Drift Aligning with PHD (Tutorial)

[@paskoh]

Excellent tutorial. Gives me the confidence to try it. Thank you 🙏

[@givemespace2742]

Thanks for thinking of us Southern Hemisphere denizens. Much appreciated 😊

[@radioastronomy2001]

Very good tutorial. I would say one of the best I have seen on this subject. It is important that the rig is fully preloaded and all cables managed/organized. Also, I put 3 bricks under the legs of the tripod to prevent it from sinking into the grass. Hanging an accessory bag or a battery of the tripod, to make it heavier and more stable, is helping too.

[@maciekpilarczyk6408]

Very helpfull explanation. About the notes, the easiest way to know what screw to turn is to understand how the screw mechanism works (It's just screws phushing away a pin). With right hand rule you know which way to turn to screw/unscrew thus bring the mount up/down / rotate it clockwise/couterclockwise

[@gusztavbelanszky7970]

Great tutorial. Thanks for your patient presentation

[@bored9260]

When I was thinking drift align i was thinking of an offset of an offset of recalculating arc mins of a star in a field rotation by the difference in the coordinates of the longitude. 😃 this is pretty cool though.

[@baggi6726]

In chapter FINAL THOUGHTS: 2 you talked about reposition to new oblect... e.t.c. What do you mean under "reposition"? For example, if I rotate telescope to another side of sky by using R.A and Dec mechanism, then anyway I need do align again?

[@moonriseset]

Technically no - once you're aligned, that's it. BUT, with the smaller mounts, the more adjustments you do, the likelier it is you have torqued the mount out of line. If you're swinging the scope 2 hours of RA or turning the Dec knob 10 degrees, you should be fine. If you're swinging it across the sky, perhaps rotated the camera in the rings, there's half a chance you need to touch-up the balance. So if you now adjust the counterweight, you're likely to briefly change the weight distribution on the Alt axis and the tripod legs, so when they settle back down after taking your hands off, there is a good chance the polar axis has shifted by a couple of arcminutes. I make it a habit of fine-adjusting whichever axis is best suited for my target. For example, if I have swung from shooting near the meridian to the eastern sky, I know that shifts in azimuth are not noticeable, but shifts in altitude are. So once I am on target, focused and ready, I quickly go to drift align and click to adjust altitude, watch the red line, and fine-move the altitude knob, re-check, then start shooting. The cost is all of 3 minutes. Since you know you are close, you must make your changes tiny. For the azimuth knobs, this means just make one side "not tight", and tighten more the other. If you flip across the meridian, then you turn the Az knobs reverse.

[@deeber35]

Looks like u can't Drift Align without a connected mount? I tried but when I click align, it asks for a connected mount. I thought I could slew the mount manually and still drift align. Not true?

[@deeber35]

I live in the northern hemisphere, but can only see south +-60 degrees; can I still use PHD?

[@moonriseset]

Hi, yes. Sorry for the late reply. That's the beauty of DriftAlign, you don't need to see Polaris. It really helps to have a good first guess and to leave marks to approximately align the next time. Then the method shown here lets you refine it in 5 minutes or so. If you set up the same way I do (first point south), then the instructions for which Az knobs to turn if the red line is below is the same!

[@deeber35]

@@moonriseset Thanks. How far above the southern horizon can a star be to use it for guiding? I am blocked from viewing the horizon by about 30 degrees. Also, I only have 1 DSLR camera (Nikon D5600) and a tracker (SG Pro). You used a camera and guidescope. Can I polar align with what I have?