|
I'm sure you will get other responses. I asked the same question on the SB Forum a long time ago, as have several others. I cannot say I recall the answer was entirely clear to me. Suffice to say that other responses indicated that picking a star or planet at random pretty much gets a good enough placement of the mount that you can begin to plate solve. Once you get in 6 points, even if you need to do them manually, the pointing will get much more accurate even if the PA is way out. From there you can probably do automated plate solves. Get at least 40 points and run the super model, adjust PA according to recommendations and you should be quite close to PA. From there it is just a case of refinement.
A few more recommendations that you might find helpful. 1. Don't waste a lot of time trying to PA without plate solving. Get the camera working straight off. You can adjust parameters that will increase your chance of plate solving such as allowing larger field searches. The other thing is don't make the exposure too long. I found 5 seconds or so at 2x2 binning just about perfect. 2. Eventually you may get to a point where you are chasing small adjustments in Azimuth and Altitude and seem to be oscillating back and forth. Typical advice is to try adjusting 50% of the recommended adjustment. This may work but seems random. For altitude I had excellent results by using the camera to verify that the mount actually moved the required amount. Use the jog controls (in TSX) to move the scope in the opposite direction the super model requires. That is, if it says to move the altitude down X arc sec, first take a photo before moving the mount. Then move the mount up using the jog control the same amount and take another photo. Finally, physically lower the mount and take a third photo. If the mount moved accurately your third photo should look exactly like photo #1. It's just a question of moving the mount up/down in little adjustments until the photos agree. This method solved the problem completely for me.
Welcome to the club! I'm sure you will be very happy.
|