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SharpCap Pro


gfletcher

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Hi guys

Always striving for better polar alignment i was wondering if anyone had used the polar alignment feature on Shapcap Pro ?

If so, how easy and accurate is the feature?

thanks

Graham

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I muse it and find it quite good.

things to remeber it does need to be roughly pointed at NCP and also mine needs to be well into dusk before it picks up the stars and can plate solve them.

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Hi Graham

 

i have used the SharpCap Pro feature for polar alignment, it is quite easy to use, but sometimes I found it time consuming. For me I had the opportunity to get a pole master and it’s the best investment I ever made. 

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I still use 'Polemaster' (free) on the PC and No1 eyeball through the polar scope on the NEQ6!!

 

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I am the same as Ron when using a tripod. 

When setting up on a pier I use eqmod 

Edited by Graham
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I use sharpcap pa  I find using a 25mm cctv lens £5 off EBay  on my qhy5l-11 works well and now pier is PA I should be able to use my qhyccd  130mm mini  guide scope to check 

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get sharpcap 2.9, that is free and has the polar align tool, very easy to use, run the program, select the guide scope and exposure time so stars can be seen, i use 2 seconds, the click next, it takes some images, then asks you to rotate the mount through 90 degrees then click next again when done and it1ll tell you how far you need to adjust the mount, just checked mine again tonight and almost perfect.

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no but it does need to be roughly pointing towards it, if you have a properly aligned finder, just point that at the pole star and you`ll be fine, the program does not choose the pole star to figure out how off you are, it will select a random star close to it, to be honest the software is almost the same as pole masters, it`s just using your guide camera to collect the image rather than a fancy little camera attached to your mounts axis.

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Tried the polar alignment feature on SharpCap Pro.

Failed miserably.

I even had Polaris in the fov.

would not detect enough stars to plate solve. I tried it for about 90 mins in total but it would not get to the plate solve.

whst am I doing wrong?

I tried exposures from 2secs up to 6secs.

Adjusted the gain , but all to no avail.

Totally frustrated.

Any help would be very much appreciated 

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I am using a BST starguider 50mm mini guide scope with an Altair Astro GPCAM ARO 130C colour camera

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can you see stars ? are you selecting polar alignment tool from the list at the top of the program?  i only use two seconds exposure times and there are plenty of stars, your camera should be fine, sometimes the screen on the program is a little small and needs expanding so you can see the instructions at the bottom, all i do is set the exposure time until i can see stars, click next at the bottom of the screen to start the thing going then follow instructions.

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should not need to take any darks, this is just for polar aligning, image will look a bit grainy but it`s a quick 2 or 3 second exposure that keeps repeating, i wonder if there is a youtube video on it ?

believe it or not, once you have the hang of it, it`s dead easy and quick to do.

 

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Yes Rob I tried 4secs exposure with upto max gain. It kept trying to solve but never actually did solve.

it did keep repeating but not solving. I assume that you do not press the “next” button until it says solved?

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Just a thought, seeing as it is an Altair camera,do I first need to use the Altair Capture software and adjust the gain on there before opening Shapcap Pro or should it be sufficient to only use Sharpcap to adjust the gain?

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Just now, gfletcher said:

Just a thought, seeing as it is an Altair camera,do I first need to use the Altair Capture software and adjust the gain on there before opening Shapcap Pro or should it be sufficient to only use Sharpcap to adjust the gain?

no need graham ,i think once your in the 5 deg limit you'll see yellow circles appear which means it has solved 

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Should I see the yellow circles prior to it being solved? If so, then I could not have been within 5 dogs of polaris

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Just now, gfletcher said:

Should I see the yellow circles prior to it being solved? If so, then I could not have been within 5 dogs of polaris

No ,once it solves the circles appear and it will ask you to move RA 90 deg then it works out the errors , then on to the next step and adjust azimuth and altitude to bring mount into PA

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