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how to make a good alignement with an AVX.

Celestron Advanced VX Acquisition Deep Sky M81 NGC3031
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Darktytanus avatar
Darktytanus avatar
Hello, i'm new to astrophoto and i want to improve my tracking.
4 night ago i managed to make 60" exposure of M81-82 and M1 without startrails.
I make my alignement following these step. (i have no polarscope on my avx)

1) Mount is on level
2) point the north and look in the "hole" (where the polarscope is normaly here)
3) Polaris in the 'middle" of this hole.
4) do a 2 star align and 1 calibration star.
5) the go to is really precise but not the tracking.

Now i don't do anything more than 30" smile

If you have a idea of how to make long exposure without startrails like me 4 night ago. (There is no wind and my apn is a Canon 1100d)
Thanks for you help.  smile
Tomas Chylek avatar
Tomas Chylek avatar
Hello Darktytanus,
I am using AVX for AP and this is what I do.
-level the mount and roughly point north
- set telecope to indexes and move mount in azimuth and elevation (either moving and extending legs or adjustment bolts) until I center Polaris in the finderscope
- do Celestron  hand control alignment and calibration using at least four stars
- do Celestron hand control alignment -> Polar align -> Align Mount and use azimuth and elevation adjustment screws
- do Celestron hand control alignment and calibration again (since you disturbed the previous one by moving mount)
- Use PHD2 (free software for guiding) to "Drift align", it will also tell you exactly how far misaligned are you in the end. I can easily get it to better that 5 arcminutes
hope this helps,
Tomas
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Darktytanus avatar
Darktytanus avatar
Thanls for the answer.
I Don't know why it create 2 threads… when i post….

I try what you said next time smile
Jesco avatar
Jesco avatar
You could also try out electronically assisted polar align using SharpCap. I think Kstars/Ekos can do this also.

it is really easy to get <5“ alignments this way.
Darktytanus avatar
Darktytanus avatar
But to use this software i need to plug my pc with the mount or something like that ?
Shawn Killian avatar
Shawn Killian avatar
No to use sharpcap polar alignment, you just need a camera , and a guidescope, you can even use your telescope, you simply take exposures near the pole and rotate your ra axis, and sharpcap tells you what you need to adjust on your altitude and azimuth adjustment knobs.
Michael Southam avatar
Michael Southam avatar
Agree with Tomas Chylek. Use the mount's star align but add more than 1 star. You should add the maximum number which I think is 4. Then do the mount align using the mounts software and azimuth screws. Once this is done, you can repeat the process again to get the alignment even closer. Using a guide camera will help also but I'm only able to guide to about 4 arc seconds with my AVX which is not great. That said, I can take 5 minute exposures on windless nights without trails being a problem. Another trick is to make the balance of the telescope a little heavier on the telescope side of the RA axis. This will help keep the mount pushing on 1 side of it's RA gear. Clear skies.
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Darktytanus avatar
Darktytanus avatar
Thanks for the help