Interesting Software - EQAlign

[JohnH]

Anybody given this a try yet -seems a bit rough and buggy to me but an interesting looking package:

http://eqalign.sourceforge.net/eqalign/index.php/Main_Page/EQAlign_Project

[h0ughy]

how did you stumble on this one?

[Zuts]

Hi,

I loaded this last night after I saw a reference in the EQMOD group. It'svery buggy and doesnt support my camera :(, still the more the better :)

Paul

[JohnH]

It was mentioned in the Yahoo Autoguiding forum I think...worth keeping an eye on...send in those bug reports at least...

[JohnH]

Well I have made some progress, it requires ASCOM5 and a bunch of other things to work properly. It only shows the QHY5 camera option when it is plugged in but now I have done all that it seems to be stable at least for me. No English doco - but I can manage in French and the UI is in English - I will give it a go under that stars if the Wx gods behave...

[Enrique]

I have been using EqAlign since they published the version 2 beta. The release version 2.0.3 is the one I am using now. The program has an English version but I use the Spanish one. There is documentation in Spanish and French; I have not seen one in English yet.

I use the program mainly for Polar Alignment. I do not have an observatory and every time I want to take pictures, I have to follow the polar alignment routine.

I do not think the Ascom drivers are a requirement because I do not use them. I use the LX200 native commands.

The program support QHY5 that is my guiding camera. It also supports any camera with WDM that means it will work with almost all webcams (it recognises and works with the embedded webcam that my laptop has and I tested the program with an old quickcam I have and it worked ok).

There is something that could be a bug in the program: when the program is measuring the angle of the camera, it does not stop the motors for the LX200 as it says it is doing it. I have to stops the motors manually. This trick is very simple to do and works quite well.

Something else I had troubles with was the inversion of the declination axis. Sometimes it is required and sometimes it is not. I do not understand why. It could be a bug for the southern hemisphere. As a result, in some instances I make the correction in the wrong direction. It is not big deal because I always do twice the alignment for each axis. If I did the correction in the wrong direction, the program shows me the error very quickly, in a minute, and I just reverse what I did.

My last polar alignment was done at f10 (fl=3000 mm). It took me about 25 minutes to do it. Then I fired up Guidemaster for guiding. The guiding was incredible, I had the target window in a size of 5 arc seconds and the guiding star barely moved. Guidemaster was sending very few commands to the telescope.

One advantage that I see is with this program is that there are plenty of adequate stars to select when doing the polar alignment. They do not need to be close to the horizon. Look here (in English) http://eqalign.net/e_eqalign.html (http://eqalign.net/e_eqalign.html).

My intension is to keep working with EqAlign. My next step is to work with PEC, then the guiding and planning features.

I believe the program is quite interesting. I have not sent my comments to the programmers yet, I plan to do it after I play with the other features.

Regards,

Enrique

[h0ughy]

Sounds like you are really giving this program a good shakedown Enrique. Perhaps you should send in your experiences with it as looking at the english version in that link it is taylored for northern hemisphere

[White Rabbit]

So will this actually tell you how far off your alignment is? As in "your lat is off so much" Or does it just do the maths and compensate for the errors?

[pvelez]

Does anyone have software-based alternatives for polar alignment. I'd like something that is reasonably idiot-proof.

Pete

[JohnH]

Pete,

EQ Align enables exactly that - software assited polar alignment, WCS is another but EQ Align is the most spohisticated I have seen helping you select the right part of the sky to work in and slewing your scope to the target. It also enables you to measure PE.and guide using a PID control routine, something I have wanted to try before so I think it has a lot of potential I just need some time to work with it.

Other apps have routines that can help - eg GuideMaster. Still others can help with drift alignment by graphing errors (eg K3 and PHD).

Rabbit, yes it will show you graphically how far off you are and the adjustment required for correction.

[White Rabbit]

Thanks John.

My problem is is that I have a lot of trees around where I live so I can only see a small part of it. Are you able to select what part of the sky to look at or does it tell you where it wants to point to.

Thanks again for the info, and the pick.

[Enrique]

The program shows the best area in the sky for you to choose a star. There are plenty of options.

I went to the web site of one of the programers and found they just published another program: EQMatch.

