APT - a few questions

[Guest]

I'm just getting to grips with APT which is a great piece of software but I have a few of questions.  I have a SW200PDS and a canon 450d.  

1. In the tools there is a thing called DARV. I thought great, an easy way to do drift alignment with polar alignment. I tried it but all I got was a straight line. I'd done the polar alignment the usual way and then deliberately adjusted it out. So I was expecting to see a V shape. When I looked closely at the line I realised that it was slightly thicker one end than the other so it was a very narrow V shape. I came to the conclusion that it was probably because there wasn't enough magnification. I put a x2 barlow in and tried again but the result wasn't much different. I tried different exposure times but still no luck. Has anyone got any tips for using this tool?

2. I use Live  view a lot which I'm sure everyone does. But it only shows up the bright stars. I tried playing around with the controls under the histogram tool including autostretch but all I got was a huge amount of fuzzy noise like an untuned TV. Any help on that would be great.

3. Also with live view. I wanted to use the x5 zoom but all I got was the untuned TV again.

4. I was trying to find the settings for live view but all I could find under tools/apt settings was the number of stacked images. I thought I'd seen reference to an exposure time on one youtube video but I couldn't find the setting.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Craney]

I've only stated using it myself so I cannot answer all the points...   

but... I'll have a go.

Just to say  and somebody may correct me here... I use CCD cameras and not a DSLR, and so if none of the below work the issue could be APT not connecting to your camera, either a hardware link (cable) or telling APT which camera it should expect.

Presuming all is connected and functioning.......

2) and 3)  Look at the menu boxes at the bottom right hand side when you are in the 'camera' section.   Mine defaults to  bin 8x8 !!!  which sure makes big pixels and weird scenes on the display.

It has it's use in detecting the faint fuzzies though.    Get 2) sorted, then look at the ROI  (region of interest) box in the same part of the display. Toggle between 1/2, 1/4 ....on/off etc.

4)  Again Live view exposure times should be displayed in the menu boxes.   The 'bulb' option can fine tune the exposure for flats if the listed times are not quite right.

Apologies if this is all known and understood already.  I wrote my attempt at guidance before reading you had a DSLR ... oops....

Anyway, hope you solve it soon.

Sean.