A new polar alignment technique using byeos otelescope. Simply put, you need to make sure that your telescope mount is rotating on the exact same angle the sky turns on. Note the direction of the red line and wait a few moments, then click adjust and this time, fiddle with the altitude uppydowny adjustment bolts on your mount. Tutorials, phd2 jason matter july 04, 2018 phd2, sequence generator pro, telescope guiding, open guiding, guiding programs, phd2 tutorial comment tutorials jason matter july 15, 2018 polemaster, qhy, polar alignment, qhyccd comment. Adjust the mount using the alt and az bolts so that the pole star is in the little circle.
No reason other than to distinguish from the various forms. The two new ones align in the polar region rather than at the equator so may not be suitable. Backlash exerciser checks the backlash of your mount. Very popular software for web cam imaging, which i believe can also be used for polar alignment. This is an important aspect of deep sky astrophotography because it allows you to focus on capturing successful long exposure images and get the most out of your telescope mount phd2 is easy enough for a beginner to use right away, yet also includes sophisticated. I am a bit skeptical myself, but i have gotten my best guiding ever the last two sessions, 64 of 65 three minute subs, and 45 of 48 four minute subs so i think there must be something to it. Set up and align the goto system in whatever way the mount requires.
Phd guiding phd guiding is designed to be push here dummy simple, yet provide powerful, intelligent autoguiding of your telescope for both pcs and macs. They suggest that pa should be off by 5 to 10 arc minutes. Head back to phd2 s drift align tool and click on the altitude button, pick a star and hit drift. Celestron mount connection openphdguidingphd2 wiki github. This software is setup to be locked onto a star the guidestar. Recently, i realized there are 3 kinds of methods to get a fine polar alignment 1. Star finder helpful if you have a small ccd field of view to locate a star or other object when your mounts alignment is not perfect. Polar alignment help software on linux phd2ekos posted in beginning and intermediate imaging. One of the fastest although by no means the cheapest ways to polar align is using a polemaster from qhyccd. Phd2 users can post questions here about troubleshooting guiding problems or problems with phd2. Phd2 is an open source guiding program for beginners or advanced users. The drift align tool in phd2 can be used to quickly obtain a precise polar alignment of your equatorial mount.
New phd2 tool for static polar alignment discussions. Phd2 added a polar drift alignment tool in version 2. Mar 31, 2018 shows how to use the phd2 static polar alignment tool spa to point your telescope accurately at the pole. Drift alignment software for german equatorial mounts. The drift alignment tool is a wizardlike sequence of dialogs that can help you work through the. Preparation make sure your mount is reasonably level. There is no need to uninstall the older version first.
New phd2 static polar alignment tool congratulations in having your work incorporated into such a very useful program. Deep space objects more than usually require what we deem as long exposures, typically of several minutes up to about 20 minutes per exposure. Qhy polemaster polar alignment camera free shipping opt. For long exposure imaging, the alignment using polaris will not be perfect and stars will slowly drift across the image. Paramount myt day 9 using laptop, phd2 finally works i want to use my laptop for imaging, so i needed to setup all the software so far, there. Mar 31, 2018 introduces the polar drift alignment tool. The following is a list of all the polar alignment software that i am aware of. I am sure alignmaster is good software but i like the phd2 process better. I still need to bring my laptop for polar alignment but it would be really nice if asiair could take care of this too so i can go truly laptop free. Try doing a double polar alignment wsharpcap and see if the alignment is still close on the second try. I intend to include more detailed comparisons, but in the short term, i hope that the following is useful. After a guide star has been selected, phd2 can send commands to your star tracker, which should keep the guide star centered in the crosshairs. You can easily achieve alignment accuracy better than 1 arcmin in 5 minutes of time. Polar alignment sharpcap lunar, planetary, solar and deep.
Using goto for polar alignment without software feature. Another phd2 polar alignment tool astronomy software. Polar alignment help software on linux phd2ekos beginning. Obviously there could be others that i am not aware of.
