Oct 01, 2018 in this video ill show you exactly how to do your polar alignment process if youre in the southern hemisphere. Oct 09, 2018 laser collimation, sharpcap polar alignment, plate solve, crab nebula and thors helmet nebula duration. You also need to set the rotation center of the mount, which can be calibrated after clicking the clear rotation center button onscreen. Align your mount by moving the mount until the position of polaris from this program, is in the same position on the reticle of your polar finder. Found that all the websites explaining the process are either written. Set up and align the goto system in whatever way the mount requires. Polar alignment information southern hemisphere roger. Octantis in your polar scope reticle for your location using your. Now when i perform very first goto of the star alignment, the handset software assumes that we start from perfectly polar aligned position and also from home position of the mount, so the first goto should be somehow precise. Living in the southern hemisphere, the two stars 8 and 10 from the scp are.
A computer with windows os tested with winxp x64, win7 x64, win7 x86. Having trouble working out how to polar align your telescope in the southern hemisphere. In this video ill show you exactly how to do your polar alignment process if youre in the southern hemisphere. Simple if the procedure is too complex it will be prone to error. Being in southern hemisphere i do not have readily visible pole star, so i have been trying different software options. South of octans toward the true pole youll find four stars in sort of a trapezoid shape.
Although all of these methods work with varying results, i am not really happy with most of them for one reason or another. Since theres no north star to align to, this can make things a. 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. The system only needs 4 stars to locate the pole, and can do so even if the pole. They are bit different than the larger mounts but the principle is the same.
Move the knobs slowly so you can see the change in your eyepiece. The polaris also moves on its orbit around celestial pole. Once you have the pole centered in the telrad circle or behind the crosshairs, youre polar aligned. 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. If polar alignment is lost, it is now a simple matter to bring it back without having to start from scratch.
Qhy polemaster polar alignment camera free shipping opt. The position of polaris depends by the latitude and the sideral local time. How to polar align in the southern hemisphere space. Polar alignment of your equatorial mount the blog formerly. Jun 20, 2019 the ioptron ipolar polar alignment software. There is no need to account for the change in refraction due to temperature for polar alignment at 50n the refraction only varies by 0. How do you polar align using an altaz mount with a wedge. Octantis in your polar scope reticle for your location using your phones gps, allowing a quick and accurate polar alignment. Polar alignment tutorial southern hemisphere youtube. Your images should also be free of field rotation distortion in the corners. Polar alignment relies on one theory as a fulcrum that the polar axis of your telescope should be parallel to the earths axis of rotation. Simply put, you need to make sure that your telescope mount is rotating on the exact same angle the sky turns on. T his is the position the scope needs to be in to begin the process of polar alignment.
Drift alignment software for german equatorial mounts. The polar alignment works by analyzing two pictures taken of the area near the pole. Lx200 alignment stars wstarrynight software lx star databasessoftware to download. The method used is that of julius scheiner 185819 german mathematic, physic, astronomer and pioneer in astrophotography. Make sure that the proper pole location is labeled on the chart. For instructions on polar alignment using drift align in the southern. In this example, the polar axis is east right of the north celestial pole. Compass alignment is useful for wide field photography and initial alignment of telescopes to then refine the alignment with a more detailed approach later. Move until you see the grid align with the south celestial pole. The time exposure photo at right shows how the mounts fixed polar axis points north to polaris. Note that the telescope itself is aimed south, toward a target of interest. The time and latitude for calculating sideral local time are read directly from. The best program for polar alignment mounts cloudy nights. The south celestial pole, of course, is behind him and up.
The star, as it is watched, will drift upward south. Precise polar alignment declination drift technique. Next, do a rough polar alignment, and then take a 60second ccd image of the pole. This simply means that you should be pointing your telescope at a celestial pole so you can cancel out the motion of the sky by turning the axis by hand motor drive at the same rate as the earths. Accounts for refraction to produce a more accurate result than other drift alignment methods. I turn the mount on and feed the handset with all the current data and proceed to star alignment procedure. This tutorial best suited for the eqneq6atlas mounts. The list includes polealignmax, align master, eq align, wcs, pempro, polar finder, star targ 2. Using goto for polar alignment without software feature. When refraction correction is enabled you will see two crosses drawn for the north or south celestial pole a darker one for its refracted position and a ligher one for the true position. This technique is even easier with wedgemounted telescopes, such as my meade lx200 and etx ec90, both of which are mounted on adjustable wedgelike devices to match the users latitude. Very popular software for web cam imaging, which i believe can also be used for polar alignment.
