That won't affect the end result. However, someone mentioned in the comments that if you do line up the points as you mentioned, then it will help you determine which screw to turn without the need of the little diagram sketch step I illustrated in the video.

The purpose of the finder scope is to help you get a star into the field of view of the eyepiece. The eyepiece and finderscope do not need to be perfectly aligned with each other. I calibrate my finder by pointing the telescope at something bright, like a street light. Big and bright things are easy to find in the telescope without the help of your finder. Choosing a thing on earth helps too because if you look in the scope and see a tree or rooftop instead of the street light, you'll be able to tell easier where you are in relation to the light. Use a wide angle eyepiece, like 30mm or so. If you start too zoomed in, it's harder to find your target in the eyepiece. Once you have the light in view, adjust the finder to center the light there too. Now move to a bright star. Center the star in the finder. Now look in the eyepiece and you should see the star, albeit not perfectly centered. Make adjustments on the hand controller to center the star in the eyepiece. Now make a few final adjustments to the finder to center it there too. You're done, even if it's not perfect. Now when you're star aligning the telescope (each scope alignment process is a little different, so the rest of this is based off the alignment process for the nexstar scope I recommend in this video), you need to point at 2 or 3 bright stars. Switch to a little zoomier eyepiece like 20mm. Start by centering a star in the finder. Look in the eyepiece. Notice it isn't perfect. That's ok. Use the hand controller to center in the eyepiece. Press OK to lock that star in. Repeat for the remaining stars. The eyepiece gets you in the neighborhood for alignment. That's all you need it for. The finder that came with my nexstar was garbage and had to be adjusted everytime i used the scope. I replaced it with a telrad finder and it's been amazing. It comes with a mounting shoe you attach to the telescope tube with double sided tape. The telrad itself just slips into the shoe and tighten 2 screws to lock it in. The telrad has a massive field of view and illuminated reticle, making alignment a snap. The best part, however, is once you get it dialed in, it stays adjusted because the adjusting knobs are built into the telrad, not the mount shoe. Even if you remove it from the shoe and reinstall it the next night, it will still be spot on! Get a telrad and you'll never look back 😉

@@MrWilsonsChannel thank you ill try that you written here :)

I think you'll be happy with that setup

It's there, at the very end of the video. Rho ophuchi nebula

@MrWilsonsChannel :0 i am a fool

I use the Asi Air Pro, which is a little all in one computer about the size of a pack of playing cards. It contains all of the software required to control the telescope and all of the gear attached to it (cameras, mounts, focus, etc). It only works with zwo gear however... Except mounts. It's compatible with a ton of mounts. For editing the image in this video I used deep sky stacker and Photoshop. But I no longer use deep sky stacker and have switched to pixinsight

Unfortunately this one has long faded back into it's dormant state. Nova like this usually remain bright for just a few weeks. It will take time for the dwarf to rebuild gas from its companion before it erupts again.

@@MrWilsonsChannel NOT A PROBLEM i'M JUST CURIOUS ENOUGH TO CHECK IT JUST FOR THE ABILITY TO FIND IT.....DID I SAY IT CORRECTLY

Correct

That's going to be an awesome rig! Nice choice 👍😊

Thank you so much for your kind words. I'm glad you found the video helpful 😊

That sounds like an interesting project 😍

Thanks for the support 😊

Thank you for the support 😊

@ReinetteFourie I can't tell you how wonderful it is to hear this! Thank you for your kind words. This is precisely why I created this video. Many comments I get here complain as though I am somehow attempting to discredit the Bible. But I am, in fact, trying to reach those who would try to pervert science in an attempt to justify their unbeliefe. To show that the same argument the unbeliever would use could be turned on its head in defense of the Lord is what it's about. Carry on the message my friend :)

You won't be sorry... Although your wallet will be 😉

Great tip! I'm definitely going to do this. Thanks 🙂

That's great to know about the coma corrector! I've almost pulled the trigger on the edge HD several times, but it's hard to justify the cost to correct a relatively minor defect in a scope that is otherwise the same as the one I have now. I have to admit, it does bug me, but not enough to buy a new scope. If there's a cheaper correction option, then I'm all about looking into that! Thanks for the tip. The distortion you're seeing in this image does clear up once the telescope temperature normalizes. But I always have coma in the corners which is super frustrating.

