Drift alignment getting the longest exposure possible with precise. The telescope mount manual will describe how to move the mount in these directions. Just use your existing guide scope and guide camera and quickly zoom in to perfect. In fact, it will stay at that setting even if i move the mount quite a bit. For noncomputerized telescopes, a polar scope is the best option. With the orion starshoot p1 polar alignment camera, you can forget about all of that.
I teach various polar alignment techniques in my astrophotography workshops in perth westen australia. Please note that the only inapp purchases available are tips. Tpoint by software bisque, used in conjunction with thesky tpoint will provide polar alignment data which can be used to polar align the mount. Survey of polar alignment methods celestial wonders. Polar alignment wizard leads you through the steps to achieve the best possible polar alignment quickly and painlessly. The drift align tool in phd2 can be used to quickly obtain a precise polar alignment of your.
The process takes a little bit of practice, but after doing it a few times, you should be able to obtain an accurate polar alignment in minutes. Jul 21, 2015 ive been googling all evening and lost for a possible solution for tweeking the polar alignment for an observatory based heq5 mount. But it also possible to perform with smaller heq5 mounts. Quick and accurate polar alignment using your ccd imager. Firstly, youll need to set the scope on the equatorial mount, and balace it. Of course using drift alignment method is way superior, but when east and west not visble, that is another way to do it. Here is an excellent youtube video on how to use the phd2 polar alignment process. This will produce a polar alignment good enough for visual use and short exposure photography. Octantis in your polar scope reticle for your location using your. This program helps you to polar align your mount using the drift alignment method with ccd or webcam support. And then you can start getting round to polar aligning your telescope in the southern hemisphere. Deep space objects more than usually require what we deem as long exposures, typically of several minutes up to about 20 minutes per exposure. Your images should also be free of field rotation distortion in the corners.
Accounts for refraction to produce a more accurate result than other drift alignment methods. I use the alignment tool in eqmod, which rotates the mount to the ha for polaris, but there are two factors which allow for a near enough rather than a spot on adjustment. The two new ones align in the polar region rather than at the equator so may not be suitable. It supports any cam which can be installed as a windows device meade lpi, toucam, neximage, etc. This includes accurate polar alignment and balancing the weight of your payload.
There are two common methods for improving the polar alignment. As a general rule, polar alignment software calculates polar alignment error by one of two methods. Either by recording the drift of a star, similar to conventional. Polar scope align will calculate the position of polaris or. Polar alignment tool video tutorials ken has put together some video tutorials on the new phd2 polar alignment tools. For drift aligning i use the software tool drift align within phd2. By aligning the axis of your telescope mount with the motion of the sky, you can accurately track objects in space. Obviously there could be others that i am not aware of. If long exposure photography several minutes or more is planned, then a better polar alignment is required. The method used is that of julius scheiner 185819 german mathematic, physic, astronomer and pioneer in astrophotography. This page contains for polar aligning a telescope using the drift method. Feb 11, 2017 with paa, you can easily polar align your gem quite accurately.
How to polar align accurately for astrophotography on equatorial mounts using sharpcap software i also covered what is polar alignment, what is a. The need for drift alignment it is well known that a good polar alignment is the staple of a good basis for longexposure astrophotography. A technique known as drift alignment has been used for many years, and can achieve an extremely accurate polar alignment. Apr 02, 2018 download parot polar aligner for free. The drift alignment method is one way of achieving this. Polar alignment wcs fast and accurate polaralignment for. First perform a quick alignment using the proceedure described above. Drift alignment software for german equatorial mounts. The traditional drift alignment is the most accurate whilst the polar drift is very simple and spa is fast. The purpose of drift alignment is to get the polar axis of your mount parallel to the earths axis. For long exposure imaging, the alignment using polaris will not be perfect and stars will slowly drift across the image.
Well, i used the new polar align feature last night. You can easily achieve alignment accuracy better than 1 arcmin in 5 minutes of time. Precise polar alignment declination drift technique astronomy. Polar alignment is the act of aligning the rotational axis of a telescope s equatorial mount or a sundial s gnomon with a celestial pole to parallel earths axis. Youre in luck, because there is a way to get rough polar alignment that takes about. Definitely something to keep in your bag of tricks. Parot is a program for ultra fast and precise polar alignment of equatorial mounts. Any other software installed excep the driverssoftware for your camera or an internet connection. Here are the top 5 tips i gathered from watching andy explain exactly how to use phd2 guiding for best results. In order to drift align, you need an eyepiece with cross hairs and an equatorially mounted telescope. For instructions on polar alignment using drift align in the southern hemisphere, visit how to polar align easily in phd2 drift align. Sharpcap pro polar alignment is quick, accurate and easy to use. Im using a star adventurer, the integrated scope is not accurate and precise at all, and even if some people say you dont really need very accurate alignments on small trackers, i still want to aim to the best possible. Oct 25, 2017 hello everyone, im looking for better methods to improve my polar alignment.
You can test your polar alignment accuracy without a sharpcap pro license to learn how the feature works, but you will need to buy a sharpcap pro license to use the polar alignment adjustment stage that guides you in to correct alignment. The real secret to drift alignment, however, is to use software and a camera to assist you. Quick and accurate polar alignment using your ccd imager the best way to assure you have an accurate polar alignment is to measure and correct the actual drift caused by any misalignment. Dec 03, 2017 the latest dev5 version of phd2 now includes two new pa tools. Polar drift alignment pda and static polar alignment spa they can be viewed here. Tutorial on how to perform polar alignment with the hour angle method. Macroberts article outlines the drift method for polar alignment as it is universally quoted, where the drifts of stars in two equatorial fields are used to determine the direction towards which to move the polar axis to better align the it with the celestial pole. Waiting until the stars come out on a moonless night which is perfect for imaging is the wrong time to try drift alignment for the first time. Preparation make sure your mount is reasonably level.