New phd2 static polar alignment tool astronomy forum. Accept phd2s guiding suggestions and proceed to polar alignment refinement, if necessary, or if it is good enough, you are ready to image. No reason other than to distinguish from the various. Recently, i realized there are 3 kinds of methods to get a fine polar alignment1. With alignmaster you center on two guide stars and the software computes your polar alignment error, it then moves the guides stars a bit and asks you to adjust your mounts altaz controls to recenter the stars and then you should be good. Phd guiding is designed to be push here dummy simple, yet provide powerful, intelligent autoguiding of your telescope for both pcs and macs. Sharpcap users might find the phd2 tool similar to its polar alignment tool. Precise polar alignment declination drift technique. Shift slightly in one direction, then click drift again. Sep 02, 2018 d polar align the aspa method using the hardware handcontroller.
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. Fortunately guiding software such as phd2 can be used to overcome this. For instructions on polar alignment using drift align in the southern hemisphere, visit how to polar align easily in phd2 drift align. Jan 14, 2018 setting up a polar alignment routine is not an easy task when north or south pole is not visible. Shows how to use the phd2 static polar alignment tool spa to point your telescope accurately at the pole. The process takes a little bit of practice, but after. The image from the guide camera is then analysed by a piece of software called phd2.
Aug 06, 2018 im late to the game on this, but i also think this tool has flown under the radar a bit. Let the phd2 guiding assistant run for a few minutes. Ive accurately polar aligned, balanced, calibrated numerous times, ran the guiding assistant and implemented the recommendations, focused accurately, etc. Video interface provides a low cost way to use pempro using. Polar alignment features uses electronic drift alignment is considered the most accurate polar alignment method. Phd2 is telescope guiding software that simplifies the process of tracking a guide. Now its a tool within phd2 and available in the latest dev release.
Ken has put together some video tutorials on the new phd2 polar alignment tools. The need for drift alignment it is well known that a good polar alignment is the staple of a good basis for longexposure astrophotography. Move the mount in dec so the polar scope can be used and in ra so the pole star marker corresponds to the same position as shown in the polarscope view window. It would be extremely helpful if it also utilized the phd2 polar alignment feature. 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 would even recommend sharpcap users give this one a try. Ken has put together some video tutorials on the new phd2 polar alignment. However, qppa and polemaster will both still work even though the ota is not perfectly aligned with the ra axis during the polar alignment process. Im late to the game on this, but i also think this tool has flown under the radar a bit. Phd2 is telescope guiding software that simplifies the process of tracking a guide star, letting you concentrate on other aspects of deepsky imaging or spectroscopy. If you have done a drift align to get your mount polar aligned you know its very precise but also very time. This is the easiest to use of the polar alignment tools in phd2. If it detects any, it sends a correction signal to the mount to recenter the star. Accurately aligning the center line of the ota to the ra axis the zero position is normally accomplished with a 1star alignment after the polar alignment is complete.
Once you are polar aligned, you will only need to perform a onestar alignment a real time saver. This tutorial will help you get phd2 setup and running with the default settings. The drift align method can be used in either hemisphere by using free software called phd2 guiding. Setting up a polar alignment routine is not an easy task when north or south pole is not visible. Celestron handcontrollers made after 42016 are reported to have a builtin usb to serial adapter. Paramount myt day 9 using laptop, phd2 finally works. Accounts for refraction to produce a more accurate result than other drift alignment methods. The polar axis does not move when you move the telescope. The list includes polealignmax, align master, eq align, wcs, pempro, polar finder, star targ 2. The declination drift method allows a much more accurate alignment by monitoring the drift of selected stars.
Phd2 is free of cost, open source, and communitydeveloped and supported. Parot is a program for ultra fast and precise polar alignment of equatorial mounts. Sep 01, 2018 fortunately guiding software such as phd2 can be used to overcome this. Most of what they explained was information i have been long been aware of, but one thing surprised me. If polar alignment is lost, it is now a simple matter to bring it back without having to start from scratch. Dec 03, 2017 the latest dev5 version of phd2 now includes two new pa tools. New phd2 static polar alignment tool astronomy software. Determine whether the polar alignment is adequate or if it needs to be refined. In fact, you dont really need software polar alignment features in your scope. Then they point to the sun and use the standard image drift method to make fine adjustments to align the polar axis as follows. Turning on the reticule in the capture software increases the accuracy. Tweaking phd2 is easily done and the settings vary from each equipment setup. In this case, it turned out to be a conflict of settings between the mount driver and the phd2 software that was being. One of the developers of the software commented that the backlash on losmandy mounts is a common problem.
