bluemax wrote:Ron,
In your fine explanation on plate solving, you mentioned not having to align after setting this up. Do you mean no need to do a star alignment and polar aligning each time you setup?
Frank,
You still need a very accurate Polar Alignment (PA), whether you do that with a Polar Scope, Drift Alignment or something like the QHYCCD Polemaster.
It's the star alignment that becomes totally unnecessary once you get Plate Solving working.
<Back Story Details>
When I started, I would setup my mount, then polar align with the polar scope. Just understanding how to and getting your Polar Scope to work properly can be a real challenge...not to mention the error introduced by either a bad Polar Scope setup or simply their native inaccuracy (at least for imaging). This could take 30 minutes easy.
The next thing I would do is spend nearly 20-30 minutes using a 3-Star / All-Star-Alignment with the mount and a
reticle eyepiece. Then on some mounts the software would present you with a PA error. I would then recheck the PA via Drift Alignment.
Then I'd slew to my target and "hope" that I did everything correctly. If so, the target would be nearly dead center in the eyepiece. Another 15 minutes or so and if I was off...I'd have to start back at square one.
Then I'd have to remove the star diagonal, put in the camera, and run the focus routine, get the guide scope going, etc.
What I was doing was
insane as it wasted at least an 1-1.5 hours sometimes more of a good nights clear skies. All of the above was the result of trying to apply what I did for Visual to Imaging.
Now, I just leave the mount outside 365 days / year under a Telegizmos 365 cover. It's already PA'ed, drop the scope in the saddle with the camera already in focus from the night before. SGP slews to the target, centers according to my Framing & Mosaic Wizard settings (when I created the target sequence) using Plate Solving, checks the camera rotation, runs an autofocus, starts PHD2 to guide, and begins taking frames. Time to first frame is probably 15-20 minutes at most.
</End Back Story Details>
Ron B.
T5i/700D, ASI1600MM-C, ASI120MM, ASI174MM, XAGYL 7x36mm FW
Astronomik Deep-Sky(RGB), CLS, Ha, OIII, SII
SV60EDS 60mm f/5.5 APO
AT65EDQ 65mm f/6.5 ED Quadruplet
SW ProED 100mm f/9.0 Doublet APO
C8 EdgeHD, AT130EDT
AVX, iEQ45 Pro
http://www.astrobin.com/users/rjbokleman/