Star Alignment - with CCD camera

[gnomus]

I type with some hesitation, for I fear that I am about to ask a phenomenally stupid question.

How do people do star alignment when set up for CCD imaging?

At present, I have to set-up/tear-down every night. Once my camera is on the scope, there is a fair bit of weight at the camera end. I balance all this out (I'm paying much more attention to this than I used to). I get my polar alignment roughly sorted. Now it's time for the star alignment. No problem, I thought - I can loop the CCD image and do my 2 alignment and 3 calibration stars that way. However... what I hadn't bargained for was the sensitivity of the CCD. When doing alignment with an eyepiece the alignment stars are always very obvious. Wth the CCD camera, there are multiple stars on screen - I have no idea which of the many stars on screen is the alignment star.

OK then, back to the eyepiece. Oops ... the weight of the camera, wheel, etc is way more than my diagonal plus eyepiece. The scope is now SERIOUSLY out of balance.

I know I'm missing something. What do the folks who know what they are doing do about this?

[Freddie]

The alignment stars tend to be the brighter ones so for me they stand out very clearly against the background stars on say a 2 second loop. Are you sure the alignment star was on the FOV of the chip? It can be quite a small FOV compared to an EP.

[Dr_Ju_ju]

I use this http://alignmaster.de/ which is very cheap & even has a very helpful Dion Heap video on how to use it

[kalasinman]

Think Astrotortilla...no more alignment.

[tony210]

Great fan of Astrotortilla !! Set up is lengthy but plate solving is a very elegant way to align any set up if you are using a computer and a star map such as Cartes de Ciel- best wishes Tony

[gnomus]

I've had a look at Astrotortilla. Do I need to be able to use Eqmod for this to work? I have a CGEM which doesn't allow for Eqmod.

[kalasinman]

I've had a look at Astrotortilla. Do I need to be able to use Eqmod for this to work? I have a CGEM which doesn't allow for Eqmod.

Short anser..NO. I use AT and my mount doesn't use EQMOD. Requirements: ASCOM driver for your mount, sky chart program such as Stellarium, camera imaging software such as BYEOS/BYN. In my case I couldn't find Stellarium telescope driver for my mount, so had to add Stellariumscope to the mix.