kobu replied to the topic 'New Polar Alignment Scheme and Features' in the forum. 3 years ago

Hello, let me first say thanks for such a great piece of software, the combination of kstars/ekos/indi has done everything "easy" for a starter like me. I never thought I could be possible to take nebula photos from my backyard, and definitely this is thanks to the hard work all the developers are putting on this.

Now, I still have issues with polar alignment with Ekos. I don't have a view of Polaris so my only possibilities are plate solving polar align or drift alignment. I couldn't use the previous polar alignment method in Ekos without Polaris so I started using drift alignment in PHD2 which takes me to a consistent total RMS between 0.20-0.35, enough to take up to 10min pictures without star trails with my setup. However this takes ages to do, I spend at least 1h-1.30h to achieve the needed accuracy, so when I saw the new polar alignment feature I was really excited as it could drastically reduce the time I was taking for a proper alignment.

I'm able to run the process without issues, have tried close to the pole region and east or west, I have clear view of the sky from North-East-South and a little portion from North to West. In many cases, and after 2-3 iterations, I'm able to get polar aligned with less than 1' of error. However, then I run Guiding Assistant in PHD2 and I get a much higher alignment error. Last night, I got under 1' in Ekos while PHD2 was reporting 42', which is a huge difference. I could actually see the drift happening and stars where not sharp. I then drift align again in PHD2 and got a good 3' error which was fine in my pictures.

What do you think it could be happening, why such a difference between both tools? Any feedback would be highly appreciated.

Thanks!

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