WCS Drift Aligning

[TopHouse]

It's stupid question time Been messing with WCS, everything i read, everyone says it's simple! I'm not getting on with it, anyway, stupid question, do you have your tracking motor running or not when you're aligning?

[blinky]

Not a stupid question at all, I think I asked the guy who wrote it the same one!

Yes is the answer, because all you want to track is the drift and not the normal star movement due to earth's rotation.

[ollypenrice]

Okay here's my stupid question; I can't get an image from the webcam to appear on the WCS screen. It has the drivers running okay because it opens in its own software.

I also know it works cos a guest used WCS on my computer with my webcam so I guess its me! (Which is not unusual!)

Olly

[glennbech]

Try pressing the green "Calib" button. My VCS "Wakes up" after I do that.

Seriously. VCS is one of the least user friendly pieces of software I have come across. The author's "language barrier" does not help either.

Is there any other drift alignment software out there?

[ollypenrice]

Thanks.

I've heard of EQalign but not yet looked into it.

Olly

[martin_h]

Thanks.

I've heard of EQalign but not yet looked into it.

Olly

I've used EQalign and found it very easy - and its the only bit of software ive got that recognises my QHY5 as a QHY5! not a starshoot guider!

[TopHouse]

Thanks for the info, and I'm actually glad someone else has said they think it's user unfriendly! All the stuff I read, people said it was great and easy to use, was starting to think I must be a bit thick!

[MikeP]

If you have a mount you can control via ASCOM, have a look at Alignmaster. It is very good and gets me polar aligned in about 5 minutes or less.

You do a quick visual polar align of the mount (very rough and ready) and then start the software:

1. You pick a pair of stars from its quite comprehensive list. It slews to the first, you centre it by slew commands.
   
2. Once centred on the first, it slews to the second and again you centre with slew commands.
   
3. The software calculates how much your polar alignment is out and it slews away by a calculated offset - you recentre the star by using the mount's altitude adjuster.
   
4. Once centred again, the software slews away again and this time you recentre with the mount's azimuth adjuster.
   
5. Job done.
   

In practice, I repeat the procedure once or twice more with a higher powered eyepiece. There's no waiting for drift and you don't need to use a camera.

Mike

[ncjunk]

I can recommend eqalign as well. You first do a calibration to work out camera angle and then select a star in the part of the sky it highlights. A very nice program. Hopefully my pier will be ready today and i can set everything up.

[TopHouse]

@Mike, I'm not on ascom controller, it's just an EQ5 with the motor kit fitted.

Will try EQalign next chance I get.

[Black Knight]

I plan to try out WCS next time I'm out, but I too have had trouble getting to grips with the documentation. I want to make sure that I can actually use the software before I commit to buying a license. At least this thread has answered one of my questions!

As an aside though, as someone who as part of their day job is often called upon to author in-depth technical "knowlege base" type articles for public consumption, I am frequently appalled by the standards of documentation that comes with consumer products. Bad translations, procedures that omit important steps, assumptions that presume knowledge (some assumptions may be arguably reasonable, others less so), and so on. I'm not having a go at the author of this software in particular, just making an observation in general.

Anyway, I'm hoping I can get WCS to work as described. I couldn't make head nor tail of EQalign, and also don't have Ascom setup either at the moment.