Tracking in Stellarium using HEQ5 and EQMod

[Astrotravelk]

Hey,

First post, so hope this is the right place for this.

After some DSLR manual tracking I decided to get some proper gear to get me started.

So, after a bit of time and effort I have set myself up with the HEQ5, SW150PDS and I have connected straight into my laptop using a lynx cable to bypass the synscan (for now)> The aim being to use Stellarium & (ASCOM/EQMod) to control the telescope and do the finding etc..

That seems to be connected ok, however I have 2 questions that maybe someone can help me with.

1) When I have done all the connecting etc. and selected a DSO in Stellarium and unparked my mount in EQMod window and done all the focusing and centering. If I have selected say, a galaxy for instance, and clicked it in Stellarium, slewed to the object... is that it, is it now tracking my object for me to happily plug away with my dslr imaging? I guess I just was expecting to see a 'track' button etc...

2) Polar alignment ....should I polar align usign synscan on my mount if I am then going to bypass with a cable straight into stellarium for imaging? Does how I polar align matter in this case...?

Any advice on these 2 things would be much appreciated.

Also, if anyone can remove the clouds so I can finally use my gear that'd also be great ha!

Thanks<
K

[Cornelius Varley]

7 hours ago, Astrotravelk said:

1) When I have done all the connecting etc. and selected a DSO in Stellarium and unparked my mount in EQMod window and done all the focusing and centering. If I have selected say, a galaxy for instance, and clicked it in Stellarium, slewed to the object... is that it, is it now tracking my object for me to happily plug away with my dslr imaging? I guess I just was expecting to see a 'track' button etc..

The mount reverts back to normal sidereal tracking until another command is entered by the user.

 

7 hours ago, Astrotravelk said:

2) Polar alignment ....should I polar align usign synscan on my mount if I am then going to bypass with a cable straight into stellarium for imaging? Does how I polar align matter in this case...?

The mount should be polar aligned prior to connecting to stellarium, the software expects the mount to be correctly aligned for it to function correctly.

[malc-c]

Just to add to Peter's comment, both the planetarium program and the mount control (EQMOD in this case) is expecting the mount to ne polar aligned and in the default HOME position of weight bar vertical with the weights down and the scope pointing in line with the polar axis. 

[Astrotravelk]

Thank you both @Cornelius Varley and @malc-c that is really good to know. 
 

So, it doesn’t matter how it is polar aligned as long as it IS by the time to find an object and start imaging - and Stellarium will track once I’ve selected until I decide to stop. Great, roll on the clear skies! 

[malc-c]

Polar alignment is a subjective topic and depends on what you want the mount to do.  If all you want is to select a target, have the mount slew to it and the target be within the field of view of a wide field eyepiece then you don't need to go to any real precision.  So long as the mount is close to the polar axis, and Polaris is somewhere within the ring in the polar scope, and you start in that default home position it will be close enough.  But the more error there is in polar alignment the more the precision of the goto will be affected, and over time you may need to make small adjustment in the DEC axis as well.  On the other side of the coin, if you intend to do imaging, then you need the mount and scope to be finely tuned and as near perfectly aligned with the polar axis in order for the mount to track with a high degree of precision, which in turn, means the guiding system doesn't have to work hard in maintaining the star tracking.

By default EQMOD will track at sidereal rate following a goto command, until you manually stop it, or select other tracking options such as luna  

[AstroMuni]

On 18/02/2024 at 12:04, Astrotravelk said:

So, it doesn’t matter how it is polar aligned as long as it IS by the time to find an object and start imaging - and Stellarium will track once I’ve selected until I decide to stop. Great, roll on the clear skies! 

Suggest you get familiar with tools such as NINA which can assist with polar alignment, imaging, managing the mount etc. If you are a Mac user try Kstars/Ekos.

[Astrotravelk]

On 19/02/2024 at 16:52, AstroMuni said:

Suggest you get familiar with tools such as NINA which can assist with polar alignment, imaging, managing the mount etc. If you are a Mac user try Kstars/Ekos.

Thanks @Astromuni I have downloaded NINA and had a look. I'm familair with BackyardEOS so trying to keep with at least some familiarity for imaging. I'll look at the polr alignment aspects though for sure.
You're in Hampshire near me, do you know the Solent Amateur Astronomy group?
I'm just waiting for the clouds to dissappear down here to make a start ....

 

 

 

Edited March 24 by Astrotravelk
typo

[AstroMuni]

On 24/03/2024 at 01:57, Astrotravelk said:

You're in Hampshire near me, do you know the Solent Amateur Astronomy group?

I live in North Hampshire, so a member of the Basingstoke society. We have a few members who also attend the HAG meetings, but I dont think I know anyone from Solent group.

[woldsman]

You'll get better results if the mount is level, polar aligned, and in the in the home position to start with (using a spirit level, set RA to 18 then  move to zero; set dec to 90 then move to zero). 

In Stellarium, select plugins, telescope control and then click configure and connect mount.  A dialog box for EQMOD appears.  Un-park and check siderial tracking.  Your mount is now tracking.

There is a basic method of telling the mount where it is. Go to three bright stars in sequence (select the star in Stellarium then use CTRL & 1 to slew to the star). Centre the star in the eye piece (or the camera if using the dslr). 

Move to the 2nd and 3rd stars and repeat. Choose two stars either side of the meridian. Now you ought to be able to slew accurately to targets selected in Stellarium.

