Dirft Align Issues

[wxsatuser]

21 hours ago, pshepp1890 said:

Hey everyone, my first post here

Ive started doing drift alignment in order to get my scope properly aligned in my back garden so i can do some imaging. Im getting an auto guider soon but just want help in the mean time.

So i start of with a star in the south which i can align perfectly. Stays center for over 10 min without the slightest bit of movement, perfect

I then move onto a star on the western side which i then start to get problems. The star drifted slightly north so i adjusted everything until it stayed within the north/south cross hairs of my eyepiece. Problem i have is that the star still moves within the east/west cross hairs. I went back and checked on my southern star and that didnt move for over 10 min again. Went back to the western star which north/south did not move, stayed dead center for over 10 min but east to best it was most of the way off the eyepiece after only around 3 or 4 min.

What is the problem here? Could it be that the mount is not tracking fast enough?

All help needed if possible please guys and gals. Ive spent alot of money on this (for whats alot of money for me lol) and really want to get some good images.

Thanks all, Paul.

When you moved to the West side you said " I adjusted everything ", in reality I hope you only adjusted the Altitude bolts on your mount.

You don't really want to be using a star on or near the South horizon, you need to be near the Meridian and the celestial equator.
In this case near due south and around 40degrees above the south horizon in the UK.
I believe I'm right, that the further you move from the celestial equator the longer you drift will have to be.

Personally I would ditch the eyepiece and use your Nikon and the DARV method of aligning.

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

A very good standalone guider is the Lacerta MGEN.
It is a fair bit of money, yes we did say money pit but no laptop, camera control, dithering, a nice Sony chipped camera, all you need is a cheap 50mm finder scope and away you go.

http://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php?products_id=4173#cs

[Davey-T]

If you fire up Stellarium and press the . key it will highlight 0 deg not very easy to see as it just changes to a slightly different shade of blue.

If you follow it across the sky you see it rises in the East goes "up" and ends in the West, stars around this line are best for drifting on, so low in the East or West and high in the South, adjusting the east / west bolts in the south and dec in east or west.

Following this line if your polar aligning is out the star will either gradually climb above or drop below this line, best to try to keep east of the meridian as you don't want a meridian flip in the middle

Bear in mind that all you're doing is aligning the mount RA axis with the pole, it won't eliminate any inherent mechanical issues with the mount.

As Mike says the DARV method can be used successfully once you get your head round what your trying to do getting the orientation right.

Also as per Mike would recommend the Lacerta over the Synguider

 

Dave

[bruno]

it may be easier to download polar finder on to your phone or pad then do a one star alighment near to the image that you want  ican get 3mins unguided that way or the other way may be to buy a qhyccd pole master which plate solves the issue for you