Polar Alignment with QHY PoleMaster

[@jamiegreen6306]

This is by far the best guide I’ve seen. Tried to for the first time last night but couldn’t find Polaris. Too much light pollution here so going wild tonight 😂

[@sethjchandler]

It’s a jungle out there!

[@starpartyguy5605]

Bought one a few weeks back. Going to dark site for a week of camping. Will definitely try this out

[@PatriotAstro]

It is very fast and gets me up and running quicker than anything else. Let me know if you run into any issues or have questions.

[@starpartyguy5605]

Just got back from Cherry Springs. Polemaster worked great.

[@siegfriednoet]

Very well explained as usual

[@PatriotAstro]

Keep me honest! If I’m ever off base or you’re still confused by the end of my video, let me know and I’ll make sure to clean up my mess. :-)

[@tacomaastro7462]

Nice thing about the Polemaster... it works with Sharpcap as well.

[@PatriotAstro]

Ha, I never thought to look, although I do unplug my Polemaster occasionally so maybe it wasn’t connected when I was in sharpcap.

[@92mrkite]

QHY PM is soooo handy! After PHD2 calibration and guiding assistant sequence, my own EQ6-R Pro is guiding on its peer with 0.27 arc sec rms, which is less than 1/3 pixel of my ASI 183MM Pro…

[@PatriotAstro]

Absolutely! The guiding that I showed at the end unfortunately wasn’t in the best skies, but I didn’t want to put some sort of a guiding graph there after the alignment. I’ve started trying a couple other alignment methods as I put videos together for this series, and it just continues to drive home the fact that I will keep using the PoleMaster.

[@whatmattersmost6725]

Thanks again, instead of using your mouse to move that rotation slider use the left & right cursors keys faster and easier way to rotate those 5 small circles! Also if you move the mouse over the center of the screen like you did earlier you will get a larger view of the Red & Green small boxes and making it easier to see near perfect adjustment. Why not take that few seconds to get near perfect.

[@PatriotAstro]

I'll try the arrows next time - thanks! As far as the 'near perfect' part at the end, what I have found is that when I am that close already, my guiding is still sufficient to get great 5 minutes exposures whether I fine tune it or not. I feel like I run a greater risk on one of my mounts of moving further away from the alignment due to the sticking alt-az bolts. :)

[@obsidian666]

Thanks for the video! What is that software you use to control your mount?

[@PatriotAstro]

I had been using eqascom eqmod via Nina, but lately I’ve moved over to the green swamp server, using the ascom drivers, and of course, along with Nina.

[@randallpatrickc]

I just bought an Evo mount with a C9.25. It came (the lady was selling for a friend) with an EQ6 and a polemaster. The Evo needs work so I will be trying the EQ6 and C9.25 for visual hopping. Would it be worth my using the polemaster? I’ve no plans for astro photography right now but might try EAA later.

[@_Astrovert]

Thanks for the excellent series on alignment! Do you have a preference based on speed vs accuracy or having Polaris or not?

[@PatriotAstro]

Everyone gets used to whatever they use, and you’ll find you get more proficient at it overtime. Even the little things… Like knowing your rig and your environment will speed up your ability to get a rough Polar alignment right out of the box very quickly. But as it relates to these tools, if I have a polemaster available, I still find that the fastest method for me. Without a pole master, if you use Nina, I would use the three-point Polar alignment plugin. That works with or without Polaris visibility. As a matter of fact, even with the polemaster… If I don’t have Polaris visibility, I use Nina. I don’t have concrete data to back me up on this, but if I wanted the most precise Polar Alignment PHD2 drift is probably the way to go. But it takes so much longer than any of the other methods, and because I am actively guiding with PHD2… I don’t need to be that precise. :)

[@PatriotAstro]

I’ll expand on this a tiny bit more too, as I think it’s best that you know how to use multiple mechanisms just in case you ever run into a problem. I use multiple mechanisms as well. One example is if I wanted to shoot planetary and didn’t have a polemaster available… I might actually use Sharp cap since I would be imaging out of that tool anyway. Why open and connect two tools when I’m going to only end up using one later. :-)

[@_Astrovert]

Great points. I've only ever drift aligned with PhD2. I'd like to try Nina though.

[@himadri12dwe]

Can we use a phone (are there phone apps?) with the Pole master to do auto polar align or does it have to be a laptop?

[@PatriotAstro]

All of the polar alignment phone apps I know of are assisting with the polar scope which you are trying to avoid. An alternative would be to add in an ASI Air or Windows stickPC which then could be remote controlled with a phone app. This provides a bunch of flexibility but also more complexity and power requirements.