These maps, produced with the prism software show the zone. It seems to work the same way as alignmaster by poiting towards a star, then align to the star and then the mount will slew a little and then align with the alt first then dec. Simply attach the p1 to your mount with the included adapter, load up the software on your computer, and follow the easy step by step directions to. Polar alignment in the southern hemisphere posted in mounts. Using a compass and knowing the magnetic deviation of your compass from celestial south north at your location you can roughly align your polar mount to the celestial pole.
Since theres no north star to align to, this can make things a bit more complicated. To use the current version of parot, you will need. Apr 02, 2018 download parot polar aligner for free. The drift align method can be used in either hemisphere by using free software called.
Click to view ipad screen instructions and images of an adaptor for polaraligns augmented reality function which fits celestron cgem and cg5 mounts. The version of the ipolar i have came with an adapter to externally mount the device to the skyguider pro. Using a compass and knowing the magnetic deviation of your compass from celestial south north at your location you can roughly align your polar mount to. Altitude adjustment select a star in the east andor in the west low on the horizon and in the southern hemisphere of the sky e. There are two three things you need to consider to get your scope reasonably close to pointing at the south celestial pole, and you need to consider them in the following order. I have used several methods of polar alignment over the years. Roughly polar align the wedge using the hex bolts to be within 5 degrees. With the orion starshoot p1 polar alignment camera, you can forget about all of that. 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. Please note that the only inapp purchases available are tips. Laser collimation, sharpcap polar alignment, plate solve, crab nebula and thors helmet nebula duration. Which actually is a small refractor with printed drawings of ncp and position of polaris in relation to it. How to polar alignment in the southern hemisphere optics central.
With the aid of a simple homemade tiltmeter you can achieve reasonably accurate polar alignment even in daylight. The following is a list of all the polar alignment software that i am aware of. Tristar polar align polar alignment software brought to you by. Polar alignment sharpcap lunar, planetary, solar and deep.
The star, as it is watched, will drift upward south in the eyepiece. Star adventurer southern hemisphere quick polar alignment. Parot is software for ultrafast and precise polar alignment of equatorial mounts. Jun 02, 2017 but despite these benefits, people tend to be deterred from getting an equatorial mount because of how daunting polar alignments appear. Polarfinder calculate, just in time, the sideral local medium time and the position of the polaris. There are two common methods for improving the polar alignment. The p1 performs a precise polar alignment in just a few minutes time, with an accuracy of up to 30 arc seconds. Jan 24, 2011 welcome to polarfinder web site january 24, 2011 before using most telescopes they must be aligned with the earths axis pointing it to the ncp north celestal pole that is less than 1 degree from the polaris. Survey of polar alignment methods celestial wonders. Use the altitude and azimuth adjusters to placec polaris into the small circle in the polar scope reticule. Also, the alignment star, which is rising from the east, will be moving from the observers right east to his left west. Youll need to enter in your latlong coordinates of your location, which you can easily find online or using the gps on your phone. Starshoot p1 polar alignment camera w atlasprosvp adapter. Paul boltwood has pioneered a very simple and effective technique for polar alignment.
Polar alignment wizard leads you through the steps to achieve the best possible polar alignment quickly and painlessly. By recognizing the stars in each of the pictures, sharpcap can work out two things. Polar alignment sharpcap lunar, planetary, solar and. If the star drifts n then the southern end of the polar axis is pointing west of the scp. The north or south celestial pole is shown and circles of different radii are. Get project updates, sponsored content from our select partners, and more. In the southern hemisphere the procedure is the same but you have to use the asterism in octans. 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. Automatically selects a suitable star for tracking declination drift. Easy polar alignment for astrophotography step by step. Since these finder scopes are made for the northern hemisphere, where the sky rotates in the wrong direction not the right direction like in the south. Tpoint by software bisque, used in conjunction with thesky tpoint will provide polar alignment data which can be used to polar align the mount.