[JohnH]

The app will show you the regions of sky that are optimal for the ALT and AZ drift adjustments to be calculated in allow you to select a suitable star and then slew you scope to the target. See the attached image. You can work outside these zones of course but the error calacs will not be as precise.

[netwolf]

I came accross then while investigating a Italian made goto stepper system.
http://www.micgiga.com/
But at the time i did not pay much attention to it as all the manuals are in foreign languages. But from what i could translate it sounded like a freeware software similar to Pempro. Does anyone know if the manuals are now available in English? Given i have the Qhy5 camera this looks like a very good free alternative to Pempro.

I have sent Francis an email to see if they can make a html version of the document availble, which would allow translation via browser plugins like Foxlingo etc.

Regards
Fahim

[JohnH]

Hi Fahim,

No manuals in English as yet - French and Spanish only atm. French is ok with me though and the UI can be set to English so if you have a bit of French or Spanish you can work it out.

[Starman73]

Hello All,

This seems like a very interesting bit of software, something I would love to use. Can it only be used with Webcams? How do you attach a webcam to a telescope?

I hope these aren't to stupid questions. I have not had any experience with using webcams and astronomy, actually webcams at all.

Regards
Paul

[JohnH]

EQ ALign supports more than webcams - eg it supports my QHY5, to attach a webcam you will need to remove the lens and screw in some form of nosepiece adapter, the exact parts required will depend on which webcam you have. Mogg adapters can probably help.

Functionalities

Polar Alignment via Julius Scheiner method.
Measurement and analysis of Periodic Error (PE)
Autoguiding
GoTo compatible with ASCOM/LX200 classic and DA1.
Local sky projection
Calculation orbital Comets / Asteroids
MPC data downloads
Languages available: Spanish, Catalan, English and FrenchSuported cameras:

QHY5 mono/color
Atik: ATK-1/ATK-2/ATK-16/ATK-16IC/ATK-16HR
Webcam SC1 modified
Any WDM compatible deviceRelays ST4 directly supported :

GPUSB
GPINT-PT
USB Autoguider Pierro-Astro
QHY5 (ST4 internal)
Atik: ATK-16/ATK-16IC/ATK-16HR
Requirements:
For a proper functioning of EQAlign 2.0 you must have on your PC:

Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0856eacb-4362-4b0d-8edd-aab15c5e04f5&displaylang=en).
ASCOM 2008 (5.0) (http://download.ascom-standards.org/ASCOMPlatform5a.msi), some features are not available or may not provide a correct functioning with earlier versions of ASCOM.
QHY 5 users must to copy CMOSDLL.DLL (http://astrosoft.be/RELEASE/CMOSDLL.dll) file to EQAlign directory, normally C:\Program Files\EQAlign2\, if not, the camera will not work.

[Rockah]

Hey guys

I know this is quite old now, but as Im looking at different drift alignment software options, I clicked on the link for this one and found they now have documentation for english http://eqalign.sourceforge.net/index-en.html

[marki]

Have you thought about alignmaster? No camera needed and takes a couple of minutes.

Mark

[gordolake]

Alignmaster is awesome. works great. Well worth the cost, about US$20.

Link (http://www.alignmaster.de/en_alignmaster.html)to web site.
Some features,
Can get location from GPS
LX200/ASCOM drivers
Shows East or West side alignment star pairs
Auto adds syncs to EQmod
Indicates degree errors in Az and Alt
Can do multiple alignments in all quadrants if required.

I'll recommended it for quick and easy polar alignment every time.

Steve

[RobF]

I've always struggled to get good alignment with programs like Alignmaster that require star pairs. With my poor horizons at home it can be a chore to get visible pairs at times too. I expect you'll have trouble if your mount isn't fully orthogonal or if there's any saddle flexure etc, particularly if you have to meridian flip between stars. Obviously not something you want to have, but for those of us with budget mounts we don't have time or expertise to service this can often be the case.

I still have most confidence in drift alignment with a webcam using K3CCDTools as described:
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/63-544-0-0-1-0.html

If you nullify the drift in a scope view you KNOW you've it right. With practice you can get it right in under 30mins at an unfamiliar dark sky site every time - 15mins sometimes. At home I just dump the tripod onto marks on the tiles and away you go with minimal fuss.