An exercise in frustration

[dephelis]

Well, herein lies another source of confusion for me as regards EQAlign. Given that alignment in EQASCOM has been done, if I did the correction for alt in EQAlign (select a suitable star, go to it, measure the drift and change the alt axis to move the star to the right place) doesn't that then break EQASCOM's alignment model, meaning that when you select a star for az alignment in EQAlign, the mount won't go to the right place when you tell it to?

James

If you do goto alignmenr in EQASCOM prior to polar alignment adjustment then, yes, you will have ruined the goto alignment.

I would say that polar alignment should always be performed prior to goto alignment amd that no pointing model should be active when using these semi automatic pc based polar alignment utilities.

Chris.

EQAlign is a refinement of the polar alignment process so it is natural that it would undo any GOTO alignment you have performed with either handset or EQASCOM. The point being that you need to be performing the following sequence:

1. Polarscope alignment

2. Drift alignment with EQAlign

3. Reset mount to home position

4. Set your GOTO align points with CDC

In terms of getting the EQAlign target stars on sensor without having the GOTO alignment set up, I first get a bright target like Vega on the sensor and then align the finderscope as closely as possible. I can then use EQAlign to skew to a target W/S star and manually tweak so that the star is centred in the finder and therefore, 9 times out 10, also within my DMK field of view. This is using either my 127 Mak or 150P on an EQ5 Pro.

Since using the polar alignment function in EQMod, instead of manually setting the polarscope, I've been finding that my pre-alignment point slews are getting pretty damn close to the target anyway.

[Russe]

3. Reset mount to home position.

Oh!?!? Am I that dull?!?! I've never manually set my scope back to home after polar alignment!!!!

That'd make so much more sense!!!