Let me know how it goes 🙂

That's fantastic to hear. I'm glad you got some good stuff and thank you for your support. It was my intent and hope to make this somewhat universal for any type of eq mount. Glad to hear it worked out. How do you like your skywarcher? I almost got one of those instead of the am5, but I was already a little tapped on price so I went with the slightly cheaper option. I like how they include the cable management features in the saddle. That seems like it would help a lot with cable management.

My understanding, and I could be wrong about this, is this: if you set the max RA aggressiveness to 25% as I show in this video, ask yourself "25% of what?" That's what the max RA setting is you're talking about. If you set that to a hundred, and the max aggressiveness to 25%, then the most the mount will pulse is 25 (25% of 100). I'm not sure what the unit of measure is there. Pulse units? Pulse power? If my understanding is correct, it means it doesn't really matter so much what settings you use because the percentages you scale it to in the aggressiveness settings will need to change accordingly. I have to adjust my aggressiveness settings each time I use the scope to account for changes in things like equipment placement, balance, etc. if you find you need to adjust the aggressiveness all the way to 100% and you're still not getting the results you need, increasing the max RA will allow you to get to a higher pulse power. For example, if you had the max RA set at 100 and your aggressiveness set 100%, increasing the max RA to 200 and setting the aggressiveness to 50% would be equivalent. I have my settings set at the default which I believe is 200 for both?

Will do! Thanks for the idea 🙂

I switched to the strainwave format from an eq6r-pro and have been thoroughly Happy with it. It's so much lighter and every bit as accurate as a traditional EQ mount. Let me know the results of your experiments. Since I have the am5, I'd be interested in hearing how things work out for the am3 version. Clear skies!

Came to comment this exactly. leveling matters for alt/az, not equatorial mounts. and the ease of alt/az justment in the polar alignment, of an equatorial mount, is for the same exact reason. think about it this way, is your mount axis level with earths gravity or aligned to the axis of the earth(it can only be both at the equator, hence the nomenclature: equatorial mount)

Came here to say the same.

It will definitely affect DEC guiding because if your tripod is level, it won't need to move much. your mount will guide mostly on the RA,

We got to get you some gear! I'm envious of those dark skies you've got 😍🔭

My understanding of the max ra and dec settings, and I could be wrong about this, is this: if you set the max RA aggressiveness to 25% as I show in this video, ask yourself "25% of what?" That's what the max RA setting is you're talking about. If you set that to a hundred, and the max aggressiveness to 25%, then the most the mount will pulse is 25 (25% of 100). I'm not sure what the unit of measure is there. Pulse units? Pulse power? If my understanding is correct, it means it doesn't really matter so much what settings you use because the percentages you scale it to in the aggressiveness settings will need to change accordingly. I have to adjust my aggressiveness settings each time I use the scope to account for changes in things like equipment placement, balance, etc. if you find you need to adjust the aggressiveness all the way to 100% and you're still not getting the results you need, increasing the max RA will allow you to get to a higher pulse power. For example, if you had the max RA set at 100 and your aggressiveness set 100%, increasing the max RA to 200 and setting the aggressiveness to 50% would be equivalent. I have my settings set at the default which I believe is 200 for both? As for the calibration setting, that's also the default which seems to work ok. To be honest, im not sure how to measure an optimal value for the calibration option. I'll need to look into that.

@@MrWilsonsChannel Thanks. PHD2 will provide you with the calibration setting based on the focal length of your guide lens and camera's resolution. Many have criticized ZWO for not doing this automatically as the values are there and its a mathematical solution. I've also read that the max Ra/Dec aggressiveness is associated with the slope of your mounts periodic error, but other sources say to simply use a value 1/2 of your guide camera exposure. 1/2 sec would be 250ms. Hence, I was curious as to how you came up with these values, which I don't believe are the default unless something changed with the latest FW update. Might be smart for me to do a reset and see what comes out - any-hoot thanks for doing this video as its more relavent and current than anything else I've come across.

