Software for polar alignment

Obviously there could be others that i am not aware of. Aligning an apogee fork mount using an iphone running sky safari 5. Survey of polar alignment methods celestial wonders. Simple polar alignment introduction a simple equatorial mount labelled. 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. Polar alignment is an essential first step towards a night of visual observation or astrophotography. Polar alignment sharpcap lunar, planetary, solar and deep. Easy polar alignment for astrophotography step by step.

A camera is not needed, but an ocular with illuminated crosshairs is helpful and will give a more precise alignment. Next, do a rough polar alignment, and then take a 60second ccd image of the pole. Go into menu utilities and chose wedge align and the scope will slew to where it thinks polaris is. 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. 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.

Alignmaster is a program designed for a quick and precise alignment of goto mounts to the polar axis. Polar drift alignment pda and static polar alignment spa they can be viewed here. There are methods for using ccd imaging programs to aid in drift polar alignment, or, hell, even using phd guiding to get you on the pole. Any other software installed excep the driverssoftware for your camera or. Skywatcher polar scope for eq8r series mounts s30615. There are two common methods for improving the polar alignment. My own personal experience is that they are no more difficult to manage than a standard altazimuth and have the advantage that when polar. The method used is that of julius scheiner 185819 german mathematic, physic, astronomer and pioneer in astrophotography. If you have the option, use alignment stars that are far from polaris. Allstar polar alignment celestron telescopes, telescope. Paul boltwood has pioneered a very simple and effective technique for polar alignment. The drift align method can be used in either hemisphere by using free software called phd2 guiding. Polar alignment sharpcap lunar, planetary, solar and.

The drift align tool in phd2 can be used to quickly obtain a precise polar alignment of your. This is a great utility that will help you with your polar alignment on your equatorial mount. Unplug it, and it stops, which is not exactly high tech. This is due to the fact that there is no very bright star close to it like polaris is in the ncp north celestial pole. Please note that the only inapp purchases available are tips. The drift align method can be used in either hemisphere by using a free software called phd2 guiding. Newcomers to astronomy are quite often easily put off from equatorial mounts by being told they are complex to set up and use. Octantis in your polar scope reticle for your location using your phones gps, allowing a quick and accurate polar alignment. The list includes polealignmax, align master, eq align, wcs, pempro, polar finder. Tutorial on how to perform polar alignment with the hour angle method. Polar alignment help software on linux phd2ekos beginning. You may spend hours under precious dark sky trying to get that perfect polar alignment, but in the end you may not know whether good alignment has in fact been achieved. Polar align with polar finder scopes electronic polar. It would be extremely helpful if it also utilized the phd2 polar alignment feature.

The program is based on the rotation method of polar alignment. Phd2 is guiding software inspired by stark labs phd guiding. I have used several methods of polar alignment over the years. Polar scope align will calculate the position of polaris or. This tutorial best suited for the eqneq6atlas mounts. Polar cat is a board game based on tic tac toe classic game using polar coordinates. For me, the ideal polar alignment procedure should be. Yes polar align the scope and plug it into a wall socket or inverter, and it tracks the stars. Using a planetarium program, create a chart of the area around the pole north or south.

Make sure that the proper pole location is labeled on the chart. 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. 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. You can easily achieve alignment accuracy better than 1 arcmin in 5 minutes of time. There are quite a few polar alignment softs out there now, including wcs, polealignmax, and eq align. I turn the mount on and feed the handset with all the current data and proceed to star alignment procedure. Polar connection is a simple fourinarow game played on a polar circular grid instead of the traditional rectangle. Polar alignment app discussions software stargazers lounge.

The p1 performs a precise polar alignment in just a few minutes time, with an accuracy of up to 30 arc seconds. Using goto for polar alignment without software feature. Eqalign is a project that assists to align a german equatorial mount gem exactly to the earth polar axis. Set up and align the goto system in whatever way the mount requires. In fact, you dont really need software polar alignment features in your scope. It works in both the northern and southern hemispheres, and comes with a selection of popular polarscope reticles. Allstar is an innovative polar alignment procedureavailable on selected celestron computerised telescopesthat allows any bright star not just a one near the ncp to be chosen while the software calculates and assists with the mounts polar alignment. Then they point to the sun and use the standard image drift method to make fine adjustments to align the polar axis as follows. Tutorial on how to use ekos polar align assistant tool paa. Accurate polar alignment before we can be certain that the telescopes polar axis is accurately aligned with the rotational axis of the earth, we must first be certain that the finderscope which will actually be used to polar align the mount is aligned with the telescopes polar axis. Once your numbers are below 10 arc minutes in each axis, you will be close enough for longer exposures. The best program for polar alignment mounts cloudy nights. Drift alignment software for german equatorial mounts. Using the telescopes sync function, the mount will point.

