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This ought to help with polar alignment on the Star Adventurer, especially along the unguided declination axis. #Astrophotography
The original polar wedge is good but not great. RA alignment works well with the two thumbscrews, but the single dec knob has too much play if you adjust past 0 in PA nd need to reverse direction.
VERY tough to get dec error below 30" or even 60".
VERY tough to get dec error below 30" or even 60".
The WO base has two thumbscrews to adjust the dec axis. They push against a nub that should give much more fine control during polar alignment.
Biggest downside I see so far is a max latitude of 64 degrees. Iceland and Fairbanks are around 65, so may not work perfectly on aurora trips.
I'm planning a 3-D printed 15 degree addon to hopefully fix that. Want just a small shift to the dec range without losing stability.
I'm planning a 3-D printed 15 degree addon to hopefully fix that. Want just a small shift to the dec range without losing stability.
Since you can guide the SA in the RA axis to correct for RA errors, declination error is most important part of polar alignment. And that dec direction just so happens to be the weakest part of the SkyWatcher design. *shrug*
Right now I can get 120-180 sec guided pretty reliably on the SA and their wedge with a ZenithStar 61ii. 300 seconds on a really good day. Here's to hoping that every day is a 300s good day now! :-)
It’s windy tonight, so it’s hard to test this well. But got PA within 10 arcseconds!
Single 3 min exposure on #Messier101. Still not 100% reliable, but gusts of wind aren’t helping.
4 min. Not perfect, but promising. I think I may need to work on balance next. (Most movement is still in the unguided dec direction)
Round stars in this 4 min test shot!
Round stars in a 5 minute exposure! Do I dare shoot for 6, 8 or 10 minutes?
Another good 5 min test. Starting to wish I had focused tonight!
Now testing 6, 8, 10 min
Now testing 6, 8, 10 min
6 minute exposure isn’t too bad.
Holy moly this is 8 minutes on a Star Adventurer!
