Alignmaster star selection

[Dave_D]

Does anyone have any idea how alignmaster picks the two alignment stars?? i've been using it for a while and it only ever selects stars in the NW and NE quadrants even when stars such as Aldebaran and Betelgeuse were well above the horizon. It's never let me select stars that were below +20 dec

[oldpink]

I have similar issues, most of the stars listed are blocked from my view
my location is south facing with a line of houses behind me running east to west

[Bizibilder]

You can pick any of the pair options that it suggests.  The first few are the "best" choises as they are generally a long way apart which will give the best results.  If you wish you can always add stars of your own - as long as you get the format right you can edit them into alignmasters list and then use them.

[Dave_D]

You can pick any of the pair options that it suggests.  The first few are the "best" choises as they are generally a long way apart which will give the best results.  If you wish you can always add stars of your own - as long as you get the format right you can edit them into alignmasters list and then use them.

yeah i know, what i'm puzzled about though is that the stars offered as 'best' are all at fairly high declination north. i'd prefer to align on stars close to the celestial equator but they don't appear as options for some reason. 

[Bizibilder]

That sounds a bit odd - have you tried reloading the software as the star list may be u/s for some reason.  If you scroll down manually you should be able to check if the list is complete.

[Dave_D]

here's a screenie of the sterne.txt showing all the stars in the list. i went through the stars listed for alignment in alignmaster and put '*****' after them. (not saved it of course)

i'm really puzzled as to why stars like betelgeuse and rigel aren't available, but sirius is listed.

it's not the installation as i installed it on my desktop as well and the list of available stars is identical.

[Bizibilder]

It might be worth contacting the vendor as your star list seems OK.  All very odd.

[oldpink]

same list I have

as you say I can't understand why the obvious ones are not available esp betelgeuse, Rigel, Aldebaran it would make my alignment a lot easier

[Dave_D]

i've emailed the devs so hopefully an answer will be forthcoming soon

[Dave_D]

5 days and no reply from the alignmaster devs... not impressed

[ronin]

I half suspect that stars below +20 are inaccurate.

The Earths atmosphere will bend light and what you see is the apparent location not the true location.

From a few things I have read when we see the sun touch the horizon then the sun is actually fully below the horizon. It is the refraction of the light that causes us to still see it. Stars low down will be the same.

As to the rest no idea.

[Dave_D]

I half suspect that stars below +20 are inaccurate.

The Earths atmosphere will bend light and what you see is the apparent location not the true location.

From a few things I have read when we see the sun touch the horizon then the sun is actually fully below the horizon. It is the refraction of the light that causes us to still see it. Stars low down will be the same.

As to the rest no idea.

can sort of agree with that but it doesn't explain why sirius is an option but stars in orion, which are higher and within 1.5h of RA, and less susceptible to atmospheric disturbances are not.

[bill2stan]

5 days and no reply from the alignmaster devs... not impressed

Hi Dave_D - in similar situation - did you ever resolve this? If so, how - could you share your sterne.txt - would save a lot of typos!!

[AlistairW]

I was messing about with the sterne.txt and the entries there. I had Stellarium going, and noticed a couple of things. First some of the names were not recognised in Stellarium such as Alphekka - which is recognised as Alphecca - anyway that is a very small thing. But what I did notice is that the values for the RA and Dec we ever so slightly different from the values given for the year 2000 epoc in Stellarium and the sterne.txt. Is that because of my lat\long location ? - Just wondered why the slight difference. I actually updated the sterne.txt with the values from Stellarium, - yet to try it though to see if there is any extra improvement on accuracy ......

[Dave_D]

Hi Dave_D - in similar situation - did you ever resolve this? If so, how - could you share your sterne.txt - would save a lot of typos!!

 i stopped using alignmaster about a year ago. i just use a very carefully aligned polarscope and the alignment routine in ascom now.