Great video with good explanation. In the latest version of Nina, you can add this PA screen to the imaging tab. No need to drag it in the sequence anymore.
NINA has no plans to offer live-stacking, which is what SharpCap is all about. And the fee is pretty low - hard to object to that, since it supports the developer to be full-time.
@@dmccallie I'm not sure but live stacking is included in the free version of Sharpcap. Polar alignment on the other hand is in the paid one: Sharpcap Pro.
3 point polar alignment, anywhere in the sky. So easy, so quick. This is a game changer for us, low-latitude people. Thanks for the video RoRo! Cheers from Malaysia
I’ve installed NINA on my MacBook and am looking forward to trying it out. Also, are we not talking about the dingo that was wandering around behind you? Lol Your videos are really well done and contain a lot of useful information, keep up the great work!
Thanks! It works perfect! I have only 20 degrees gap around meridian in south direction (between buildings) and it succesfully done polar aligning with less than 1' error. Moreover, in recent version of N.I.N.A (#115) this plugin interface become available in main imaging window without going to sequencer.
Been looking for something like this forever. Actually started writing my own software to solve the problem but I became too busy in the end. Great to see it's been done, and done well!
Many thanks for this information. I am certainly going to try it. I have clear view of the South Celestial Pole, but squinting through the polar scope is a mission of note - the illumination overwhelms the view of the alignment stars.
Excellent video. I'm just getting into astrophotography, and the northern sky is quite obscured by trees at my location. EQMod + N.I.N.A. looks like it will be my preferred polar alignment method.
I've seen some videos that guys are saying they use their target object that night as their first star of the 3 star alignment and they get the best alignment.
Great video! I have an asi120mm guide camera in the mini guide scope and was wondering if I could use this to do the polar alignment routine in NINA? I only use a DSLR and WO zenithstar for my imaging. Would I be better off to try and use the DSLR for this routine or the guide cam?
I like the idea of NINA but so far it is running poorly on my U59 Beelink mini PC. Tends to freeze and be a bandwidth hog. I haven't been able to figure out a way to resolve that.
After very accurate PA with EQ mount (connected via EQMOD) in NINA, when I slew to an object, the scope is way off (40+ degrees). Why by so much? Coordinates will be off from then on when slewing to other targets, as Slew and Center does not re-set coordinates to be accurate. Will NINA, when i center and slew, track with the object centered, or track based on the faulty Alt/Az?
Hey RoRo, Thank you for explaining this. I was looking for a video like this. Can i ask you a question? I see you are using the powerbox advance. How does your 294 hold power and connection? I heard that it does not like hubs or power adapters. I am looking to going mono in august with my birthday, and i am looking into what i need. A power solution is one of them as well as a autofocusser. Can you comfortably power everything you need? And what lengths of cable do you use from the hub to your computer?
Thanks for the video! I am new to this field, just have a question. In this video, you polar aligned this by plate solving,.Does this mean auto-guiding software such as PHD2 is redundant in this case?
Hoping to try this out as soon as the clouds part in Melbourne! I've been using Sharpcap and have limited myself to a spot in the garden that sees south but not much else. Interested to try this where I can see more north but not south!
This didn't work for me. I clicked the "play" button on the sequencer. It slewed to the coords I put in, then it said "Retrieving first measurement point." It took an exposure, and then the Three Point Polar Alignment window closed. No confirmation or error message or anything. It just always closes there. Can't find any support for this plugin or forum posts about it anywhere.
Make sure you have set up your plate solver in the settings tab -> plate solving. I use ASTAP for my plate solver. I have a tutorial on how to set up ASTAP plate solver in my video "Setting Up Your Astrophotography Computer - Software & Driver Installation Guide". If your plate solver is already working then I am not sure what could be causing the issue. NINA has a very active discord server where you can speak with the devs to troubleshoot the issue with them.
What tells me you're very knowledgeable is that you say polar alignment to within 18' is "already very good." Which it is, if you're going to autoguide. In forums I see people arguing about 1.5' or 0.7' of polar alignment error. I try to tell them that just a few years ago, we seldom got better than 10'.
Thanks Michael, appreciate your comment. I agree that a perfect PA isn't necessary (if guiding), and you can spend so much time trying to obtain it and then lose precious imaging moments. To me the goal is to get < 10' as quickly as possible so I can get into the real part of the hobby - imaging! Maybe one day I will do a test of how much PA really impacts imaging with and without guiding :)
@@AstroWithRoRo As you know, polar alignment error can actually improve guiding, by causing all the dec corrections to be in the same direction so that dec backlash is taken up. Also, people greatly overestimate field rotation, which is almost never perceptible with any reasonable polar alignment error. (See Astrophotography for the Amateur, second edition, for calculations.) Of course, if you're not going to guide, polar alignment is very important. But there is also flexure, which introduces error no matter how good the polar alignment is.