Polar alignment of your equatorial mount the blog formerly. Polar alignment is the act of setting up your telescope in such a way that the north end of its polar axis points toward the north celestial pole and its south polar axis points toward the south celestial pole. An eyepiece with illuminated cross hairs or reticle is needed for the drift alignment method. This is the easiest to use of the polar alignment tools in phd2. Polar alignment is an essential first step towards a night of visual observation or astrophotography. How to polar align accurately for astrophotography on equatorial.
Drift alignment balancing your telescope balancing the declination axis 1. Then they point to the sun and use the standard image drift method to make fine adjustments to align the polar axis as follows. Unfortunately it is very time consuming, since the drift of a star over time must be observed. This can be greatly speeded up using a ccd camera, since subpixel centroid measurements can easily be made. For me, the ideal polar alignment procedure should be. While many of us have worked out suitable ways to store, transport, assemble and pack up our portable telescopes, we are all still presented with the problem of accurately pointing the polar axis of the telescope at the south celestial pole scp. I tried the drift alignment tool in phd2 and found it to be very easy to use and resulted in very good polar alignment with little difficulty. This tutorial best suited for the eqneq6atlas mounts. They are bit different than the larger mounts but the principle is the same. Polar alignment, looking for more accurate methods. Polar align on equatorial mount in southern hemisphere ozscopes. Very popular software for web cam imaging, which i believe can also be used for polar alignment.
To skip all this info and just get the essential quick cheat sheet for polar alignment download the drift alignment in the southern hemisphere document. Theres also a version available for the meade dsi cameras. Many computerized equatorial mounts including forkmounted telescopes on wedges have a polar alignment routine built in to their software to provide a more accurate alignment. When i got it to that position, i hooked up sharpcap and found that polar alignment was pretty far off. Before adjusting the settings in phd2 guiding, it is important to make sure that your equipment is prepared for imaging. Sharpcap users might find the phd2 tool similar to its polar. I can also define polar alignment a slightly different way and it will still mean the same thing. Polar alignment astronomical society of south australia. Starshoot p1 polar alignment camera w atlasprosvp adapter. The drift alignment method is the most precise way to polar align a mount. Probably the most common reason for frustration with drift alignment is that amateurs dont practice it enough. Polar alignment features uses electronic drift alignment is considered the most accurate polar alignment method. Polar alignment sharpcap lunar, planetary, solar and deep.
Aligning an apogee fork mount using an iphone running sky safari 5. And dont even get us started about performing a good declination drift. Phd2 is guiding software inspired by stark labs phd guiding. With paa, you can easily polar align your gem quite accurately. Altazimuth mounts, driven or not, dont qualify for drift alignment.
It must be emphasized that the star cannot drift at all for 5 minutes to achieve the exposure times stated above. For exposures longer than these and closer to the poles, a photographic method of polar alignment that is applicable only to permanent installations may be required. Easy polar alignment for astrophotography step by step. An easytofollow tutorial on how to polar align a telescope mount using the drift align utility available in the free phd2 guiding software. Polar alignment sharpcap lunar, planetary, solar and. Once polar aligned accurately and with a few synced alignment points, your mount gotos will work better, targets wont drift out of frame, youll be able to take short exposures without guiding, and very long exposures with guiding. Eqalign is a project that assists to align a german equatorial mount gem exactly to the earth polar axis. Polar alignment information southern hemisphere rogers.
Precise polar alignment declination drift technique. The equipment used in this example a skywatcher heq5 german equatorial mount. Like to get your opinion of best polar alignment software. The drift align tool in phd2 can be used to quickly obtain a precise polar alignment of your equatorial mount.
I have used several methods of polar alignment over the years. Simple if the procedure is too complex it will be prone to error. Polar drift alignment, qhyccd pole master procedure, polar scope. Since you wouldnt be bothering with drift alignment except for photography purposes, its reasonable to assume you have a camera and computer connected to your scope. No poor accuracy due to small errors in goto movements. The drift align method can be used in either hemisphere by using free software called phd2 guiding. Just follow the steps in the video and polar align your mount in few easy steps. Although all of these methods work with varying results, i am not really happy with most of them for one reason or another. This will be very effective for piggy backing, manual guiding, and pc. Phd2 added a polar drift alignment tool in version 2. The following is a list of all the polar alignment software that i am aware of. Phd2 drift alignment the drift align tool in phd2 can be used to quickly obtain a precise polar alignment of your equatorial mount.
Even with a built in polar scope, you need to rotate the optical tube to open up the polar axis hole, kneel down in the dirt, and squint through that tiny eyepiece. On this tutorial i will explain how to build simple tool and use our mount as a measurement instrument to perform polar alignment when we cannot use polar finder scope. With the aid of your astro imager, your can accurately detect, record, and correct this drift in just minutes. Being in southern hemisphere i do not have readily visible pole star, so i have been trying different software options. Another phd2 polar drift alignment tool discussions. An eyepiece with illuminated cross hairs or reticle is needed for the drift. I intend to include more detailed comparisons, but in the short term, i hope that the following is useful.
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