Using WCS anyone?.

[Gasman]

Hi all
I have been trying to use this polar alignment software for a few nights now and last night after 3 hrs and losing the will to live I`m not sure if its me or it that is at fault!!.
I get the red and green lines about 1" apart on screen then very gently make the final adjustment only for WCS to tell me that I now need to do a furthur 6 or 7 iterations to get back again each taking 5 mins.
I am convinced I am not overdoing the adjustment by the amount WCS says I need to readjust it with and my drive I assume must be ok to get near to start with. This software seemed ideal for me and I was on the point of registering it but I must admit its doing my head in. I would be very interested to hear of other folks dealings with this and if they have been successful.Having RTFM many times I am stuck what to try next.
Cheers
Steve

[JohnH]

I use this s'ware....and it does take some care to get it right - then it will be simple.

I would recomend you visit the SETUP screen and make sure you set your star positions correctly (ie in N or S, and E or W). Get you chip size, fl and pixel sizes correct too.

You must enter the DEC of your aligment star accurately (for the AZ adjustement).

The amount of adjustment required in AZ can be quite large and the number of times this means a star will transit your CCD depends on the fl of your scope and the chip size. In my case one transit is 10' (Meade LPI at prime on a 1800mm scope) so if I am off by 1 deg initially it would be 6 full transits to get into the zone. To avoid this I have marked out my tripod leg positions and usually set up in the same spot, normally I get it right with two adjustments. Also I do not wait 300s for the first adjustment, rather if there is established drift I make the first correction after 60s or so.

If you find adjustment in making your drift worse then you can select the reverse option in the setup screen.

The impact of initall corrections will be difficult to detect if you are well out of alignment - so, if you are not close it may be better to move E or W in large chunks until the drift direction is reversed...then use WCS to refine.

[Gasman]

Thanks for the quick reply John.
I`ve been thinking maybe I should try the `invert` option for the drift calc. I have a Cass scope without a diagonal so wasn`t quite sure which option to choose. I`ve just registered WCS as I was running out of the 30days trial, not had too many clear nights over here in the UK to try it out but I`ll keep at it as I think its a cool bit of software.
Regards
Steve