 

However,  there are better methods that you can adopt but which require some additional software: NINA (for imaging) and ASTAP (for plate solving). Both are free. 

If you use NINA and download the three point polar alignment plugin, you can do your polar alignment electronically. This will also in the process tell the mount where it is. You can also use plates solve in NINA to 

re-set position by taking an image and solving. And finally you can synch NINA to Stellarium, use its  framing module, and draw in coordinates of any object selected in Stellarium. Then NINA will slew and centre the object using plate solving. The first image you take can then be used as a reference point. Uploading it to the framing module and plate solving will take the mount back to the image. Very helpful if you image the same target over more than one night. There are videos online which explain how to do all this and how to adjust the settings in NINA to reflect the focal length of your imaging scope and pixel size of your imaging camera. 

 

 

Edited March 26 by woldsman

[Astrotravelk]

On 26/03/2024 at 09:23, AstroMuni said:

I live in North Hampshire, so a member of the Basingstoke society. We have a few members who also attend the HAG meetings, but I dont think I know anyone from Solent group.

I think I've had a coulpe of interactions with some of the HAG members. Maybe our paths will cross...

[Astrotravelk]

On 26/03/2024 at 09:55, woldsman said:

You'll get better results if the mount is level, polar aligned, and in the in the home position to start with (using a spirit level, set RA to 18 then  move to zero; set dec to 90 then move to zero). 

In Stellarium, select plugins, telescope control and then click configure and connect mount.  A dialog box for EQMOD appears.  Un-park and check siderial tracking.  Your mount is now tracking.

There is a basic method of telling the mount where it is. Go to three bright stars in sequence (select the star in Stellarium then use CTRL & 1 to slew to the star). Centre the star in the eye piece (or the camera if using the dslr). 

Move to the 2nd and 3rd stars and repeat. Choose two stars either side of the meridian. Now you ought to be able to slew accurately to targets selected in Stellarium.

 

However,  there are better methods that you can adopt but which require some additional software: NINA (for imaging) and ASTAP (for plate solving). Both are free. 

If you use NINA and download the three point polar alignment plugin, you can do your polar alignment electronically. This will also in the process tell the mount where it is. You can also use plates solve in NINA to 

re-set position by taking an image and solving. And finally you can synch NINA to Stellarium, use its  framing module, and draw in coordinates of any object selected in Stellarium. Then NINA will slew and centre the object using plate solving. The first image you take can then be used as a reference point. Uploading it to the framing module and plate solving will take the mount back to the image. Very helpful if you image the same target over more than one night. There are videos online which explain how to do all this and how to adjust the settings in NINA to reflect the focal length of your imaging scope and pixel size of your imaging camera. 

 

 

Thanks for all the detail @woldsman That's really useful. I think the last piece of the puzzle is polar aligment and think I might try the electronic method using NINA first and see how I get on.

I have the NINA plug in and everything else, there's a few options here like syncing Stellarium and NINA as you say. 

Figers crossed there are some clear skies soon. Maybe even this weekend,

[Albir phil]

On 26/03/2024 at 10:23, AstroMuni said:

I live in North Hampshire, so a member of the Basingstoke society. We have a few members who also attend the HAG meetings, but I dont think I know anyone from Solent group.

 

1 hour ago, Astrotravelk said:

Thanks for all the detail @woldsman That's really useful. I think the last piece of the puzzle is polar aligment and think I might try the electronic method using NINA first and see how I get on.

I have the NINA plug in and everything else, there's a few options here like syncing Stellarium and NINA as you say. 

Figers crossed there are some clear skies soon. Maybe even this weekend,

This may be of interest to you regarding polar alignment, I use pole master it gets you aligned very accurately,once I have done it I am aligned and have never needed to re align ,but I check it every 6 months . My rig is permanently set up, yours might be but it doesn't take long with pole master if it's not.

 

[AstroMuni]

On 31/03/2024 at 15:14, Albir phil said:

I use pole master it gets you aligned very accurately,once I have done it I am aligned and have never needed to re align ,but I check it every 6 months .

I have tried that in the past and it works beautifully. But as far as I know, it doesnt work too well if the area around polaris is not visible. Is that correct?

[Astrotravelk]

Oh that's a nifty device. I may look at that in future but going to try and get a few nights in before I spend any more money. Just bought a new Badaa cable and extension as the HEQ5 Pro only comes with the car power supply lead and the one I bought from Amazon seemed a bit janky ...

Thanks for the insight @Albir phil

It does look like you need good visitiblity of the stars to align @AstroMuni but would that not always be the case, I guess unless you are using more advanced techniques not in my world yet.. like plate solving, which I will try when I am more comfortable with everything ...

[AstroMuni]

10 hours ago, Astrotravelk said:

It does look like you need good visitiblity of the stars to align @AstroMuni but would that not always be the case, I guess unless you are using more advanced techniques not in my world yet.. like plate solving, which I will try when I am more comfortable with everything ...

The polemaster uses its own camera to allow you to polar align, rather than peering through the polar scope.

NINA & Ekos work slightly differently using your primary camera. They effectively take 3 pictures (red boxes) while rotating the mount and thus figure out where the mount axis is pointing (Blue dashed line). Green circle is where it should be to rotating once aligned.

The images should ideally be close to the pole, but if that section of sky is not visible you can still get it to figure out the mount axis rotation point by sweeping a much larger arc at a higher altitude.

Edited April 4 by AstroMuni