4 replies to this topic

[kazzieKat]

Hi everyone,

 

     I just joined CN and this is my first post/question...I'm using Stellarium with eqmod/ascom to control my telescope to find and slew to targets, such as Jupiter and Saturn (yay conjunction)... I never get good polar alignment because I have to set up in my apartment building parking lot   and the building blocks the North (.  

 

I select Jupiter in Stellarium and ctrl 1, the scope slews there, but it's always off, so then I have to search around to get it lined up in the main scope (finally got a better finder scope so that helps some).  Now that I moved the scope to see Jupiter, in Stellarium the telescope position is no longer on Jupiter.

 

Can I tell Stellarium where my telescope is actually pointing?  Like some command to say "set my telescope position to selected object"..so that now Stellarium would show the scope positioned on Jupiter.  Then I could repeat this procedure on Saturn and other objects to further fine-tune the alignment.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated, especially before tonight so I can have better results for the great conjunction (mmm Gelfling) this evening and tomorrow and on

[RazvanUnderStars]

Welcome to CN!

 

What you are asking exists and it's called "sync-ing a mount", i.e. telling the mount the real position without moving it. It's available in a number of programs but I don't use Stellarium for scope control. After googling a bit, it seems that Stellarium doesn't have this feature but some people say it's available through a plugin called StellariumScope (https://welshdragonc...stellariumscope). It was developed before Stellarium had scope control but still maintains extra features.

 

Another possibility is to connect with another program which supports syncing at the same time (it is possible, the mount doesn't care) and sync from that application, then continue to use Stellarium.

 

Also, it is possible to polar-align a mount even if you don't have visibility to the north pole. One thing you can do is to use a compass when you set up. That gives you magnetic north. You can find the magnetic declination at your location online, that will give you the true north. The north celestial pole is about 40 arcmin from Polaris, close enough for visual observations that you don't need to take it into account. To control the altitude, start the mount level each time, then it shouldn't matter between different sessions.

 

You can also refine the polar alignment through visual observations (drift alignment) but it takes a bit of time, though, so maybe not worth it for visual observations. 

[mikenoname]

Can I tell Stellarium where my telescope is actually pointing?

 

Yes! The sync operation that Razvan refers to is available in Stellarium (no need for StellariumScope anymore as ASCOM is now built in). By default its hotkey combo setting is:

 

Sync telescope #1 position to selected object           Ctrl+Shift+1

 

But you can check the hotkey settings by going to the help panel in Stellarium (F1) and clicking on the Help tab and scrolling down to the Telescope Control section. Click the big Edit Keyboard Shortcuts button at the bottom of this window to edit any of these keys.

Edited by mikenoname, 20 December 2020 - 12:10 PM.

[larryjh]

Hi and welcome.  Just to make sure, I wanted to point out that you still need to do a star alignment on your mount before using Stellarium for pointing.  If you've done that, then as Mike said, you can point to an object in Stellarium with Ctrl+1, center the object using the mount hand controller, then Ctrl+3 in Stellarium to sync.  Good luck!

[roelb]

Stellarium syncing: Ctrl 3