The polar alignment instructions can be found in appendix p. Polar alignment using the drift method explanation youtube. Follow the instructions given by the autostar software. Drift alignment frustration getting started with imaging.
You can easily achieve alignment accuracy better than 1 arcmin in 5 minutes of time. In fact, you dont really need software polar alignment features in your scope. Jan 04, 2017 well, just be aware that for polar alignment it is the mount you are aligning, not the item attached to it. No matter what you are imaging with canon eos, nikon, ccd or cmos astro camera, apt has the right tool for planning, collimating, aligning. Paul boltwood has pioneered a very simple and effective technique for polar alignment. Apr 02, 2018 download parot polar aligner for free. 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. Parot is a program for ultra fast and precise polar alignment of equatorial mounts. However, in order to take full advantage of the many features of your telescope such as setting circle and astrophotography capability a more precise polar alignment will be necessary.
You have to set date and time zone manually as well as your longitude every time you enter the app. This method has been implemented into the latest versions of apt and looks like the best method yet that i have come across to get that perfect alignment either. Polar alignment free polar alignment software download. 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.
Tutorial on how to use ekos polar align assistant tool paa. This page was last changed 09242019 help support this site. With the aid of your astro imager, your can accurately detect, record, and correct this drift in just minutes. Apt does more than just polar alignment and the eur is a good deal for a useful tool. An easytofollow tutorial on how to polar align a telescope mount using the drift align utility available in the free phd2 guiding software. In the southern hemisphere the procedure is the same but you have to use the asterism in octans. Allstar polar alignment celestron telescopes, telescope. If long exposure photography several minutes or more is planned, then a better polar alignment is required. Polar alignment with dslr getting started with imaging. All you need to know regarding polar alignment using the drift method. If you dont see polaris or octans, you can still polar align by using the socalled drift align methods, and one of the most common is the darv alignment. Seriously, 5 minutes and i can hardly move my fingers. And a good drift alignment will help the guide scope to. An eyepiece with illuminated cross hairs or reticle is needed for the drift alignment method.
It comes as a surprise for people to learn that many stars are visible through a telescope during the daytime. This is a much simpler version of polar finder that supports only the northern hemisphere. Using a planetarium program, create a chart of the area around the pole north or south. For those who have yet to get engaged in this activity it essentially refers to the act of aligning one of the axes of the telescope, the polar axis, so that it points in exactly the same direction as the axis that the earth revolves around.
This softwarebased polar alignment routine can be performed without use of the polaraxis scope. Survey of polar alignment methods celestial wonders. Although all of these methods work with varying results, i am not really happy with most of them for one reason or another. The method used here is called drift alignment by robert vice, or d. Using goto for polar alignment without software feature. Obviously there could be others that i am not aware of. V drift alignment by robert vice method indi forum. Apr 15, 2011 i was reading an article by robert vice in which he uses a ccd or dslr to get perfect alignment. Polar alignment sharpcap lunar, planetary, solar and. Polarfinder calculate, just in time, the sideral local medium time and the position of the polaris. For astrophotography with a dslr you could use the darv method. Rclements exact compensation for the earths rotation is only possible if both, the polar axis of the mount and the polar axis of the earth are in perfect alignment. If you are thinking of investing to help you with this excercise you could do worse than look to purchase the sw star adventurer package to use. How to polar align a telescope mount during daylight the.
Polar alignment with sharpcap tool getting started with imaging. In any case, correct polar alignment will have you positioned about 40 from polaris. Other methods to achieve a precise polar alignment. With paa, you can easily polar align your gem quite accurately. But if its your travelquick setup rig remember that you have given up your ability to polar align the mount without software assistance. So in my case im dealing only with dslr and laptop. Drift alignment getting the longest exposure possible with precise. Astromate x64 is a project for automating repeating astrophotography tasks, such as equatorial mount polar alignment and target centering, by integrating existing tools and especially plate solving to the ascom telescope control interface. I have used several methods of polar alignment over the years. With pempro version 3 you can now correct your mounts periodic error, polar alignment and backlash using your ccd camera or webcam to dramatically improve tracking and guiding. May 04, 2015 the above method of polar alignment is limited by the accuracy of your telescopes setting circles and how well the telescope is aligned with the mount. The drift alignment method is the most precise way to polar align a mount. I have been experimenting with this method using the. The following method of polar alignment is independent of these factors and should only be undertaken if longexposure, guided photography is your ultimate goal.
The eqmod project eqascom polarscope alignment tool note. Drift alignment is not something i want to do because. V method, using a star at around 10 dec from the celestial equator, as near to the. Polar alignment wcs fast and accurate polaralignment for. V drift alignment by robert vice articles articles articles. Allstar is our exclusive, innovative polar alignment procedureavailable on select celestron computerized telescopesthat allows users to choose any bright star not just one near the ncp while the software calculates and assists with polar alignment. Through this guide, we hope to illustrate how to polar align your telescope in the southern hemisphere so you can do it with ease. Polar alignment is an essential first step towards a night of visual observation or astrophotography.
This program helps you to polar align your mount using the drift alignment method with ccd or webcam support. The software seeks to assist owners of german equatorial mounts with polar alignment. Whether it is centering polaris in a polar scope, celestrons all star polar alignment aspa, qhys polemaster, the more accurate but time consuming drift alignment, or darv. Dslr ccd drift alignment by robert vice for many years i have. Apr 03, 2016 introductory video showing the phd2 drift alignment method for polar alignment of a telescope. I intend to include more detailed comparisons, but in the short term, i hope that the following is useful. This is all that is required for a polar alignment good enough to use your telescopes slow motion controls to easily track a star or planet across the sky. The time and latitude for calculating sideral local time are read directly from the system and the gps present in the mobile device. Polar drift alignment pda and static polar alignment spa they can be viewed here. Seems to me that good polar alignment will help with drift alignment.