With the 120, you may not be able to get it to go down that fast since the 120mm has a quantum efficiency of 80%. This means it's losing 20% of the light that hits it. Have you tried increasing the game of the guide scope to compensate? My understanding of the max ra and dec settings, and I could be wrong about this, is this: if you set the max RA aggressiveness to 25% as I show in this video, ask yourself "25% of what?" That's what the max RA setting is you're talking about. If you set that to a hundred, and the max aggressiveness to 25%, then the most the mount will pulse is 25 (25% of 100). I'm not sure what the unit of measure is there. Pulse units? Pulse power? If my understanding is correct, it means it doesn't really matter so much what settings you use because the percentages you scale it to in the aggressiveness settings will need to change accordingly. I have to adjust my aggressiveness settings each time I use the scope to account for changes in things like equipment placement, balance, etc. if you find you need to adjust the aggressiveness all the way to 100% and you're still not getting the results you need, increasing the max RA will allow you to get to a higher pulse power. For example, if you had the max RA set at 100 and your aggressiveness set 100%, increasing the max RA to 200 and setting the aggressiveness to 50% would be equivalent. I have my settings set at the default which I believe is 200 for both? As for the calibration setting, that's also the default which seems to work ok. To be honest, im not sure how to measure an optimal value for the calibration option. I'll need to look into that.

Thanks for this. It seemed like it was temperature related as it improved significantly once the telescope temperature matched the ambient temperature. But I certainly wouldn't rule out sensor tilt as well. I'm going to give this a try. Thanks for the suggestion 🤩

Is the AM5 you have still guiding well? What equipment were you using for Tip 8? Thanks

I often use my c8 with the reducer which lowers the focal ratio to f6.7. I can guide at 0.2 seconds with the ASI 220mm and the game set up really high. You may have trouble with this under more light polluted skies. I live under bortel 5 which isn't great but certainly could be worse.

Yes, my understanding is that you should do the calibration near the celestial equator. In the ASI air there doesn't appear to be any adjustments you can make to control how many pulse steps it does during the calibration phase. It apparently just does whatever it needs to do. Mine seems to take about a minute or so to complete. So not a significant time investment, but I have definitely had significant tracking issues resolved by simply rerunning the calibration

You can change the number of steps by altering the calibration step value in the Asiair menu. I have read that the ideal number of such steps in the calibration cycle should be about 7 “jumps” to get to the “25 value”, but i’d like to know more about why this is and how to tune it for any specific set up. I am told PHD will analyse this value but i don’t have a separate loop via a laptop to check this.

My own understanding has always been that there are no other benefits apart from - as you say- the easier PA. Will be interesting to hear of any.

Well you guys got me thinking now. When I do these videos, I do research ahead of time and then test out the things I'm suggesting to see if they actually work. I do get better results when I level the tripod in advanced. But now you've got me questioning why exactly. I think I'll do another video to test this out. Intuitively it seems like this would have an impact on your tracking. Consider this: you have One tripod leg significantly shorter than the other such that when standing behind your rig facing north, the leg on the right tilts the entire rig at an angle compared to the horizon. When you rotate the base in the tripod left/right, it should move parallel to the horizon. But because one of the legs is shorter it will also increase or decrease the elevation off of the horizon. It seems like this wouldn't matter as long as you were able to still polar align. Now consider when you issue a go-to command and the mount moves to the specified coordinates. The RA is also going to be affected by this elevation change too. It seems like this also would not affect anything if you're plate solving. Once the mount arrives at the coordinates it thinks it should be at, it simply takes a picture realizes it's off and then corrects itself. As long as you are guiding, any errors from the improper leveling seems like they would be corrected too. But does this result in more corrections than would otherwise be necessary? I'm totally going to test this. You gave me a new video idea. Thanks! 🙂

@@MrWilsonsChannelgood considerations! I am looking forward to the video and will give this some more thought myself :)

@@MrWilsonsChannel Space is, effectively, at infinity for any trigonometric corrections due to offset. As long as your RA axis is parallel to the Earths, all will be fine. :)