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polar align if you carnt see polaris?

skysculptor

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baggywrinkle

baggywrinkle

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Or if you do not has the two options above to use, then a compass set to north with the adjustment mdae from magnetic to true north and an inclinometer to set the altitude angle.

I do this a lot and I can get within 1 deg (two moon widths) on most occasions, perfect for visual...not good for astrophoto work.

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Vox45

Vox45

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I had the same issue and found that for visual observation doing a 1 star alignement (on Rigel in my case) with the mount roughly aligned north with a compass and leveled, gets me any object selected in the field of view of a 25mm EP... not dead center of course but close enough :)

I struggled at first because the only stars that were availlable in the list were out of sight for me, but you can disable the filter and select from a much larger list.

Polar and 3 stars alignement are really for long exposure astrophotography from what I understand...

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LukeSkywatcher

LukeSkywatcher

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I used an EQ mount (with a 90mm refractor) for a while and from my location i could never see Polaris. I aligned it by simply using a compass to point me to north and them just little tweaks of the tripod legs to get it bang on. It made such a huge difference. Objects stayed in my view for longer and i just had to do minor adjustments of the RA control.

Not sure how your scope will function, but basically if you cant physically see Polaris............use a compass to get you pointing in the right direction.

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Steve Ward

Steve Ward

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For the best results you'll need to drift-align the mount , I've found that the DARV method using the camera rather than an eyepiece is the easiest method to use ...  :smiley:

http://www.cloudynights.com/page/articles/cat/articles/darv-drift-alignment-by-robert-vice-r2760

I had the same issue and found that for visual observation doing a 1 star alignement (on Rigel in my case) with the mount roughly aligned north with a compass and leveled, gets me any object selected in the field of view of a 25mm EP... not dead center of course but close enough :)

I struggled at first because the only stars that were availlable in the list were out of sight for me, but you can disable the filter and select from a much larger list.

Polar and 3 stars alignement are really for long exposure astrophotography from what I understand...

Polar alignment and Synscan Alignment are two different and unrelated things , accurate PA is a must for imaging to prevent stars trailing over long exposures , but Synscan alignment is just telling the mount where it is , what time it is and where in the sky it is pointing in order for the Go-To system to slew to targets ... the mount will have to be roughly pointing in the general direction of Polaris for this but nowhere near as accurately as for the first scenario.

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lensman57

lensman57

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yes with a canon dslr and 135/200mm lenses!

I am not familiar with the Sky Adventurer but SW EQ Pro mounts can do a Polar align routine after a 2 or 3 star alignment ( 2 or 3 Star alignments are different to Polar alignment BTW ) on a star without using polaris but the mount has to point pretty well to polaris for this to work reliably. You can use a guide software such as PHD guiding with a webcam, ccd or even a dslr to do polar alignment but I would not be too happy to recommend this to a beginner. The problem with PA for imaging even with a widefield lens is that you need to be within 30" of arc from polaris to avoid star trails and rotation problems.

Here is a link to using PHD for polar aligment http://www.morrell.ws/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=58:polar-alignment&catid=7:best-practice&Itemid=42 if you fancy a good read.

You also need a capture software for your camera, if it is Canon then I suggest APT which is free download , the licence is only about £10.00 for a full version. APT has a tool called DARV which tracks a star and helps you make adjustments to get the PA right.

A.G

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skysculptor

skysculptor

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ok guys thanks lots of useful info there and links to read! initially i thought of unguided , but i might well look into guiding soon! be good to get to grips with how the mount and camera perform in basic mode first i think! I'm pretty experienced with photography as its part of my work as an artist but this is quite technical which i don't mind i jus have to get my head around it ! many thanks

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lensman57

lensman57

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ok guys thanks lots of useful info there and links to read! initially i thought of unguided , but i might well look into guiding soon! be good to get to grips with how the mount and camera perform in basic mode first i think! I'm pretty experienced with photography as its part of my work as an artist but this is quite technical which i don't mind i jus have to get my head around it ! many thanks

I used to be a fine art photographer for over tewnty five years. There was not much about film emulsions and developers and so on that I didn't know. Forget the stuff about terrestrial photography, this is a very different game.

A.G

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