PHD2 Drift Tool Tutorial

See my other 2 videos for PHD settings. In this vid I cover the drift alignment tool.
Part 1: • PHD Basics Part #1
Part 2: • PHD Basics Part 2
If anyone has a request for future videos post them in the comments. Sadly PHD is the only software I feel I'm really good at, but I could take a stab at others.

[@stefanidno]

All of these videos have been a huge help, thank you so much!

[@GaryP747]

Great job and a million thanks. This is exactly the sort of thing that makes the life of a newbie so much simpler. Eternally grateful :-)

[@sean2525]

Great video, thanks! It was the perfect length for me to finish my lunch. I noticed around the 11:00mins mark you read the notes correctly, which says that the star is 'East' of the meridian, when in fact your star was 'West' of the meridian. You then changed your notes, but I believe they were right to begin with. I could be wrong, as I'm still learning all this jargen.

[@rickengman]

Nice Tutorials, easy to follow, they helped to de-mysitfy PHD. Thanks.

[@MichaelAPhillips]

I learned a lot from this, thanks!

[@alfredobeltran611]

Thank you very much for this tutorial. Very useful.

[@yangyunbo1]

nice tutorial！helps me a lot!thank you!

[@PeterClarke55]

An easy way to remember which direction to move towards the bulls eye is to imagine in your example that the North South axis runs parallel to the scopes the movement then just flick the compass sideways and you will see W is upward movement and East is downward. Works for me.........

[@MrBengourben]

Brilliant. thanks for that.

[@jjjnettie]

An awesome tutorial, thanks so much . I've been doing my drift align with the original PHD with only ordinary results up till now, and have never been able to break the 8min sub barrier. This should help heaps. :)

[@DawgcityClev]

You're complaining about not breaking 8 minutes? I've never gotten over 300 seconds and never did drift align. Also I don't get the same guiding results each time I go out with PHD. Some of you are far too spoiled. lol

[@vanarchy8037]

Paa Hawkins A lot of variables go into getting consistent results and even then there are many mounts that just aren't going to do it. I spent a whole night taking 30 minute subs with my modest Atlas and didn't have to toss any. What mount are you using?

[@DawgcityClev]

Wallrat ES 127 Carbon Fiber APO on a CGEM with Orion Guidescope. I don't have a run of the mill set-up. 30 minute subs is just unheard of to me, let alone me getting 10 minutes. LOL I wish I could get 8 minutes honestly, I'd be good.

[@KingHaggis]

Nice tutorial! PHD2 should have a digital zoom option. Maybe it has a zoom option though, I never noticed. But it would make micro adjustments a bit easier I think. By the way, you can also use bookmarks to make it easier to remember wich way your star moved when turning the knobs.

[@danielbeetsma6118]

Thanks!

[@jmledesma2009]

THX!!

[@chuck942]

Hi.....I just subscribed, nice tutorial. I'm fixing to task myself with learning to drift align, although I am wondering if I have enough view of my horizons to do the job......I thought I read that drift alignment requires a good view of the east and west horizons, IDK. Does the drift alignment method necessitate calibrating prior to each session? Thanks.

[@rexcao4454]

Thanks for the great video! I am curious that after doing the three-star alignment can improve the polar alignment, plus the auto-guiding further improves the accuracy. Is it still necessary to do an additional drift alignment?

[@fatboy1271]

Hearing the ding made me freak out thinking that something was wrong with my guiding... I'm at work listening on KZbin, it's daylight out, and I'm not any where close to my rig :)

[@vanarchy8037]

Pavloving

[@fatboy1271]

+Matthew Dixon No kidding! Thanks for the awesome work, and especially your time, on the PHD2 videos!!!

[@MrBengourben]

Hi there. Brilliant, concise tutorials. thanks. one question. Is that a representation of your cameras field of view on CDC?..the small rectangle. How do you get that? Thanks. Jason.

[@vanarchy8037]

+Jason Murphy Setup > Display > Scroll Right to Finder Rectangle (CCD) > Enter the perimeters for your camera's sensor.

[@llamarvasquez1803]

Hello! Have a question?on EQMod what should I have my tracking rate with PHD2 guiding? I think I heard you say you have an orion atlas mount I do to... thanks

[@kaliska4324]

Hi, just a quick question. When you're carrying out the west drift alignment, you're adjusting the altitude knobs?

[@yellowlynx]

The terminlogy maybe confusing. On Azimuth, it's better to say adjust it towards East / West rather than saying "West knob", because either it means the knob at the West side (when facing North, left hand knob), or the knob that moves the Azimuth to the West (the right hand side knob). I suggest you add it to the notes to clarify when you say West kob in means turing Azimuth to the West or East, and North knob means increasing the altitude or decreasing altitude.

[@astrosathya1984]

I tried using ASCOM to connect for Pulse Guiding, but even when moving East/West it says "Star did not move enough", or sometimes, it says "Suspicious blah blah, check if axes are perpendicular. After that just to check, I closed PHD2 and attached my ST4 cable and tried calibrating with that. It did within 3 steps, and again said "Suspicious blah blah". Now what do you reckon I should be doing to get my ASCOM working right with PHD2? TIA.

[@jaspalchadha1041]

Thanks, what happens if I can’t see the south Horizon can I go further up ?