Hi RO. I said it is the version 1.11? I actually downloaded the 1.10 Hf3 and it is the supposedly latest. However it does not come with the plug ins tab. There is another version which is the 2.0 beta. I had it installed and had to remove because ASTAB always failed platesolving. As a result I went back to the 1.10hf3 version. Can you please enlighten?
Oh, that is exactly the droids I was looking for! I have no access to the celestial pole on my balcony and that, plus the fact to be in a large city (bortle 8), has always been my main blocker to really dive into DSO astrophoto. I've been having fun with a star adventurer, doing polar alignment... based on luck. This is game changer. The other ways sounded too complicated to me, this one seems simple enough. So, now I have an excuse to buy a real EQ mount. Does it work fine with your Rainbow Astro (I'm more into the Crux 140 mk2, but I guess it would work the same)?
I've got a video of the SCP but I use a PoleMaster. It's fun but always keen to try something new. Can the new plugin also PA if you have a view of the SCP?
Very interesting!!! One thing I will comment having a permanent set up in an observatory and using PEMPro for a 2-3 hours of elapsed drift alignment versus The SkyX Pro with a 300 point Tpoint model - nothing every seems to agree all over the sky once you get within 2 arc minutes of the refracted pole - so I wonder if 2 arc minutes is just something I will always have to live with? Bisque Brothers say yes - a Tpoint supermodel will give better all over sky pointing than a drift alignment or any other 3 point model taken in a limited spot of the sky... What are folks thoughts on this?
Pretty much it. Often I see someone boast how they have setup up 30' accurate polar alignment on their EQ6. Astrophoto people are often spewing nonsense.
If you can use slew-and-recenter, then an accurate pointing model is less critical. And if you guide, a super-accurate polar alignment isn’t as critical either.
@@dmccallie I generally do use TSX closed loop slew to centre on a target correctly - and I agree that once you are within 2 arc minutes of the Celestial pole guiding should take care of the rest if your rig is well set up and has minimal backlash or gear slop. I would be more worried about chasing the seeing in my guiding than perfection of polar alignment. However the closer I am to polar alignment the less DEC adjustments I should ever have to make. With my mount on a three star alignment - the mount and controller will itself try to compensate for any polar misalignment - even if I am up to 20 degrees off to the pole! Now if it gets this wrong then my guider has to fight with my mount's controller, plus seeing - and this could induce a see saw in my tracking. So the more accurately I can polar align a permanent mount the better (and I think I just now realised I should turn off my polar misalignment tracking feature in my mount whenever I am guiding!!!) I wished there was a consistent all sky way of optimising polar alignment. I have noted even doing subsequent 200 star sky models using TSX gives marginally different pointing correction advice - say +/- 1-2 arc minutes of adjustment - but for all sky pointing they do say it is far better than drift alignment as it will correct all sky and account for all telescope pointing terms!
I have been using a GPS compass for true north and a digital level for latitude on my manual Meade LX70 with motor on RA for years. Not as accurate as this but do not use it for deep space. And do not have the money for a mount like yours. Poor mans alignment and can be done during the day. I move my mount about because have a limited view of the night sky due to buildings and trees and light pollution. Still fun to do and I am 81yrs.
Great video with good explanation.
In the latest version of Nina, you can add this PA screen to the imaging tab.
No need to drag it in the sequence anymore.
Even better news!!
Sharpcap can't be too happy about Nina becoming so feature complete. Not shedding tears, the annual fee model can't go away soon enough!
NINA has no plans to offer live-stacking, which is what SharpCap is all about. And the fee is pretty low - hard to object to that, since it supports the developer to be full-time.
@@dmccallie I'm not sure but live stacking is included in the free version of Sharpcap. Polar alignment on the other hand is in the paid one: Sharpcap Pro.
@@maciejzmuda1339 Not so, live stacking requires a yearly fee.
3 point polar alignment, anywhere in the sky. So easy, so quick. This is a game changer for us, low-latitude people. Thanks for the video RoRo! Cheers from Malaysia
Glad to hear it Amri!
Thanks very much for the clear explanation. Good to see your 'observing assistant' in the video. 😊
looks like it'll work really well for those of us pointing out through a window!
I’ve installed NINA on my MacBook and am looking forward to trying it out.
