It wasn’t a particularly clear night, there was a slight haze, so I decided to test the mount as it was set up to see what the auto-guiding was going to be like with this very rough and ready polar alignment. Saturn would have taken at least another hour to go through the gap, and the seeing looked extremely shaky so low down, so I decided to give Saturn a miss this time. I tackled The Moon in a twilit sky as it passed between the two neighbours house, quickly followed by Jupiter, before both objects disappeared behind my neighbours house. I did not touch the mount position since setting it up for The Sun earlier in the day. I left the scope set up as it was until the sky started to get dark before starting to use it for lunar and Jupiter imaging. It clouded over fairly quickly that afternoon, so I only got 3 fairly mediocre solar images. Read my Lunar or Solar imaging astrophotography guides for more details on this. But I knew that drifting actually helps with getting better webcam images.
![accuracy of backyardeos polar alignment accuracy of backyardeos polar alignment](https://www.cloudynights.com/uploads/monthly_05_2020/post-308532-0-65169100-1590156704.jpeg)
The image drifted down the field of view slightly, so I knew that the mount wan’t accurately polar aligned. I was now set up reasonably well to take my solar images. Once the mount was set up this way, I finally centred The Sun using the RA and Dec controls on computer and calibrated the mount position. I then adjusted the mount so that I could just see an image of The Sun being projected through the scope. I set up the tripod, connected it to EQMOD, sending the scope to point towards The Sun. On the 5th of September the day was sunny enough to get on and do some solar imaging. The other night I decided to have a bit of an experiment and see how tolerant auto-guiding was to a mount that was only approximately polar aligned. You’ve spent all that time trying to get it polar aligned and you’ve not even started to take any images within the short clear window that was available. Not only that, by the time you’ve got out, get everything set up and then carefully polar align, the chances are, living as we do in the UK, the sky clouds over. How accurate should polar alignment be? If you can get it spot on, that’s fantastic!īUT! If you are first starting out in astrophotography, it seems that the expense racks up to get things working.
#Accuracy of backyardeos polar alignment software
Yes, software can be used to help you get there, or you can buy devices that can guide you into adjusting your mount.
![accuracy of backyardeos polar alignment accuracy of backyardeos polar alignment](https://www.stevebb.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/by3-1.jpg)
But what about us folks who have to set up the scope each time we go out and observe, or image? You just cannot spend any clear skies faffing about to get accurately polar aligned each time you set your gear up. That’s OK for someone who has a permanent setup, because once it’s done, it’s done. Some of them spending whole evenings getting it right and making sure it is as finely aligned as possible. On social media lately, I have been reading a lot about people trying to get their mount as accurately polar aligned as possible.