If you find the polar reticule appears too bright, on later mounts check your sw handcontroller settings it is possible to dim the illumination by down loading and running. Well, just be aware that for polar alignment it is the mount you are aligning, not the item attached to it. Set your camera software to take an exposure of 125 seconds. For me, the ideal polar alignment procedure should be. Polar alignment tool video tutorials ken has put together some video tutorials on the new phd2 polar alignment tools. Here is an image of my altitude alignment using the d. Perfect alignment using webcam and drift method even at this stage, there might be very small remaining alignment errors that the previous method was not able to detect. Dslr ccd drift alignment by robert vice for many years i have spent time learning the star drift method of alignment for my telescope. There are several methods to do polar alignment, but they all work after dark. Like to get your opinion of best polar alignment software. This method has been implemented into the latest versions of apt and looks like the best method yet that i have come across to get that perfect alignment either in the field or for that final tweak in. I was reading an article by robert vice in which he uses a ccd or dslr to get perfect alignment. By aligning the axis of your telescope mount with the motion of the sky, you can accurately track objects in space.
I hope that this footage will clarify to you the process behind the drift. This will be very effective for piggy backing, manual guiding, and pc. How do i polar align accurate enough for imaging 120sec exp. Polar alignment of your equatorial mount the blog formerly. But despite these benefits, people tend to be deterred from getting an equatorial mount because of how daunting polar alignments appear. The following is a list of all the polar alignment software that i am aware of.
Set up and align the goto system in whatever way the mount requires. It supports any cam which can be installed as a windows device meade lpi, toucam, neximage, etc. I should have said that i use astrotrac with 200mm lens and as far as i know in order to use phd polar alignment feature one have to have a separate guider camera like qhy, orion etc. 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. The polar alignment is now very precise, and good enough for most needs. The drift alignment method is one way of achieving this. Sharpcap software with my polemaster camera and im polar aligned within minutes. Guide to polar alignment of a meade lx200gps telescope page 7 of 11 when it asks for the scope to be placed in polar home position, hit enter. By far the most frequently asked question i hear from beginners is how the hell do i polar align my telescope.
How to polar align in the southern hemisphere space. Here is a link to the astro imaging channel that has an extensive discussion of pempro with the author. Easy polar alignment for astrophotography step by step. You can also do electronically assisted polar alignment, using a computer, some software and a camera. The method used is that of julius scheiner 185819 german mathematic, physic, astronomer and pioneer in astrophotography. Astrotrac has autoguider port and im gonna use darv method with handmade racontroller for now. Orion atlas iterative polar alignment without polar scope. The essential idea of the method is to make one long exposure during the mount is moved on east and then back to west or in reverse in the southern hemisphere if the polar alignment is perfect the result will be a flat line, in other case the track in the image will have the shape of the letter v. However, there is another, more accurate way to polar align. Being in southern hemisphere i do not have readily visible pole star, so i have been trying different software options.
Use the altitude and azimuth adjusters to placec polaris into the small circle in the polar scope reticule. Mar 17, 2020 other methods to achieve a precise polar alignment. Have you managed to try out the polar alignment using sparkocam and sharpcap. Introductory video showing the phd2 drift alignment method for polar alignment of a telescope. Now, as someone who is going to be using an orion starshoot autoguider and the software phd guiding for autoguiding, i will not be performing a drift alignment of my mount. Jun 02, 2017 but despite these benefits, people tend to be deterred from getting an equatorial mount because of how daunting polar alignments appear.
Archive polar alignment assist devices equipment discussions. Next, do a rough polar alignment, and then take a 60second ccd image of the pole. Feb 11, 2017 tutorial on how to use ekos polar align assistant tool paa. First perform a quick alignment using the proceedure described above. Make sure that the proper pole location is labeled on the chart. Essentially it makes use of autoguiding software to measure the declination drift during drift alignment.
Whether it is centering polaris in a polar scope, celestrons all star polar. Its a bit more time consuming but should also yield excellent polar alignment. I usually do the darv manually followed by legacy polar alignment in. Just follow the steps in the video and polar align your mount in few. Quick and accurate polar alignment using your ccd imager. Simple if the procedure is too complex it will be prone to error. So, if the skyguider pro is your main deepsky imaging rig, the ipolar is a nobrainer, especially if youve had trouble with polar alignment in the past. The above method of polar alignment is limited by the accuracy of your telescopes setting circles and how well the telescope is aligned with the mount.
This method has been implemented into the latest versions of apt and looks like the best method yet that i have come across to get that perfect alignment either in the field or for that final tweak in permanent setups the only problem i have had for getting that final tweak of perfection is the. Theres also a version available for the meade dsi cameras. Polar alignment is a phrase that sends shivers down the spine of any newcomer to astronomy. Darv stands for drift alignment by robert vice method. The essential idea of the method is to make one long exposure during the mount is moved on east and. Although tedious, it has turned out to be quite beneficial. This dos program allows you to quickly polar align an equatorial mount to the north celestial pole ncp using a. Polar alignment of your mount by means of the polaraxis finder scope is covered in the instruction manual for the mount. Eqalign is a project that assists to align a german equatorial mount gem exactly to the earth polar axis. The dark field illuminated dial makes the polar alignment simple and easy and it can be done just in minutes. For those who have yet to get engaged in this activity it essentially refers to the act of aligning one of the axes of the telescope, the polar axis, so that it points in exactly. Even at star parties, experienced users can be thrown off by a new location and suddenly need to relearn the art of accurate polar alignment. In what follows, i will consider that you wish to polar align a german equatorial mount, equipped with a polar alignment scope allowing to center the pseudo southern polar star sigma octantis.