[@nadiraybek]

First of all thank you Matthew for this tutorial. it helps very lot. i'm a bit confused about the initial setup of the mount. After you aligned your mount via polar scope oriantation, did you also setup the mount star alignments and calib stars before drift alignment procedure ? or after rough polar aligment( via polar scope orientation) did you just made quick align and started to drift align ? Thanks

[@vanarchy8037]

I do not use any star alignment for the mount. Actually I don't even use the keypad at all. Level the mount, align Polaris in the polar scope, then start PHD drift tool.

[@nadiraybek]

Thanks for fast reply , so i'm starting up my avx with initial quick setups , align polaris and ready to drift :) tonight i'm going to execute it :)

[@nadiraybek]

+Matthew Dixon it worked perfectly ! Thanks for all :)

[@donmcgovern8039]

Thanks for this! I know this is quite old but I do have a question. Does Cartes assume you are starting from polaris, so when you slew to your first star it knows where it's going? I'm a bit confused as to how the mount knows where Altaris is, right from the start.

[@vanarchy8037]

Cartes and EQMod work together to make a rough guess based on the lat/Long location I manually entered and having the scope more or less aimed at Polaris to start. Similar to how other handhelds make a fairly accurate guess when doing a 2 or 3 star alignment.

[@donmcgovern8039]

@@vanarchy8037 OK, thanks man. So once I get polar aligned, I will just start up Cartes and make sure it is aiming at Polaris and do a quick sync just for a starting point?

[@timwilson7384]

Great Tutorial.. One question. in your notes. what do you mean by "West pointing East" I have done the drift method many times visually just you lost me on that note

[@vanarchy8037]

+Tim Wilson That's a term for describing the scope orientation on the pier/mount. So "west pointing east" means that the scope is on the west side of the tripod/pier and is pointing at the eastern part of the sky.

[@JohnS916]

@@vanarchy8037 I have yet to fully understand how you determine whether your mount is on the west or east side of the pier? This is referred to quite often and it's not only me failing to grasp the concept. For example, if my mount is in the traditional park position with the polar axis and telescope pointing at Polaris, what side of the pier is it on since Polaris splits east and west?

[@vanarchy8037]

John S Neither. You don’t drift align on Polaris so at no time will it be in the park position. You want to choose a star for alignment that’s either to the west or the east. If standing at the rear of your scope and facing Polaris let’s say you choose a star to your right (east). To move the scope it will place the body of the scope to the left (west) side of the tripod/pier, and the scope will be pointing to your right (east).

[@stevenroberson9134]

Pole Master is the way to go. I could get to within about 30-40 arcseconds in about 5 minutes without eating up 30-40 minutes of my viewing and photography. Made by why and sold at optcorp for $300. I thought it was well worth it.

[@vanarchy8037]

To each their own. I spend 15 minutes or until I'm under 1' error doing PA, whichever comes first. Usually I get under 1' in about 10-12 minutes. Regardless I'm always waiting for twilight to end so that I can start imaging. Cost was $0.

[@adrianthrockmorton7557]

At what point would it make more sense to only guide in one direction? As in North or South instead of setting to auto?

[@vanarchy8037]

If your mount is level you should only have declination drift in one direction. I've since changed my process to leave it in auto and run a fairly high declination hysteresis (40+) to prevent the mount from trying to correct opposite of actual drift. The danger is when it corrects opposite actual drift, you enter gear backlash and PHD must then send additional corrections in the actual drift direction before the mount actually moves any.

[@MrSummitville]

What does "West pointing East" mean in your PHD Drift notes?

[@vanarchy8037]

The scope is on the west side of the mount and is aimed at a target in the eastern sky.

[@woldsweather]

At 1 minute you have a Polarscope up. How do I make my Polarscope on my EQM-35 PRP mount line up correctly ie like a clock with 12 at top 6 at bottom etc? Mine is slewed off at an awkward angle which for me makes it impossible to place precisely.

[@vanarchy8037]

I’m not familiar with that mount but most have some sort of bezel you can rotate. That’s not actually a view through my polar scope, it’s a graphic on EQMOD software that shows where Polaris should be located on the ring. So regardless of if your scope is situated right or not you can still guestimate the position.

[@foobee2]

Quick question. Your notes say east of meridian, but you picked a star that was west of the meridian. I'm still mystified by drift align and trying to unjumble it all in my head. Are the notes wrong, or am I missing something something. I'm not trying to offend, I'm seriously asking, I think I may have misunderstood something.

[@Donboy2k]

+foobee2 I believe in the event that you are drifting on the OTHER side of the sky, you just reverse the instructions. He says this around 17:35. But the notes are just to help remind you which way to turn the knobs because when you're making small adjustments, its hard to know which way you need to turn the knobs to get the desired results. I have only done this a few times myself, but from what I've found, its easy enough just to turn the knobs in a random direction and you've got a 50/50 chance of getting it right. So if you make a mistake and turn the wrong way, its not too hard to just click drift one more time and watch to see if you've improved or not. If not, just adjust again in the opposite direction you did last time. So the notes are just saving you time so you're turning the proper direction on the first try.

[@astrogerard2022]

Great video but why would anyone do drift alignment these days if they already did a polar alignment with other software such as Sharpcap or the like?

[@vanarchy8037]

Gerard O'Born so why watch the video? If you have a method that works, use it.