Quote:
Originally Posted by RobF
Actually depending on your software, if you're a diehard imager you'll soon reach the point of not ever doing 1, 2 or 3 star alignments. Most modern astrophotography software will incrementally adjust your pointing to your chosen target through plate solving.
You can do a single alignment at the start of the night, but its not really necessary. Most packages will fail over to a "blind" solve if the inital field solve fails.
Mastering plate solving is an awesome step up and definitely something to start playing with if you haven't already.
What software are you using for data collection currently?
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I was watching a video where plate solving was used earlier tonight and immediately realised that that was the direction to look to move towards as it appeared to significantly speed up the process of getting going.
So far I only have SharpCap Pro. I am guessing the next step is to look at plate solving integration with something like AstroTortilla?
It has taken me a considerable time to get going to be honest.
I bought a 200PDS and mount initially and went straight to an OAG. This only caused frustration and I quickly found excuses to be busy doing other things and therefore did not invest the amoutn of time in to the hobby. I recently bought an ED80 scope and even then found that getting use to the OAG was not easy so I went ahead and bought a 50mm Guidescope as well.
The first night with the guidescope was like night and day compared to the OAG. For the first time I got a proper polar drift alignment done with PHD2. I then moved to try and do a drift alignment for practice however By that time I got to that stage however it was too late to continue. Since then it has been cloudy most nights which is mess than ideal. I am confident now however that the next night I get out I will actually capture some images. Hopefully that will be this weekend however we are in the throes of preparing to move house so that may eat in to my free time.
A huge lesson learnt in biting off more than one can chew though. The 8 inch reflector is a big scope and a challenge in itself, throw in trying to learn how to use an OAG as well as all of the software etc. and it became extremely overwhelming extremely quickly. I did get very close with the reflector in hindsight however the frustration was enough to set me back mentally for a while.
Next challenge is going to be how small the yard is at the new place and I am still not sure if I will be able to see the southern pole but now that I have the basics down and an idea of how to get the drift alignment done that is not much of a concern anymore. Another advantage of the small yard is that it will encourage us to get out more and head to some nice dark sites (we are lucky as we are relatively close to dark skies here in Adelaide).