Tips for star alignment

[5haan_A]

Hi,

With my imaging set up it takes forever and a day for me to star align. Generally I spend 45 minutes aligning, which then means less time spent imaging.

 

What can I do to speed up the process?

Part of my problem is that i see too many stars on screen and find it difficult to precisely sync up to the right one. 

 

Thanks,

[Hughsie]

What acquisition software do you use for capturing your images? Astrophotography Tool and Sequence Generator Pro offer a plate solving solution. Just take a picture of the sky you are looking at and it will sync your location between the mount and planetarium software. Takes a few minutes and you are away to concentrate on imaging.

 

John

[Robny]

Maybe have a look into plate solving rather than doing star alignment.  Much quicker and accurate.

[5haan_A]

3 hours ago, Hughsie said:

What acquisition software do you use for capturing your images?

I use Sharpcap. It has a plate solving function, but I hadn't used it. So does something like Sharpcap or SGP sync with your other software like cartes du ciel? 

I'll have a google and see what I can find, however I think what you guys have just suggested is going to help me massively.

 

Thanks!

[Hughsie]

I use APT and it will sync easily with Cartes du Ciel. Stellarium can be a pain and I never quite got it to sync consistently.

John

[Hughsie]

David has created a step by step guide to setting up platesolving in APT. Worth a look to get a feel as to what you need.

[5haan_A]

On 27/08/2019 at 19:08, Hughsie said:

David has created a step by step guide to setting up platesolving in APT. Worth a look to get a feel as to what you need.

I just wanted to say thank you for sharing this with me. I followed the instructions step by step last night. 

 

Suffice to say I felt like a wizard. It worked perfectly and has made my sessions substantially easier. After doing it with plate solving I now cant see any other way of doing it. 

[widotje]

Hi there,

I recently made a video on how to setup plate solving in sequence generator Pro:

 

And this is my playlist on SGpro:

How to setup and use Sequence Generator Pro:

 

Hope this is useful for you, clear skies!