Thanks again for all the advice here. It's all starting to come together now.Tonight, for the first time, I achieved my EAA goal of (aside from initially turning the equipment on), doing an observing session entirely inside.Last night, I completed the Polar alignment down to
2023-11-21T18:18:37 Polar Alignment Error: 00° 16' 01". Azimuth: 00° 14' 36" Altitude: -00° 06' 35"
LIke, why is the caputre of the moon so sharp and clear, while, with the same focus settings, Saturn is so blurry and unimpressive.
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@Matteo Actually, you were right all along. I had set my focal length, and aperture size, but I lost these settings when I upgraded to the latest AstroArch. Once I reset them correctly, the Polar Alignment Tool quickly took its three captures and came up with its alignment triangle. The process now required me to fiddle with the altitude and azimuth knobs, something I was unfamiliar with. I am going to have to fiddle with them just to gain familiarity with it and try again. I continue to make progress, very slowly. Thanks everyone.
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@Matteo
Grrr. I would think this would be set from optical the train, as it is on other screens. thanks for pointing it out. In any event, I was not able to edit this field before starting. What IS the source of this data on the screen?
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@maxthebuilder
>>After that select "Move Star.. Calc Error" (not Platesove) and hit REFRESH button
I do not see either of these options on my screen (see screenshot. Are we using the same Ekos version? Mine is 3.6.7
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@Hy
Ok, I bumped up the logging as you indicated. I've attached a screenshot of the settings.
There is a problem here. The log file named was not created. Why would this be? Is there a bug so some other setting change I need to make?
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~ » pwd astronaut@astroarch
/home/astronaut
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~ » ls *.log astronaut@astroarch
zsh: no matches found: *.logAnyhow, regardless of the logging problem, here is a screenshot of the results of the polar align
This is actually a big improvement over the previous night's results. The solve still failed with a whopping error as seen in the screenshot, but this time, the "blind image scan" that followed worked quickly. On previous occasions, it went on for minutes without coming to a solution. This, I attribute to my more careful efforts to point true north. Even so, I see none of the information shown in the clip you posted, the blue, green, and yellow lines, which would enable me to fix the alignment. And why is the error so big?
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Thanks. Is there any reason to prefer the West of East direction? Why is this even an option?
I have no guide scope or camera. I just entered my equipment as my signature but the @#$%^ forum software in use here doesn't do anything with it, just like it ignores quotes, etc.
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Thanks for the video! What I see is nothing like the wealth of information displayed there. I probably need to turn on verbose logging, but even then it probably won't show me all those graphics in the video. It fails first, iIt never gets past the first yellow light for image capture. The solve reports failure.
This afternoon I went out to my back yard, where there is a concrete slab that the scope sits on. I had marked the line on it that I considered true north based on a compass I had. Only last night did I realize I owned a much better compass, the app on my IPhone. This allowed me to scribe a new line that was exaclty true north. Comparing the two lines, I learned that I was about 3 degrees off. I've placed the scope in line with the new line. Good old high school geometry helped me out. I don't know if three degrees was enough to render the PA tool unusable but we'll see.
It may be a whule before I get to it. I have a dying mother 3/4 of a continent away, whom I need to spend some time with. If I get an observing session in before I go, I'll send the results.
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Okay, so I have clear skies, scope well focused, can't get Ekos Polar Alignment tool to do anything but fail. I know I am pointed ROUGHLY in the direction of true north, but I could possibly be a couple of degrees off. How close must I be to dead on for Polar Alignment to work?
What would be a good methodology for getting "close enough"? Should I unhook all my photographic equipment, put back the eyepiece and then line up Polaris, physically moving the tripod until it lines up, then reattach my optical train? Or some other method?
Thanks for any advice anyone can give.
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OK, time for me to RTFM. So I set my park location to my home setting, and now I can go to it simply by parking the telescope. Duh.
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