...lignmaster.html

"Just a word of caution about using EQASCOM in combination with Alignmaster. You must make sure that the EQASCOM pointing model is disabled whilst alignmaster does it's stuff. So star by clearing out any existing model and put EQASCOM into "dialog mode" for alignment. This is because Alignmaster works by issuing a sync and you want this treated as standard ASCOM sync rather than as a trigger to add an alignment points. Once finished with Alignmaster you are free to reload an existing pointing model and switch to "append on sync" mode (if you prefer it)."

Hope this helps.

Steve

Thanks for mentioning it. Thankfully I did know this during my first attempt at using Alignmaster. The issue was that it still didn't allow me to centre the star with just one axis (altitude or azimuth). I haven't had a chance to try this out again but I'm aware now that it's plausible I was just a bit too far off from centre on the first iteration. My intention is to use each axis to get the star as close to centre as possible, then repeat once or twice to get it dead-on.

[NickK]

I could tell you of a story about attempting to use AM and always being about 7 seconds out .. much to the amusement of Photosbykev who was standing with a cuppa laughing at my attempt!

I think there are several points that aren't covered in the documentation and it's probably the reason why it had issues.

[Michael1971]

I had the same thing happening to, and I stopped using it after several times. In the meantime I switched to a new mount and use the eqdirect method.

When the clouds decide to part from here I am going to give it a go again.

[Gib007]

I had the same thing happening to, and I stopped using it after several times. In the meantime I switched to a new mount and use the eqdirect method.

When the clouds decide to part from here I am going to give it a go again.

Is this simply using EQMod to have it rotate the axis to allow you to centre it with the altitude and azimuth bolts? I do this myself in EQMod and then my intention would be to use Alignmaster to simply correct the inevitable slight misalignment.

[Earl]

I think it would be fantastic if Alignmaster and EQmod work together to refine communication between the two applications to make it all a bit easier.

[Russe]

Great thread!

Now - what do you do if your next target is off by a bit - do you slew to it manually and then sync target on Stellarium?

[Russe]

Stupid question... Syncing is funnily enough a bit weird in Stellarium. First, it moves away from the target after the sync command was issued. Later in the night it never syncs onto the target.

Very confusing...

[teleskopjo]

Gib007 did you manage to sort out the polar alignment with Alignmaster?

[kirkster501]

Holy thread revival.....

I also having issue with getting this software to work (fault at my end of course, not the software's!) .  TBH I thought my PA was pretty good anyway (having used the EQdirect method) and when I used AstroTortilla my slews were always putting my targets bang in centre of the FoV  However, PHD2 complained a bit about my declination PA and that it could be due to incorrect PA so I thought I'd try AlignMaster to get it better still.  Indeed, on my next mount - MESU 200 I won't specify the Polar Scope so leaning how to use this software makes sense.

1. Using EQMod/CdC I pointed to a bright star, plate solved then got my goto correct so that when I use AM it will put the first star in the FoV.

2.  Fired up AM.  Selected one of the stars from a good pair and slewed using the goto button in AM.  The slew was slightly out... So I refined on star 1 as AM requires you to do, getting the star crack on in the centre.

3.  Slewed to 2nd star, aligned as per the first star.  Then did the ALT/AZ bolts as instructed by AM.  Cool.  All Good.

AM says we're done and do it again to refine?  So I said yes, expecting the first star in the first pair to now be spot on in the centre of the FoV.  It wasn't, it was out by the same amount as the first star on the first iteration of AM???  Why???? 

So I thought what the heck I'll look into it more tomorrow, let's get started with some AP tonight and did a few plate solves.  Now, all my objects are not centered like they were when I started this AM malarkey, they are all off-centre, and off centre by roughly the amount I adjusted the ALT/AZ bolts!!!!

I don't doubt the AM software works.  It is something I am doing wrong. Something to do with disabling this "model" in EQmod?  What is there to disable?

 

 

 

[kirkster501]

Silly me - RTFM.  When I get a clear night next I'll put it into dialogue mode and clear the pointing model as instructed.  Sounds like because I had not done this (I had done a one star alignment and plate solve and had thus created a one star sky model) and then I adjusted the AZ/ALT bolts, because the pointing model was still active in EQMod memory the model is then "out" by the amount the bolts were adjusted making the objects off centre by that amount.  Makes sense.  I'll report back so others who read this get the info too.