Polar alignment in the Southern Hemisphere

[ashv]

Hello everyone. I am having a difficult time here with polar alignment in the south. It have a star adventurer with the inbuilt polar finder. I tried to work a lot solely on polar alignment. After many days of wasting hours and hours of clear skies, I was finally able to recognise the star Sigma Octantis. It was not an easy task recognising the faint stars pattern and more so, the polar scope gives an upside down image. (Im unable to write all the difficulties i had in words here)..

Any help and advice will be greatly appreciated..

ashveen

Edited May 3, 2021 by ashv

[carastro]

I don't think many of us have had experience polar aligning in the Southern hemisphere. 

Sorry this is not very helpful, but the best advice I can suggest if you can afford it is to get Polemaster, which will fit to a Star Adventurer with the correct adapter (you need an adapter for whichever mount you use with polemaster).   I am 99% sure this has a southern hemisphere routine and is very accurate.  

There are a few members here from the southern hemisphere who hopefully might be able to help you, otherwise I would suggest trying the Australian based IceInSpace forum.  

Sorry to not be of better help.

Carole 

[Michael Murphy]

I polar aligned my Astrotrac using it's polar scope. I leveled the tracker and used the gauge on the wedge to set the latitude.

Once done, I could concentrate on finding Chi and Sigma Octantis by moving the tracker in Azimuth.

Michael.

[Michael Murphy]

I forgot to add that I used a compass to get tracker pointed roughly to the South and used https://www.magnetic-declination.com to get the magnetic declination.

 

[bluesilver]

Might not be quiet related to the equipment that you have,  but if you use SharpCap,  this will polar align you very well,  this is what i use in the Southern hemisphere and works a treat.

 

[michael8554]

Hi Ashveen

We're all assuming that you're guiding your SA.

And we don't know if you have a telescope, or a DSLR, or astro camera plus lens, you haven't said.......?

Two of the PA routines in PHD2 were written by an Australian, specifically because southern PA is so difficult.

Static Polar Alignment (SPA) and Polar Drift Alignment (PDA).

https://openphdguiding.org/man-dev/Tools.htm#Polar_alignment_tools

If you aren't guiding, then classic drift align, using an eyepiece if you have a telescope on the SA.

If you have only a DSLR and lens, then point it south in your case and around Dec=0, centre a star using LiveView and x10 display and grid display (LiveView menu).

5 minutes later fire up LiveView again and look for how far the star has drifted north or south due to PA error.

Adjust mount azimuth.

Repeat for a star to the west or east and adjust mount Alt.

Very tedious, so hope you have guiding !

Michael

[ashv]

Hello. Thank you everyone for replying. 
Sorry for not completing my post with an idea about my gear. 
I have the SA mount, just got a guide camera and scope, DSLR.
I have read about the polemaster which is great tool for polar alignment. It’s a pity there’s no astronomy shop where I live. I am from Mauritius. Have had to buy most of my stuffs from abroad. 
I read about the polar alignment using sharpcap pro. I have tried it and slowly making progress. Still not able to complete all the steps for alignment. I hope i will succeed with some more trying. 
Anyone has experience in regular polar aligning with PHD2? 
thanks everyone for the precious help.

 

ashv

[GDN]

Looking for four dim stars in a dark part of the sky is just frustrating. Even at a dark site, I have managed to fluke finding these four stars only once. 

I am pretty new to this, and I have really struggled to polar align using the polar scope with my Star Adventurer. But I have found a way that seems to work for me. I have Sharpcap pro and PHD2 installed on my laptop, and I have not long brought a ZWO guide camera and scope.

During the day, I aim the polar scope crosshairs at a distant target such as a tree on a hill. I attach my guide scope and camera to my mount, and using PDH2 with the bullseye overlay, I aim the guide camera to the same spot that the polar scope crosshairs are aimed at. Once I have the two aligned, I then tighten down the screws so these two remain aligned. I then remove the mount from the wedge.  I set my tripod up, and using a compass and taking into account magnetic declination, I then aim one leg of the tripod and wedge towards true south. For me that is 180 degrees plus 24 degrees east magnetic declination, gives me magnetic 204 degrees. I level the wedge, and then dial in my latitude on the wedge.

 

Once it starts to get dark, I eyeball the direction of the mount, and using the southern cross and the pointers as a guide, I make sure that I have the gear pointing in the correct direction. I then mount the tracker and ZWO camera and scope back on the wedge. I open Sharpcap Pro and do my accurate polar alignment. I do not look through the polar scope, I just get up and running. I have given up trying to use the polar scope to accurately polar align. It looks as if you have the gear to do this. Once I fire up Sharpcap, it takes me all of 5 to 10 minutes to polar align, and it is really, really easy. I have done this routine a good few times now, and I have the same result each time. Apart from the one time I bumped the guide scope as I walked it to my mount.

I hope it helps.

Gary

[michael8554]

Gary, you can get an accurate true north using the sun's shadow at Local Noon on the day  - not the same as noon on your watch.

A planetarium will show when the sun is crossing the meridian, or use a calculator prog:

https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/solcalc/

While zoomed out on the world map, move the red pointer to NZ, zoom in and plonk it on Christchurch.

It's at 12:25:55 today.

Michael

[GDN]

22 hours ago, michael8554 said:

Gary, you can get an accurate true north using the sun's shadow at Local Noon on the day  - not the same as noon on your watch.

A planetarium will show when the sun is crossing the meridian, or use a calculator prog:

https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/solcalc/

While zoomed out on the world map, move the red pointer to NZ, zoom in and plonk it on Christchurch.

It's at 12:25:55 today.

Michael

Thanks for the information and the link Michael. This is something that I will look into.

 

Gary