Drift Align Help Please

Acquisition Polar Alignment Deep Sky
6 replies•129 views
schmaks avatar
schmaks avatar
Polaris is behind some trees where I plan to do a lot of my shooting… and as tempting as it is to ask my neighbors if I can trim their trees; I don’t think it’s an option.

Does anyone have a solid drift align technique/tutorial?

Thanks!
Hunter Harling avatar
Hunter Harling avatar
I use PHD's drift align routine. It's pretty easy once you figure out which drift direction is in response to which mount movement (RA/Dec). After that it's just trial and error to get the drift as low as possible.
schmaks avatar
schmaks avatar
Thanks!

Are there any manual drift align techniques that don’t require additional software?
Ron avatar
Ron avatar
This is what I started with:
http://observatory.digital-sf.com/Polar_Alignment_CCDv1-1.pdf
Worked pretty well, but the PHD2 method seemed to work better.  Now I use T-point's accurate polar alignment which I feel works the best.

Good Luck,
Ron
schmaks avatar
schmaks avatar
Thanks!

The neighbor's trees are starting to become a more tempting route haha
schmaks avatar
schmaks avatar
On that note… if by chance I can see Polaris through the trees (not sure yet, it's been overcast)… would that be find and I could use a star in the open for single star alignment thereafter?
Elmiko avatar
Elmiko avatar
Sounds like a pln to me!
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