Tutorial on how to perform polar alignment with the hour angle method. Polar alignment astronomical society of south australia. The declination drift method allows a much more accurate alignment by monitoring the drift of selected stars. Best polar alignment routine, polar goto adjustment polaris is visible 2nd alignment star isnt. However, for accurate polar alignment, the polar axis of the telescopes mount needs to be aligned to the true ncp. You can easily achieve alignment accuracy better than 1 arcmin in 5 minutes of time. Obviously there could be others that i am not aware of. 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. Once you are polar aligned, you will only need to perform a onestar alignment a real time saver. Polar alignment information southern hemisphere rogers website.
Polar align on equatorial mount in southern hemisphere. 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. So to help us to perform good polar alignment, manufactures had implemented whats called polar scope finder inside of the mounts ra axis. Polar alignment is the process of accurately aligning the polar axis of your mount with the north or south celestial pole. Using a planetarium program, create a chart of the area around the pole north or south. Orient your telescope so the polar axis is roughly north facing polaris, use compass if needed or southern hemisphere, face your telescope setup and wedge south or sigma octantis. Parot is a program for ultra fast and precise polar alignment of equatorial mounts. A polar alignment scope is mounted inside the telescopes right ascension axis and is pointed directly at the north or south celestial pole. Polar alignment information southern hemisphere rogers. Make sure that the mount is initially adjusted with the bubble level horizontal in order to calibrate your local meridian line.
Through this guide, we hope to illustrate how to polar align your telescope in the southern hemisphere so you can do it with ease. For me, the ideal polar alignment procedure should be. At this stage, the ota should be level, on top of the lens cap, in the north south and east west directions. I intend to include more detailed comparisons, but in the short term, i hope that the following is useful. But it also possible to perform with smaller heq5 mounts. Polar alignment in the southern hemisphere mounts cloudy. Unclamp the declination axis and rotate the ota back and forth slowly in declination only until level is achieved and then lock firmly down.
Eqalign is a project that assists to align a german equatorial mount gem exactly to the earth polar axis. I would also like to know how accurate is the polar alignment feature on the synscan handsets for the eq6 or heq5. Best polar alignment routine, polar goto adjustment. One of the coolest polar alignment methods to come along is the freeware polealignmax by larry weber and steve brady. With its help im able align my eq6 mount with subarcminute accuracy in five minutes of time. Artificial projected pole star a new rapid polar alignment method.
Before i hear you call out the name of your favourite polar alignment software, just. Polar align on equatorial mount in southern hemisphere ozscopes. How to find sigma octantis easily in the sky and therefore polar align your. But despite these benefits, people tend to be deterred from getting an equatorial mount because of how daunting polar alignments appear. The polar axis does not move when you move the telescope. The method has some hefty prerequisites in that it works with a ccd camera, either ccdsoft or maxim dl, and either thesky or pinpoint for plate solving some versions of maxim provide pinpoint. For long exposure imaging, the alignment using polaris will not be perfect and stars will slowly drift across the image. By matching the latitude angle of the telescope mount with the latitude of your observing site, you can easily approximate the position of the north celestial pole ncp. 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. It comes with a usb cable to connect the ipolar to your windows pc, and the polar alignment is done with using the onscreen instructions of the software. Of course it is better to have your polar axis more or less at the latitude of the place, and pointing south. Allstar polar alignment celestron telescopes, telescope.
You take one picture, let sharpcap analyze it, rotate your mount by about 90 degrees about the ra axis and take the second picture. Polar alignment free polar alignment software download. Like to get your opinion of best polar alignment software. All you need is a stardard webcam, your scope and a pc.
1354 591 567 233 1350 15 83 1154 668 1481 1087 608 1452 1185 1056 1568 1017 156 820 1550 310 1144 61 1435 442 1247 1208 694 963 652 724 1305 250 102 624 748 331 365 123