ASIAIR Polar Alignment with Guide Camera

Foobaria

Add a feature to ASIAIR to allow Polar Alignment via the Guide Camera. This can provide a wider view and more stars to get a better plate solving. This would be more helpful for higher Focal Length scopes.

FerranG

A nice feature, but for now can be done switching cameras.

andybutt

Set up your guide cam as the main camera. Easy!

Hara

I see one problem here. How you can be sure that main optics and guide scope are aligned so well that polar alignment with guide scope will give you proper polar alignment with main optics? As far as I understand, if they point even slightly different directions, there will be difference in stars movement in main scopes field and stars are not round? I hope that I am wrong....

andybutt

It will not make any difference. You are aligning the mount not the optics. If what you are saying is true then this would be the same problem for guiding.

Hara

andybutt

No there wouldn't. Guide scope and polar has nothing to do with each other. You can point the guide scope almost where ever you want and get proper guidance anyway. But if your polar alignment isn't good, guiding itself don't help. Maybe it is as you say that it doesn't matter if guide scope and main scope are not exactly aligned and polar alignment is done using guide scope. I can't do the math.

andybutt

It doesn’t matter, as long as you are roughly pointing at the pole, go through the polar alignment routine to align the “mount”

zuts

The problem is not with polar alignment it's with gotos. It doesn't matter whether you polar align through the guide scope or main scope. However after alignment the asiair will expect you to do a goto and then will automatically adjust it's sky model to make the selected object appear in the centre of the field of view. If the guide scope and main scope are not aligned and the polar alignment and goto were done on the guide scope then a goto on the main scope may be way off, especially if the main scope has a large focal length like a schmidt cassegrain.

It would be very useful if asiar included a 3 star alignment routine so that after polar aligning through the guide scope you could align through the main scope.

andybutt

That’s what plate solving is for, unless you are visual observer

4Ei17s7w

Having to swap cameras to polar align is just SILLY.

My svbony is for polar align (200mm focal length)

My GSO 12 RC is 2432 mm focal length and polar align via it as main camera holder is silly...

Add a feature to CHOOSE which cemra to polar align on.....

Tech@ZWO

4Ei17s7w Noted.