PoleMaster - what accuracy are you getting?

[garymck (Gary)]

Excellent Henry !!!

Now I can be sure I'm doing the right thing as well

When you get it working it gets great results. I'll be interested to hear how you go now....

cheers
Gary

[Fernando]

Dear all,

I am taking advantage of the discussion to ask you guys a question: does Polemaster will work for me in my location, 43 W and 20S?

I asked this question to some sellers sites and could not get a kind of final answer.

Thanks in advance, Fernando

[JohnH]

Not sure how accurate the alignment is but my results are much better. Tracking is smooth and I have got to 20min subs with no real field rotation.

[HenryNZ]

Can I have a vote who has the USB on the right and who has it on the left (for Southern Hemisphere) and what accuracy you are getting?

I emailed Qiu from QHY and he still thinks USB left is correct although that's not my experience.

[Exfso (Peter)]

See what Theo thinks, he is the distributor in Australia for them..I will probably be getting one for my birthday...

[barx1963 (Malcolm)]

Well I have just had a crack at a new Polemaster. What a little ripper of a device!
I had just spent a frustrating 30 minutes drift aligning in PHD2 and it was jumping all over so I said, bugger it time to give it a try.
I was not going to use it tonight as the imaging time was going to be limited so didn't want to waste time learning a new system.
Anyway took about 20 minutes and was knocking out guiding results better than I have ever had!!
I the past I was always finding that my guiding wuld seem to be working ok, and I would move to a new target and it would be all over the shop.
After 1 go with the PoleMaster, problem appears solved.

Happy Happy

Malcolm

[barx1963 (Malcolm)]

I have attached a photo of my latest guiding graph. It has been easily the best guiding in Dec that I have seen. Pointing accuracy is much improved and the whole process only took 20 minutes.

And I know there are other ways to get great alignment, but for system that needs to be set up each night, this is a great result.

Now just have to work out PEC so my RA graph can get impoved.

Malcolm

[Atmos (Colin)]

Nice and flat line thats for sure I am thinking of getting one for my HEQ5 purely for visual and wide field photographic purposes.

[barx1963 (Malcolm)]

Paul Byron has told me that he has used his on a Polarie with excellent results. I am only using 570 mm focal length, so guiding like this is a bonus. May not be good enough for the long FL systems but if it means I can get up and running quicker it is great!!

Malcolm

[DJT (David)]

Used mine for the first time tonight with a portable setup and was polar aligned in less than 5 minutes, going through the subs post alignment and its pretty good.

Granted am imaging at f6 with a tak fs6o but no issues yet.

[Dennis]

Originally Posted by HenryNZ

Can I have a vote who has the USB on the right and who has it on the left (for Southern Hemisphere) and what accuracy you are getting?

I emailed Qiu from QHY and he still thinks USB left is correct although that's not my experience.

From what I understand, USB on LHS is recommended when the “Astronomical Refraction” option is enabled. This orientation should give an inverted image (rotated 180º).

If you place the USB connector on the RHS you should get a “right way up” image that corresponds to what the naked eye can see (i.e. not an inverted image).

I have “Astronomical Refraction” enabled and set up with the USB on the LHS and thus get an inverted image on my computer screen (i.e. upside down and mirrored L-R).

Cheers

Dennis

[beren]

Dennis is that LHS of the mount while looking behind your mount to the south ?

[Dennis]

Originally Posted by beren

Dennis is that LHS of the mount while looking behind your mount to the south ?

Standing facing the DEC axis (counterweight shaft between your legs), with your back to the SCP and looking at the mount, so your “eyes” are effectively looking N with your “bottom” facing S.

West is then to your Left and East is to your Right.

This assumes you are standing on your feet – not your head!

Cheers

Dennis

[beren]

cheers

[Mosc_007 (Charles)]

I have used mine twice. First time it took a while to find Sigma Octans. The second time it was only 5 mins to get the best polar align I have ever had. Best tool I have seen. Cant recall left or right plug side. But it is with the Image the correct way up.

[byronpaul (Paul)]

I have a permanent set-up at home, so haven’t needed to use the PoleMaster for a while, but here are some others comments I’d add to my earlier posts.

I use the set-up with the USB on the west side of the mount.

In the field, in the past I’ve actually struggled to even get a rough polar alignment when first plonking the mount down and looking at a compass. As we all know, if we can’t get this right then any subsequent polar alignment routine is going to be difficult.

So along came the PoleMaster and now the very first thing I do once my mount is set-up and balanced is I start the camera, but not the alignment software. Then I spin the mount around the RA axis. At this point you can very easily work out if you are roughly aligned or way off. I use this method to get a rough polar alignment then a start the PoleMaster software and process.

I’ve bought the adapters for my NEQ6, HEQ5Pro and Polarie. In years gone by, I HATED polar alignment as I just couldn’t get it sorted or I was adjusting back and forth, back and forth.

I don’t know how to measure the accuracy of my polar alignment, but I guide at focal length of 432mm on an imaging scope of focal length 1100mm, and my guiding adjustments in PHD2 and Maxim are typically ¼ ~ ½ pixel or less.

Paul

[JimsShed (Jim)]

I got one of these and have now used it twice. I think I would have been very lost if AstroNZ hadn't put his tutorial on YouTube. First time out I fiddled around for about 30 mins. 2nd time, yep 10 mins all done.
On arrival my camera was not focused correctly and the grub screw locking the focus barrel is the tiniest I've ever seen. Had to use one of those tiny flat blade jewellery screwdrivers to undo it.
Anyway no problems with the software on Win10 and the camera is reliably recognised every time I plug it into the Dell laptop.
Finding Octans the first time was a learning experience and the nature of the system requires that your axis is very close to the celestial pole to start with otherwise it's out of the FOV.
This thing is not cheap but it does work even though I'm in suburban Brisbane.

[Dennis]

Just a few screen captures to show my view South and Sigma Octantis poking over my neighbour's roof line.

The image is inverted (rotated 180º) as I have the USB on the LHS of the mount.

Cheers

Dennis