Also, are we not talking about the dingo that was wandering around behind you? Lol
Your videos are really well done and contain a lot of useful information, keep up the great work!
Thanks! It works perfect! I have only 20 degrees gap around meridian in south direction (between buildings) and it succesfully done polar aligning with less than 1' error.
Moreover, in recent version of N.I.N.A (#115) this plugin interface become available in main imaging window without going to sequencer.
I love how quickly Nina is updated, great about it being added to the imaging window now.
Been looking for something like this forever. Actually started writing my own software to solve the problem but I became too busy in the end. Great to see it's been done, and done well!
Me too! It's great to have such an active community with NINA.
Great video RoRo. I just love NINA, and it gets better all the time.
Great video! Can this work with a star tracker too?
That’s fantastic. I can’t wait to test it. Currently Sharpcap fan.
Many thanks for this information. I am certainly going to try it. I have clear view of the South Celestial Pole, but squinting through the polar scope is a mission of note - the illumination overwhelms the view of the alignment stars.
Thanks, RoRo. I am certainly going to give this a tryout.
Great Video for PA can u tell me the correct link to download cheers
Excellent video. I'm just getting into astrophotography, and the northern sky is quite obscured by trees at my location. EQMod + N.I.N.A. looks like it will be my preferred polar alignment method.
I've seen some videos that guys are saying they use their target object that night as their first star of the 3 star alignment and they get the best alignment.
Great video! I have an asi120mm guide camera in the mini guide scope and was wondering if I could use this to do the polar alignment routine in NINA? I only use a DSLR and WO zenithstar for my imaging. Would I be better off to try and use the DSLR for this routine or the guide cam?
I like the idea of NINA but so far it is running poorly on my U59 Beelink mini PC. Tends to freeze and be a bandwidth hog. I haven't been able to figure out a way to resolve that.
After very accurate PA with EQ mount (connected via EQMOD) in NINA, when I slew to an object, the scope is way off (40+ degrees). Why by so much? Coordinates will be off from then on when slewing to other targets, as Slew and Center does not re-set coordinates to be accurate. Will NINA, when i center and slew, track with the object centered, or track based on the faulty Alt/Az?
That is a cool feature, going to try this! Thanks for letting us know.
Hey RoRo,
Thank you for explaining this. I was looking for a video like this.
Can i ask you a question? I see you are using the powerbox advance. How does your 294 hold power and connection? I heard that it does not like hubs or power adapters.
I am looking to going mono in august with my birthday, and i am looking into what i need. A power solution is one of them as well as a autofocusser. Can you comfortably power everything you need? And what lengths of cable do you use from the hub to your computer?
Wow…this was so well appreciated.
Thanks for the video! I am new to this field, just have a question. In this video, you polar aligned this by plate solving,.Does this mean auto-guiding software such as PHD2 is redundant in this case?
Hoping to try this out as soon as the clouds part in Melbourne! I've been using Sharpcap and have limited myself to a spot in the garden that sees south but not much else. Interested to try this where I can see more north but not south!
It’s great to have the extra flexibility.
Can you do this even with a star tracker like the star adventurer 2i?
yep you can, so long as your camera can integrate with NINA you can use the manual mode option.
This didn't work for me. I clicked the "play" button on the sequencer. It slewed to the coords I put in, then it said "Retrieving first measurement point." It took an exposure, and then the Three Point Polar Alignment window closed. No confirmation or error message or anything. It just always closes there. Can't find any support for this plugin or forum posts about it anywhere.
Make sure you have set up your plate solver in the settings tab -> plate solving. I use ASTAP for my plate solver. I have a tutorial on how to set up ASTAP plate solver in my video "Setting Up Your Astrophotography Computer - Software & Driver Installation Guide". If your plate solver is already working then I am not sure what could be causing the issue. NINA has a very active discord server where you can speak with the devs to troubleshoot the issue with them.
What tells me you're very knowledgeable is that you say polar alignment to within 18' is "already very good." Which it is, if you're going to autoguide. In forums I see people arguing about 1.5' or 0.7' of polar alignment error. I try to tell them that just a few years ago, we seldom got better than 10'.
Thanks Michael, appreciate your comment. I agree that a perfect PA isn't necessary (if guiding), and you can spend so much time trying to obtain it and then lose precious imaging moments. To me the goal is to get < 10' as quickly as possible so I can get into the real part of the hobby - imaging! Maybe one day I will do a test of how much PA really impacts imaging with and without guiding :)
@@AstroWithRoRo As you know, polar alignment error can actually improve guiding, by causing all the dec corrections to be in the same direction so that dec backlash is taken up. Also, people greatly overestimate field rotation, which is almost never perceptible with any reasonable polar alignment error. (See Astrophotography for the Amateur, second edition, for calculations.)
