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Old 15-10-2016, 08:58 PM
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RKenning (Robert)
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Emulating Polemaster's field of view in Stellarium

Hi Everyone,

I recently purchased a Polemaster and tried it for the first time a couple of nights ago with a very bright moon. I started my setup at 10pm. When connecting to the camera on the PC and adjusting the exposure settings, all I got was three stars in a line across the screen through all the noise. Obviously, I couldn't set the template on the screen with three stars in a line. Is the Polemaster unusable on a full moon night?

I ended up doing a manual (visual) set up by putting the cross hairs of my illuminated reticle on Polaris Australis then adjusted the latitude down to GC Oct and a slight easterly azimuth adjustment and I was pretty close.

I was also wondering if it is possible to set the 11x8 degree and 25mm focal length settings into Stellarium so that I can get a red frame of what should be in the Polemaster field of view.
I hope I have explained this well enough.
Thanks for any advice.

Rob -Hawthorndene, South Australia.
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Old 16-10-2016, 09:04 AM
cfranks (Charles)
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Hi Rob,

I borrowed a PM and used it to Polar Align my Losmandy G11 on Friday night with the very bright moon and it worked perfectly. IIRC my exposure was 200, gain 70 and zoom 100 giving me enough stars to play with. I found the focus was fairly critical and just adjusted it until I was happy with the image. My problem was I had no idea what the Sig. Octans looked like so I just clicked on each of the brightest stars until the template had a star at each reference point.

HTH
Charles
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Old 16-10-2016, 03:01 PM
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RKenning (Robert)
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Hi Charles,
Thanks for your reply. I think I might have to wait for a clear night and wander up your way to the lookout at the top of the hill. I have had good success there being able to see the entire sky but it is a bit of haul from where I am.
I tried all the exposure and gain settings but I still only had 3 pin sharp stars show up. I did have others at the extremities but the 4 stars or Octantis I was hoping to drop the template on just weren't visible. The seeing wasn't the best two nights ago as the almost full moon was washing out the sky in the early part of the night.
Anyway, I will give it a go at the end of October when the moon is a little more friendly.
I would still like to know if I can rig up Stellarium to give me an Ocular view frame for the Polemaster.
https://postimg.org/image/51cpq2ht9/
Heres an image I took on the night with a 300mm 8sec 3200 iso
As I said earlier, I set the cross hairs just East of BQ Octans and the go to's were pretty good from then on.
Cheers - Rob
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Old 19-10-2016, 11:21 PM
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RKenning (Robert)
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Okay....the penny dropped tonight. I had a darker sky to play with and discovered the lens wasn't factory focussed. I was looking at chip noise the other night....Doh!. After using the fairy wrench to loosen the grub screw, I got it pretty well in focus and continued on through the process.
I didn't bother mounting an OTA, as the wispy clouds gave poor seeing, but the Polemaster still showed the full gamut of stars to align to.
Next step is to go to a clear sight and spend the entire night and try to get some decent exposure time with the Dslr.
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