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Is most of the sky this boring?


gorann

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Thanks for all this info Guys! As I have said I rather run my mount without a computer (except for PHD2). The way I solved it was to take out the SD card of my camera and put it in my laptop and had Astrobin to plate solve it (they also use astrometry.net but seems to have a priority since it takes much longer if I do it on the Astrometry net site). That told me I was about 3° south and then I used the hand controller to move 3 ° north and there I could see the Ghost. Did not take long when I finally realized that I was nowhere near my target. Still wonder why that happened.

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Hmm, is that PAE (pointing accuracy enhancement)? AfaIk, that doesn't need three stars, does it?

@gorann: if you already have a pc for guiding, why not use it for platesolving too? As long as your guidescope is pointing in the same direction as your main scope (at least close enough), you could use that for pointing your scope. Since you have an obsy, a one time alignment of imaging scope and guidescope should be enough.

A few arcminutes off in polar alignment shouldn't affect pointing accuracy much. Last saturday night, I had a polar misalignment of 2 arcminutes, according to my handset and phd2. But pointing was almost dead on.

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Yes, i think its callled PAE, and no, it does not need 3 stars, but the more you add the better. I normally just create a triangle around target to be sure im spot on when imaging a dim target.

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On 1/8/2018 at 19:58, Jannis said:

I made a quick video to demonstrate it here on a single star. Sorry for the poor video quality and camera angles...

 

Thanks very much Jannis for the effort of making a video! I will have  a close look at it if I run into this problem again. Unfortunately, right now I do not know when that will be as the yr.no site shows only clouds here for a foreseeable future - just have to hope that even Norwegian meteorologists can be wrong....

Cheers

Skärmavbild 2018-01-10 kl. 22.11.37.png

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On 1/9/2018 at 00:47, wimvb said:

Hmm, is that PAE (pointing accuracy enhancement)? AfaIk, that doesn't need three stars, does it?

@gorann: if you already have a pc for guiding, why not use it for platesolving too? As long as your guidescope is pointing in the same direction as your main scope (at least close enough), you could use that for pointing your scope. Since you have an obsy, a one time alignment of imaging scope and guidescope should be enough.

A few arcminutes off in polar alignment shouldn't affect pointing accuracy much. Last saturday night, I had a polar misalignment of 2 arcminutes, according to my handset and phd2. But pointing was almost dead on.

Really? Had not thought about that. Usually I just see 3-5  stars on the PHD image, but I guess I could increase the exposure time from 1 s to much more.

Cheers

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1 hour ago, gorann said:

just have to hope that even Norwegian meteorologists can be wrong

Unfortunately, I don't think they are. Even the Clear Outside app shows clouds for the next seven days.

Btw, if you take an image with your guide camera and one with (one of) your imaging camera(s), you could platesolve them both and get a good indication of how far off your guide scope is. If it isn't too far off, you can probably use your guide camera for platesolving and alignment.

Last weekend I was trying my new Ha filter on IC 1805, and saw the same star pattern in images from my guide cam as in those from my main camera, just a bit shifted. I think it's definitely worth to try.

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Plate Solving?

You guys sure like to complicate matters.

You're on a pier and PA has I hope been adjusted to pretty good.

You're imaging one target tonight, so a skymap that will give you good gotos all over the sky isn't necessary. 

As has already been mentioned several times, all you need to do is goto a recognised star near your target, centre it using the handset, then synch the star or whatever Skywatcher  calls it. Then goto your target. That small hop will put you accurately on target.

Michael

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5 hours ago, michael8554 said:

Plate Solving?

You guys sure like to complicate matters.

You're on a pier and PA has I hope been adjusted to pretty good.

Göran, yes. But not me. I set up my tripod based gear every imaging night. Do a 2-star alignment (synscan) and all-star polar alignment (synscan). Repeat this until ok (last time 2 arc minutes off).

Then park mount and disconnect synscan and replace with eqdir.

Connect camera for imaging. Now the only way I can align a target is with the camera. Platesolving is just the easiest way.

5 hours ago, michael8554 said:

You're imaging one target tonight, so a skymap that will give you good gotos all over the sky isn't necessary. 

Unless that target disappears out of view. Then I may go for another one. I can only image targets past the meridian, due to a street lamp.

Platesolving is just the single best and fastest way of framing my target. Usually 2-3 solutions set it centered on my sensor.

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