complete noob question on auto guiding

[Wirral man]

Today i ordered a asi 120mc to use as auto guiding, now this is my 1st with this so this is what i believel so far, i can use the asi for polar alignment with sharpcap, also for guiding use phd, can either of these programmes do both or is there anything else out there i can use??

also im a Windows user i use stellarium at the moment but heard about ascom?? and also is there a nikon astro programme? sorry for these questions but i have that much going around my head with trying to grasp every bit of this amazing and expensive hobby? thanks in advance John

[scitmon]

PHD2 does have polar alignment utilities as well if you want to avoid sharpcap.  ASCOM is a platform that many planetarium applications (Stellerium included) use to interface with your mount.  You would have the ASCOM EQMOD program running along side Stellerium.

Personally I just use Astrophotography Tool (https://ideiki.com/astro/Default.aspx) to control my camera and mount (with EQMOD running in background), and PHD2 for guiding.  I might occasionally load Stellerum to see whats in the sky when picking a target.

[Wirral man]

10 minutes ago, scitmon said:

PHD2 does have polar alignment utilities as well if you want to avoid sharpcap.  ASCOM is a platform that many planetarium applications (Stellerium included) use to interface with your mount.  You would have the ASCOM EQMOD program running along side Stellerium.

Personally I just use Astrophotography Tool (https://ideiki.com/astro/Default.aspx) to control my camera and mount (with EQMOD running in background), and PHD2 for guiding.  I might occasionally load Stellerum to see whats in the sky when picking a target.

so with phd2 is it better than sharpcap? which has the easiest and best polar alignment tool?

[scitmon]

To my knowledge, Sharpcap is not a guiding tool.  Polar alignment aids are a minefield in my opinion.  There are lots of different ones that use different methods.  I've tried PHD2's tools with no success, wouldn't work for me.  I've also tried Astrophotography Tool's DARV once and was impressed with it, but found I didn't really need any of them because my AZ EQ6's polar scope is actually really really good.  I just spend 5 mins carefully getting it in the right spot and tracking is really good.  Sorry if that doesn't help you. If you can see Polaris from your imaging spot, I would just polar align it the traditional way and see how you get on with guiding (the PHD software will tell you how good your alignment is).

[Wirral man]

ok bud thanks for the heads up

[bottletopburly]

Apt supports Nikon cameras more info on APT website  https://ideiki.com/astro/Nikon.aspx

[Marky1973]

2 hours ago, scitmon said:

To my knowledge, Sharpcap is not a guiding tool.  Polar alignment aids are a minefield in my opinion.  There are lots of different ones that use different methods.  I've tried PHD2's tools with no success, wouldn't work for me.  I've also tried Astrophotography Tool's DARV once and was impressed with it, but found I didn't really need any of them because my AZ EQ6's polar scope is actually really really good.  I just spend 5 mins carefully getting it in the right spot and tracking is really good.  Sorry if that doesn't help you. If you can see Polaris from your imaging spot, I would just polar align it the traditional way and see how you get on with guiding (the PHD software will tell you how good your alignment is).

Same here. I have managed 30 minute exposures with manual polar alignment, 2 star alignment using the synscan handset and then PHD2 to guide. 

I do take time to set up the mount and make sure it is pointing in the right direction and then use the Polar Finder app to locate what position Polaris should be in.

 

[david_taurus83]

I bought a Polemaster, which, btw, is hands down the best astronomy accessory I have bought to date, for polar alignment. Prior to that, I used the polar align feature in Sharpcap. At first I was very impressed. After tweaking the camera settings for a bit it platesolved every time and gives you markers on screen telling you how much to adjust alt and az. However, when I tried to check against the opposite side of the mount I was getting different results. After trying drift aligning and struggling with the weather, clouds, time etc i caves in and bought the Polemaster. Afterwards I realised one of the mistakes I was making which may have contributed to the error I was getting in Sharpcap, was that I was releasing the clutches to slew the mount around it's RA axis. I should have skewed using the handset only. Its actually on my list of things to do, set up using the Polemaster and then run the Sharpcap routine and see if there's much difference between them both. I will report to the forum when I get the chance. I would say, seeing as you already have bought the camera, spend £10 on the Sharpcap Pro licence for full polar align feature, and see how you get on. At the very least it will get you very close to where you need to be, even if used as a precursor to drift aligning.

[kens]

10 hours ago, Wirral man said:

so with phd2 is it better than sharpcap? which has the easiest and best polar alignment tool?

PHD2 now has three polar alignment tools. The original one, drift alignment (which I call classic drift alignment) is the most accurate as it is a "what you see is what you get" method. To use classic drift alignment you need to align at two points near the celestial equator (dec 0); one near the meridian and another near the horizon. This can take some time.

There are two new ones:

Polar drift alignment (PDA) is, I think, the simplest one around but is also the least accurate. To use it you use a star near the celestial pole. Any star will do. It is good down to about 10' PA error after which it struggles to stabilise. Thats because it relies on very small drifts in the selected star. It is a good way to get a "pretty good" alignment before switching to a more accurate method.

Static Polar Alignment also operates near the celestial pole and is more accurate than PDA. It is faster than classic drift alignment because you can adjust both alt and az in one go. Its algorithm is equivalent to both SharpCap and Polemaster so similar accuracy could be expected. 

I've posted video tutorials via this thread: