Drift alignment

[greenkat]

Hi all :wave:

I've been pondering the drift alignment thingymajig,

If your scope is properly aligned, then any star should (all being well) stay in the center of the eyepiece when tracking.

I know the procedure for drift alignment says use a star near to the south meridian, and then to the east , but my thinking was.... why cant you point the telescope at any star and just keep adjusting the mount until it stops drifting? :scratch:

Or am I just being stupid ?

[Milamber]

No - that's exactly what drift aligning is, but in a more structured way.

Arthur

[Vega]

Yeh, it has to be structured because its almost impossible to know exactly what adjustments are required and in what direction just by a random star in an eyepiece.

Matt

[blinky]

Get a webcam and WCS, makes things a WHOLE lot easier!

[ottUp]

Hi all :wave:

I've been pondering the drift alignment thingymajig,

If your scope is properly aligned, then any star should (all being well) stay in the center of the eyepiece when tracking.

I know the procedure for drift alignment says use a star near to the south meridian, and then to the east , but my thinking was.... why cant you point the telescope at any star and just keep adjusting the mount until it stops drifting? :scratch:

Or am I just being stupid ?

Absolutely you could do that. The preference for a South and East star just makes it easier because[list type=decimal]

[li]Stars at those locations will drift more, making your errors easier to see. (To understand this, think about a star near Polaris - it isn't moving much, so the drift due to an error would be much smaller); and[/li]

[li]Stars at those location will drift primarily due to an error in one of your two adjustments (altitude or azimuth), makng it easier to adjust.[/li]

You wouldn't be drift aligning unless you were doing photography. And, if you're doing photography you have a camera hooked up, so software assistance becomes feasible. Drift alignment software makes the job really easy.

Blinky mentioned WCS, which is good. PEMPRO also contains a drift alignment feature, and I like it a lot. Polealignmax is another good one.

- Richard

[themos]

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4OtelWKWntc might help a bit. Disclosure: I'm the author.

[greenkat]

Thanks for all your replies, I can sleep now knowing im not bonkers

[MikeP]

Thanks for the link and the video Themos. That is the clearest illustration I've seen of the effect of mount adjustments on tracking errors.

Mike

[themos]

Thanks, I tried to make it clear. If anybody can think of any improvements, please let me know. I've added captions so you don't have to listen to my voice.