Any tips on Driift Alignment with Orion Miniguider?

[Andy01]

Hi everyone,

Just hoping that someone may have some tips on how to drift align my EQ5go to Saxon 120ed refractor rig a little faster.

I have recently purchased the Orion Miniguidescope and camera, and am hoping there may be a shortcut.

http://www.bintel.com.au/Astrophotography/Autoguiders/Orion-Mini-Autoguider-Package/403/productview.aspx

I also have a 20mm Illuminated recticle EP.

Until now I have been doing it manually using the drift alignment method from pete's astrography, but I'm finding it painfully slow and inaccurate, (but it's probably just me.)

Thoughts and helpful suggestions most welcome.

Warmly
Andy

[mithrandir]

A quick search on drift aligning with PHD brings up this thread (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=67244) on IIS, apart from lots of hits on other sites.

PHD is free from Stark Labs (http://www.stark-labs.com/index.html).

[rolls05]

G'day. Not sure if this is exactly what youre after but anyway, all helps.

http://www.andysshotglass.com/DriftAlignment.html
http://www.astrotarp.com/drift_method.htm
The second one is one star drift method.
ps,that autoguider looks good,exactly what i'm after. cheers

[scagman]

Hi Andrew,

I have found the method down the bottom of this page to work well(for me anyway). http://njstargazer.org/PolarAlignment.asp .

Cheers.

[Andy01]

Many thanks for your input guys.
I'll give those tip a go when the sky's clear again!

Cheers
Andy

[naskies]

I've found that drift alignment is great if you're already pretty close to being polar aligned, but somewhat painful if you're waaay out. Other methods can be much easier and faster.

If you're running EQmod, then software such as AlignMaster will be much faster at getting you very close to polar alignment. It gives you pairs of stars to choose from - it slews to the first one, you centre it, it slews to the second one, you centre it again, it intentionally moves the star off-centre, finally you re-centre it by using the polar alignment knobs. Doing this about 2 or 3 times usually puts me within about 5 arc sec of PA.

If you're just using the SynScan hand controller, I believe that the latest firmware upgrade has the AlignMaster-style polar alignment tool built into it. There have been a few threads on it here...

One other thing - it *really* helps if you can make sure that your mount is level. Don't trust the bubble level on the EQ5 (unless you've calibrated it) - they're infamously bad.

[5ash]

I drift align using my g star or Samsung cameras connected to my main scope.I use Al's graticule (free software graticule) to line up a stars proper motion with the drive turned off.Restart the drive and observe the stars drift up or down and try to correct it by either az or alt adjustment depending on the position of the star . By overcompensating you soon know which way to go. I believe that prior determination of which direction it should go just complicates the procedure , then once you know which way to go it is fairly quick ,particularly when observing the image on a computer screen. So why not put your guide camera on the main scope as it gives higher magnification and give it a go.

Philip