Tpoint by software bisque, used in conjunction with thesky tpoint will provide polar alignment data which can be used to polar align the mount. Launch phd2 and start the polar drift tool from tools polar drift alignment select a convenient guide star and click start wait until the lollipop settles down then click stop. I found that my tripod was shifting, either from swinging the scope for sharpcap, or when it slewed. Ive been on the phd2 forum and they suggested numerous settings which ive implemented. Polar alignment wizard quickly, accurately, and easily helps you dial in polar alignment. Open phd guiding welcome to the discussion forum for open phd guiding phd2, a telescope guiding software application for astrophotographers. My choice of equipment and software to do drift align. In order to actual do the autoguiding, youll need a free application phd2. If you are using another linux distro, you can build phd2 from source. Phd2 drift alignment the drift align tool in phd2 can be used to quickly obtain a precise polar alignment of your equatorial mount. When used with a single raonly axis mount, good polar.
Phd2 is a telescope autoguiding software that automates the process of tracking a guide star. Polar alignment of your equatorial mount the blog formerly. Slew to appropriate star i am using altair or deneb in august for polar alignment. You will be in the menu of choose first star, choose second star and iterate, as shown on the left. Get rough polar align by looking through the mounts polarscope or the vacant polarscope slot. Polar alignment wizard leads you through the steps to achieve the best possible polar alignment quickly and painlessly. Phd2 is guiding software inspired by stark labs phd guiding. Here is an excellent youtube video on how to use the phd2 polar alignment process. The latest dev5 version of phd2 now includes two new pa tools.
New phd2 static polar alignment tool im just reporting what phd2 showed during drift aligment. Sep 27, 2017 its been 18 months since i first started working on a tool for polar alignment in the polar region using a guidescope. By recognizing the stars in each of the pictures, sharpcap can work out two things. The polar alignment works by analyzing two pictures taken of the area near the pole. Contribute to openphdguidingphd2 development by creating an account on github. The traditional drift alignment is the most accurate whilst the polar drift is very simple and spa is fast. The tripod is sturdy, but this was about the eyepiece holderspreader and legs moving against each other just a little bit, under load. Easy polar alignment for astrophotography step by step.
Another phd2 polar drift alignment tool discussions. Sharpcap users might find the phd2 tool similar to its polar. You take one picture, let sharpcap analyze it, rotate your mount by about 90 degrees about the ra axis and take the second picture. An easytofollow tutorial on how to polar align a telescope mount using the drift align utility available in the free phd2 guiding software. This program can be used in conjunction with many atrophotography programs, such as sequence generator pro. Patrick chevalley has phd2 ubuntu packages hosted on launchpad. You will need to select 2 stars for this alignment process. Fit camera into scope and turn on software reticule. Polar alignment is the process of accurately aligning the polar axis of your mount with the north or south celestial pole. This is an important aspect of deep sky astrophotography because it allows you to focus on capturing successful long exposure images and get the most out of your telescope mount. Polar drift alignment pda and static polar alignment spa they can be viewed here.
To have successful ra only guiding, a mount must be accurately polar aligned. Connect your mount, your camera, select a star, and start guiding. Its been 18 months since i first started working on a tool to polar align from the polar region using a guidescope. After you have cold started select menu align more polar align assist menu item. Jun 22, 2015 paramount myt day 9 using laptop, phd2 finally works i want to use my laptop for imaging, so i needed to setup all the software so far, there was only the processing software on it. With alignmaster you center on two guide stars and the software computes your polar alignment error, it then moves the guides stars a bit and asks you to adjust your mounts altaz controls to. 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. Polar alignment free polar alignment software download. It is looking for any relative movement of that star.
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