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Alignmaster
Hi,
I would like to add my experience with Alignmaster as I have found this to be one fantastic piece of software for aligning my Meade LX200 10" on a Milburn wedge. For guiding, I have an Orion Short tube 80 refractor with a QHY-5 mono camera. I have placed the spacer between the Orion and the QHY-5 to reach focus. Bintel's website makes a mention of the adapter and they also sell them.
First step is to align all the bits hanging off your scope, so for me I aligned my finderscope to the main telescope, attached the guide scope and then aligned this as well. This process is really easy and I got close enough, just use a bright star. You can use finder scope cross hairs, illuminated reicles, normal eyepieces if you have a good eye etc. The finderscope simply makes it easier to get a star in the FOV. A laser will work even better in my opinion as you can stare into the sky instead of up a weird angle, (align this to the main scope too).
By the way, I have had my guiding gear for just 2 weeks now and it all worked on the first night I was out. My friend gave me advice over the phone as to how to set it all up and the steps.
Oh, don't foget to focus everything of course and ensure that the tripod is very level.
OK, now everything hardware on the scope is aligned, then it is time to setup the tripod and wedge to point south. What I do is get a cheap $15 dollar compass, (the one with the flip out lid with the thin wire in it and the fold out magnifier), and as best as you can, line up the tripod so it points in that direction. I use 172 degrees as that seems correct for where I am. I also ensure that my wedge's adjusters are set to their central position. I also set the alt on the wedge to about 36 degrees. These for me are excellent starting points.
Now that my scope is pointing close to south, I put the scope into its home position and fire up Alignmaster.
As you know, the next bit is to select 2 stars which you and myself both have trouble with. I have an updated star list which does help a bit, but I did have to wait an extra hour before I could see the stars I needed. (I have read that you can update the star list, sterne.txt, in Alignmaster with all the stars that you can see in your area and then Alignmaster can have more available. Just make sure that the coordinates are correct. I will try this next week). I then fire up PHD in the camera mode, QHY-5, and turn on the bullseye.
Now I align the first star that Alignmaster asks for by either using a finderscope or laser pointer. This always gets the star to appear on the PHD screen and I then centre this star using the hand controller. (Orientation is a little tricky at first, especially if you are used to ALT/AZ like I was, but practice this and it will become second nature in no time).
Next accept this star and repeat the process with the second star.
After this Alignmaster will ask you to physically align your scope, then it will offset the last star you chose and expect you to bring it back to the centre of the line, not centre of screen, just centre of line. Do this for both axis.
Once done, Alignmaster will ask you if you want to do it again, I do 3 to 4 times all up and it works fantastically.
NOTE: Alignmaster will change the stars in its list that are available as the time in the night goes by so sometimes if you dilly daddle, you may have to pick some other stars, but so far I have not had any major issues.
After this process, I shut down Alignmaster , locate the object that I want to photograph and add telescope control to PHD, tell it to auto find a star, select 'Guide' and it just works!
There may be something I have missed apart from some obvious things but generally from the top of my head this is it.
So basically,
1. Align all the hardware. This is usually only done once unless knocked badly.
2. Level scope and focus. Nightly
3. Use a compass to aim tripod south 172 degrees. Nightly
4. Run Alignmaster/PHD bullseye and adjust tripod/wedge. Nightly
5. Start autoguiding. Big smiles.
This takes me between 15 and 25 minutes at this stage, I've heard it being done from others in 10 min.
This is my experience of what simply works very well, I was lucky to have about 5 nights in a row that were cloud free so I could experiment and this process worked every night first time.
Oh, and once autoguiding, turn on your telescope's PEC training if it has it and it will do this automatically for you!
Hope this helps and happy to chat more if you wish.
Cheers,
Damien.
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