Sunday, January 22, 2017

PoleMaster

I always said, there are three important basic techniques for astrophotography namely: collimation, focusing and polar alignment.  And in Cantonese we said: 對焦,對 pole, 對光軸...



For focusing, I have a motorized focuser.  For collimation, I bought the original Bob's knob for collimation.  And now for polar alignment, I have just bought the QHY PoleMaster!

To use it in the field, I use my Teclast tablet via OTG cable.  And it connects without any problem, I've tried it in day time but the exposure control is very limited so that even at its lowest setting, the screen white out.  Can't wait to test it tonight in a nearby location, I hope I could find a place where the Polaris is visible.

--

 I really got chance to try it out in the field on the same night.


I only got time to go to a nearby playground but then I don't know if Polaris is visible or not there... After more than half an hour, I guess I made it.  Note the bright thick line across was from a distant (not too far away) tower crane!  The Polaris is barely visible, and then light pollution was very severe so that pushing the gain/exposure further will only white out the whole screen.

Finding the center of rotation of the Sky Adventurer is not easy by pressing the button since it's just too slow.  And instead, I disengage the clutch and move it manually but this is not recommended as stated in the user manual.

Finally, I pulled out my DSLR and tested with my 50mm lens.  I stopped the aperture and set ISO low so that I could do a 3-minute exposure under such a sky, star remains pinpoint, good news.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I read that Post and got it fine and informative.
polarlicht