Polar alignment woes

[ourkind (Carlos)]

I use backyardEOS to take 3sec 6400iso snapshots of the sky with the scope sitting in the parked position and then I nudge the mount left right up down unil I have SCP centred in the crosshairs. Works everytime. 5-10mins max. Then 3 star align.

I also have markers on the ground to position the mount legs to give me a head start

[swannies1983 (Dan)]

Originally Posted by DJT

If you have to wait 10 minutes for dedicated software program's to help you drift align for each axis then don't bother with them.

Thanks for the advice but I'm happy with my polar align process and will continue to do it this way. Everyone has their own method.

Originally Posted by DJT

Be pragmatic. Meridian and celestial pole for drift alignment, don't worry about being "exactly" 30 degrees

EQAlign doesn't follow the 30 degree rule.

Originally Posted by DJT

for tweaks, use the functions available in your preferred guiding software such as phd or whatever else exists.

I should have mentioned that I need fairly accurate polar alignment because I have never been able to sort out guiding issues in DEC. I try and get as good as polar alignment as I can so that there's very little drift in DEC in the length of my subs (up to about 10mins). I manually correct DEC as autoguiding in this axis causes issues.

Also, I can't use programs like Alignmaster as my mount doesn't have any ASCOM support.

[Galah (Patrick)]

Have you seen this? - Astronomy Shed Polar Alignment.

Regards,

Patrick.