It is much more easier than the manual scheinermethod or the usage of guidemaster. Like to get your opinion of best polar alignment software. 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 align your mount faster and easier than ever before. This page was last changed 09242019 help support this site. But it also possible to perform with smaller heq5 mounts. Parot is a program for ultra fast and precise polar alignment of equatorial mounts. 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. Wait until polarfinder read the location and set the polaris position.

If youre polar alignment numbers are a little higher than youd like, you can repeat the alignment, then redo the polar alignment. This star will assist the software in correctly aligning your telescopes mount with the north celestial pole. 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. Provides an alignment layer driver to sit above indi telescope drivers. A precise telescope mount polar alignment using alignmaster software. A simple polar alignment by software polar scope align pro. 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. The position of polaris depends by the latitude and the sideral local time. Simple if the procedure is too complex it will be prone to error. The only camera i have that can take video is my trusty p. After this alignment, manually place the telescope in polar alignment so the ota is in alignment with the fork arms and pointing towards true north. For instructions on polar alignment using drift align in the southern hemisphere, visit how to polar align easily in phd2 drift align. For polar alignment purposes, the finderscope itself can. The polar alignment instructions can be found in appendix p.

But there is also software expressly designed for polar alignment. I intend to include more detailed comparisons, but in the short term, i hope that the following is useful. Polar alignment to the south celestial pole scp is a little more challenging as well. They are bit different than the larger mounts but the principle is the same.

There are various ways to polar align your telescope and for casual observing, the methods below are adequate enough and will get you. 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. Polar align on equatorial mount in southern hemisphere. Just follow the steps in the video and polar align your mount in few. Polarscope is a polarscope alignment app that runs on your windows desktop, tablet and phone. The program takes an image, makes a plate solve and finds the position of the celestial pole in the image. For visual observers youre set now, and can stop following the tutorial here. Polarfinder calculate, just in time, the sideral local medium time and the position of the polaris. Very popular software for web cam imaging, which i believe can also be used for polar alignment. After a quick installation of the software on my windows 10 laptop, i connected the device via the included miniusb cable. Sharpcap pro polar alignment is quick, accurate and easy to use. Phd2 is free of cost, open source, and communitydeveloped and supported. The time and latitude for calculating sideral local time are read directly from the system and the gps present in the mobile device. With paa, you can easily polar align your gem quite accurately.

Hi im just looking for some second opinions on software for polar alignment. Simply create a folder named polar finderscope and unzip the three files. Here is a link to the astro imaging channel that has an extensive discussion of pempro with the author. The equipment used in this example a skywatcher heq5 german equatorial mount. Ive been looking around at software such as sharpcap, kstars etc.

Polar alignment freeware for free downloads at winsite. Polar alignment help software on linux phd2ekos posted in beginning and intermediate imaging. Polar alignment using the ipolar software the ipolar software is available to download on the ioptron website. Ken has put together some video tutorials on the new phd2 polar alignment tools. Polar alignment is the act of aligning the rotational axis of a telescopes equatorial mount or a sundials gnomon with a celestial pole to parallel earths axis contents 1 alignment methods. The following is a list of all the polar alignment software that i am aware of. Using an eq mount simple polar alignment for beginners. If you intend to do imaging, the next steps will cover the polar alignment process to dial in that last bit of precision for long exposure imaging. Im an amateur astrophotographer and a student and i made a polar alignment app for android for german equatorial. Octantis in your polar scope reticle for your location using your phones gps or entering a location, allowing a quick and accurate polar alignment. Starshoot p1 polar alignment camera w atlasprosvp adapter. Most of them however recommend a field of view of at least 1 degree. Polar alignment free polar alignment software download. Tpoint by software bisque, used in conjunction with thesky tpoint will provide polar alignment data which can be used to polar align the mount.

How do you polar align using an altaz mount with a wedge. Being in southern hemisphere i do not have readily visible pole star, so i have been trying different software options. Its a bit more time consuming but should also yield excellent polar alignment. Software bisque polar alignment scope for paramount me or mx mounts scopemeiimx. It is one of the few programs that are accurate in lower latitudes by correcting for atmospheric refraction s. Polemaster a highprecision, easy to use electronic polar scope as any seasoned astroimager would agree, achieving good polar alignment is not an easy task. By aligning the axis of your telescope mount with the motion of the sky, you can accurately track objects in space. Each iteration you do should get you closer to the celestial pole. Although all of these methods work with varying results, i am not really happy with most of them for one reason or another.