121 replies to this topic

[Guest7564635]

Yoohoo CALIBRATION SUCCEEDED..

 

The reason was, the I did setup calibration steps to 20, did reduce it to 12 and BINGO it did work..

 

My 1st time CALIBRATION with PHD2 works..

 

OOPPS the clouds are comming..

 

Regards

 

Martin

 

Edited by artem2, 30 April 2016 - 02:45 PM.

[Jon Rista]

Hi Martin,

 

David is correct here. To do drift alignment, you need to be at least decently aligned. There are many ways to get there, including iterative pointing between the same couple of stars and adjusting alt/az to get them aligned. You might want to do something like that first, until you are reasonably close (10-15' or so would be a good place to start). Once you have that, then you could drift align until you get down to a couple of arcminutes or less, which would be quite good.

[Jon Rista]

Yoohoo CALIBRATION SUCCEEDED..

 

The reason was, the I did setup calibration steps to 20, did reduce it to 12 and BINGO it did work..

 

My 1st time CALIBRATION with PHD2 works..

 

OOPPS the clouds are comming..

 

Regards

 

Martin

 

 

Congrats! At least you got it dialed in before the clouds came. Now you can refine on subsequent nights to get it better and better (assuming you don't tear down each night). 

[Guest7564635]

This is my status quo.. and still not done..

 

I am now moving slwoly but for sure towards better PA rates.

 

The clouds are disturbing.. bit I still can find some good SNR rates..

Will go and watch TV once no starts are detected..

 

bye

 

Martin

 

Edited by artem2, 30 April 2016 - 06:12 PM.

[davidgr1976]

Well 8' is a fine first approach. You will do fine tunning later.
Another tip: after every adjust come back to the initial position. If not you'll be far away from meridian or west/east if you spend long time tweaking. It will produce false PA

Enviado desde mi E2303 mediante Tapatalk

Edited by davidgr1976, 30 April 2016 - 03:37 PM.

[Guest7564635]

Thank you David, I understand what you mean..

I am doing it ( sometimes if I do not forget     )

 

My best results is below.. PA ERROR 2:41

 

But I will do finish PA next time, the CLOUDS are here and I am unable to detect any Stars..

 

Greetings AND THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR HELP:

 

Martin

 

 

[Guest7564635]

Hello,

 

The clouds did pass away.. and though not very clear sky, I managed the PA RATE for AZIMUTH. SEE BELOW..

SHALL I TRUST THE RESULTS ??

 

 

Now working on ALTITUDE.

 

Regards

 

Martin

 

[davidgr1976]

Wait at least 2 minutes

Enviado desde mi E2303 mediante Tapatalk

Edited by davidgr1976, 30 April 2016 - 04:27 PM.

[Guest7564635]

Hi David,

 

I did wait for  minimum 3-5 minutes I always do that..

 

My ALTITUDE PA RATE is getting better and better.. now at PA 10.77 ( used to be something at 99.77 when I started )

 

EXCITING EXCITING

 

Bye

 

Martin

[davidgr1976]

Ok, then you can do altitude drift and after that i would come back again to meridian.

I would also do a guiding test (with the wizard) in some point in the sky and verify the polar error.

Happy to see the improvement!

Edited by davidgr1976, 01 May 2016 - 02:41 AM.

[Guest7564635]

Thank you David,

 

I am also Happy, will try also GUIDING when PA for ALtitude is also done..

 

 

Regards

Martin

[Guest7564635]

Here is my ALTITUDE PA RESULT..

 

I guess I am done.. I will not touch any of the bolts anymore..

and will now move on to a guiding test..

 

Regards

 

Martin

 

 

[davidgr1976]

Great. Give feedback 😊

Edited by davidgr1976, 01 May 2016 - 08:06 AM.

[Guest7564635]

Hi David and Jon.

 

I need to redo the DRIFT process via PHD2, I still have a little bit of PA errors, the GUIDE STAR is after few minutes guiding with PHD2 drifting away..

 

There is still capacity to improve the alignment.. I guess "if I am not mistaken" I did see that the POLAR ALIGNMENT ERROR was not good, when I did perfrom GUIDING ASSISTANCE in PHD2..

 

See also LOGS from today.

 

https://drive.google...iew?usp=sharing

 

Tomorrow I will retry again..

 

Thank you for your support and CS

 

Martin

Edited by artem2, 01 May 2016 - 01:22 AM.

[Jon Rista]

Looks like your dialing it in, Martin! When you get down to a few arcminutes or less, it is good to just let the mount drift for 10-15 minutes and see how things go. You will want to find a star about half that time to the east of the meridian, and just let it drift through the meridian to the west. When it is in the middle five minutes of that range, you want to watch and see if your drift is flat or nearly so. If it is, then your good to go.

 

Without the ability to sight in on Polaris with a polar scope, it can definitely be more difficult, but you've done well.

 

You may find that how close a PA you can get may be limited by your mount's performance, as well as how level your mount is. Lower end mounts are unlikely to be able to be aligned as well as higher end mounts.

 

It should also be noted that if you are going to be guiding, you don't need to get it down to 0. I find that around 1-2 arcminutes PA, my guiding flattens out a lot more as guiding stops fighting the drift. Over 5 arcminutes or so, and you can tell guiding is fighting drift a lot more, and at least in my case, my RMS increases at that point. 

[Guest7564635]

Thank you John,

 

I will redo the DRIFT ALIGN. process very soon again, once I have a clear sky ( today and tomorrow we have clouds and some rain   in Vienna) I will also read and try to find details, which values I should set in PHD2 like RA/DEC AGR, and all other settings to have smooth performance.

 

I do agree and did also see it with own eyes yesterday, my PA is far better than before DRIFT ALIGN done by PHD2, but still not that good. I will try to get it done better, I am not far aways from that point.

 

Wish you a nice sunday and bye

 

Martin

Edited by artem2, 01 May 2016 - 01:33 AM.

[Guest7564635]

Good evening David & John,

 

I was able to take 60s unguided sub with my AZEQ5 + NEWTON 200/800 with 600D and MARKIII Flattener,

and the stars look fine.

 

Thank you for your support to understand and give PHD2 and the DRIFT ALIGN.. process on PHD2 a try.

 

And it really works..

 

Thx

 

Martin

 

Edited by artem2, 09 May 2016 - 01:47 AM.

[Jon Rista]

Stars look pretty nice there! Glad it worked for you. 

[mac1969]

I am guiding with a guidescope and polar align using PhD with the guide camera in the guidescope. is this a mistake - should I be doing this procedure with the camera attached to the main scope, or does it not matter?

[Jon Rista]

You can use this technique with the guide camera connected to an external guidescope. Just make sure the guidescope and main scope are well aligned and centered on the same star first.

[siriusarcher]

Great guide Jon! You nailed it. It was like you TeamViewed into my brain last night from 2014, knowing I would need this information!

Dave

[loveimac2]

Wonderful technique!

 

I live at around N31, and my setup is on the patio/ or window facing south. 

 

I do have meridian line, but unfortunately no CE that is blocked by roof slightly. So I wonder if I can pick a star that near the meridian and that is also as higher as I can go?

 

I think this is the only way I can get better PA than using compass thing... Thanks a lot!