John thanks for the great video but I had a question…I still don’t understand why you are leveling the DEC and RA at the beginning of the process. Why not just point the mount north with a compass and then use PSAlign Pro to do the rough PA?
This was very helpful, I just purchased the new iOptron Skyhunter mount without iPolar and was trying to find ways to polar align without having to spend another 200 dollars! I will definitely incorporate some of your workflow in mine, thank you
Question. The PS Align developer talks about magnetic interference from the metal of the telescope mount throwing off the smartphone readings. You don’t seem to have that problem. Do you know why?
Can you clarify something. When you first aligned in the day you were roughly pointed towards Polaris. Later you said you point the scope to 90 degrees away from that. Do you mean the mount is now aligned that way or you are moving the scope using RA/dec to that point?
Lol thank you straight to the point love it this is how you make a video fellow RU-vidrs no mucking around am in the same situation with house but southern hemisphere once weather clears will give it a go subscribed keep them coming!!!!!!
Thanks so much this genius method! I live in Singapore (1° N) and Polaris is literally on the horizon, impossible to see. Now I can finally try astrophotography!
I may be showing my ignorance here, but you comented that your right ascension need to be at "1800". Can you explain this more in depth? Is it the same for everyone or what? Great video, thanks for your time.
At the 3 minute mark of the video I am making the point to set the ring at a position such that when rotated 90 degrees - the ring will show "0". In my case it is 1800.
I have EQ3-2 mount. When I click "Drift" it results with an errror "Please connect a camera and a mount". I don't understand it - why does it require a mount to be connected? The documention says: " You can still drift align without an ASCOM connection" - I understand that I can drift align without connecting the mount. Is that right?
Drift Align tool in PHD2 connects to your mount via ASCOM and sends signals while measuring star drift to determine the RA/DEC error graph. Thus it requires a connection to the mount to do this.
It wasn't obvious to me why you bothered setting the rings on the mount at the start. I'm assuming that when both are pointing to 90 RA and 90 Dec that they are pointing at the crossover of the meridian line with the celestial equator? it is fantastic to finally understand how to use those rings, as I have wondered why they were included on the mount that I have as this is the first instruction I have seen for setting them up.
Thank you for the video. Im living at the south hemisphere, i might give this a try. I have a question though, since i live in an apartment unit, i only have view of the east from the balcony, nothing else. I cannot even point to the zenith or 90 degrees. Is there still any hope of being able to do drift alignment in that situation? Balcony has a roof, so i dont have any view 90 degress upward. Thank you
You need to be able to see 90 degrees orthogonal from celestial north (in your case celestial south) which is the point where the meridian crosses and equator. If you can only see east I think you're screwed.
thanks for the video, if say I use the 3 star alignment to improve the accuracy, and auto guiding will compensate some level of tracking error. Is it still necessary to do another drift alignment?
3-star align orients your mount so that it knows it's way around the sky. Polar align (or drift align) dials-in the alt/az adjustments so that your guiding is pristine which results in pin-point round stars rather than oblong football shaped stars. So you need to do both.
I cannot see Polaris because it's behind the wall. But of I buy an AZ EQ6 normally it would be possible to align automatically with 2 stars alignment with Deneb and Altair for example. Isn't it ?
2-star align orients your mount to the stars but you still need to polar align to "dial-in" the mount to result in good guiding & round stars while imaging.
Every mount should have LCD controller, camera ,GPS, and other sensors that can help with the alignment. There is no reason to struggle with polar alignment where we have so much tech available to help with it..
I’m very frustrated w my efforts. I understand what you where saying about the meridian and equator part pointing your scope at it but how do I point my scope at it
I'm gonna try this for two reasons: 1) I have to set up everything when it's still light outside and then wait to see Polaris, 2) My neck. One polar alignment means 2 day a bad neck.
Before of all thank you for the good tutorial! One thing: before the drift align, you have to do the calibration, it’s right? In every position of the sky? Thanks bro. Andrea
You need both and each serves a different purpose. The 3-star align will make your guiding better resulting in pinpoint round stars. The plate solve simply finds a target in the sky and has nothing to do with how accurate your guiding will be. You need both.
@@davidmatic925 After the 9:22 I press "adjust" on the Drift Align tool, then go outside and adjust the RA or DEC (whichever I am working on) then come back inside and press "Drift" again. All equitorial mounts have RA & DEC adjustment (hand-screws).
PolarFinder for Android its basically the same as Polar Scope Align Pro; I also use Polar Clock to help find the hour angle. Hope this helps you out, clear skies!
If you're doing your astrophotography in your kitchen, why not shorten the tripod legs so you don't have to lift your equipment up to head height to mount it? Easier, safer, and you avoid the step stool if you need to adjust a dew heater or want to take dark frames, bias, and white frames.
@@real_astrotard Yes, indeed it's probably the best benefit. Thanks for the video on getting a polar alignment without having a view to the north and during the daytime. What many don't realize that even if you use autoguiding to correct for polar alignment error, the image will have rotation around the autoguided star, so stars at the edges of your image will trail a bit. The only way to eliminate that effect is to be sure the polar alignment is as accurate as possible. Clear Skies !!
The explanation was great up until you went inside. You stated you went out to do something after dark and lost me. Too much lost in simply jumping in the software. Aka...have your wife follow your procedure as described... Thank you for the 1st half though.