Of course, if you're not going to guide, polar alignment is very important. But there is also flexure, which introduces error no matter how good the polar alignment is.
Hi RO. I said it is the version 1.11? I actually downloaded the 1.10 Hf3 and it is the supposedly latest. However it does not come with the plug ins tab. There is another version which is the 2.0 beta. I had it installed and had to remove because ASTAB always failed platesolving. As a result I went back to the 1.10hf3 version. Can you please enlighten?
Beta 2 is the latest version and has the plugins. Version 1.11 got promoted from nightly to beta and is now the beta 2 version.
@@AstroWithRoRo Thank you for replying so promptly. Did you ever have issues with ASTAP plate solver on the BETA version?
I haven’t, it’s always worked well for me, but you can try one of the online ones if you have internet access.
Thanks for the video
Oh, that is exactly the droids I was looking for! I have no access to the celestial pole on my balcony and that, plus the fact to be in a large city (bortle 8), has always been my main blocker to really dive into DSO astrophoto. I've been having fun with a star adventurer, doing polar alignment... based on luck. This is game changer. The other ways sounded too complicated to me, this one seems simple enough. So, now I have an excuse to buy a real EQ mount. Does it work fine with your Rainbow Astro (I'm more into the Crux 140 mk2, but I guess it would work the same)?
Yep works the same on RA as the SW mount.
I've got a video of the SCP but I use a PoleMaster. It's fun but always keen to try something new. Can the new plugin also PA if you have a view of the SCP?
Absolutely! Just choose the alt/az you wish and it will solve from there :)
Now we need one for polar aligning using the sun. Usually I just polar align before sunrise but its not always possible.
That would be perfect!
Very interesting!!! One thing I will comment having a permanent set up in an observatory and using PEMPro for a 2-3 hours of elapsed drift alignment versus The SkyX Pro with a 300 point Tpoint model - nothing every seems to agree all over the sky once you get within 2 arc minutes of the refracted pole - so I wonder if 2 arc minutes is just something I will always have to live with? Bisque Brothers say yes - a Tpoint supermodel will give better all over sky pointing than a drift alignment or any other 3 point model taken in a limited spot of the sky... What are folks thoughts on this?
Pretty much it. Often I see someone boast how they have setup up 30' accurate polar alignment on their EQ6. Astrophoto people are often spewing nonsense.
If you can use slew-and-recenter, then an accurate pointing model is less critical. And if you guide, a super-accurate polar alignment isn’t as critical either.
@@dmccallie I generally do use TSX closed loop slew to centre on a target correctly - and I agree that once you are within 2 arc minutes of the Celestial pole guiding should take care of the rest if your rig is well set up and has minimal backlash or gear slop. I would be more worried about chasing the seeing in my guiding than perfection of polar alignment. However the closer I am to polar alignment the less DEC adjustments I should ever have to make. With my mount on a three star alignment - the mount and controller will itself try to compensate for any polar misalignment - even if I am up to 20 degrees off to the pole! Now if it gets this wrong then my guider has to fight with my mount's controller, plus seeing - and this could induce a see saw in my tracking. So the more accurately I can polar align a permanent mount the better (and I think I just now realised I should turn off my polar misalignment tracking feature in my mount whenever I am guiding!!!) I wished there was a consistent all sky way of optimising polar alignment. I have noted even doing subsequent 200 star sky models using TSX gives marginally different pointing correction advice - say +/- 1-2 arc minutes of adjustment - but for all sky pointing they do say it is far better than drift alignment as it will correct all sky and account for all telescope pointing terms!
Can this be done with Star adventurer?
Yes it should work with a star adventurer, you will just have to toggle the “manual” mode and do the movements yourself.
@@AstroWithRoRo would you need a camera at the polar scope?
the eq6 must be struggling with redcat on it 🔭👍 🤣jk
Oh absolutely! The struggle is getting it balanced with such little weight! 😂😅
@@AstroWithRoRo 🤣
You should try an AT65EDQ on Astro-Physics 1600.
Did you need to align the telescope with the polar scope?
Nice to tell us about the feature but you did not bother to explain how it works.
With no access to the pole, yes NINA's plugin is great, but it's not as precise. It does not account for atmospheric refraction while SharpCap does.
I have been using a GPS compass for true north and a digital level for latitude on my manual Meade LX70 with motor on RA for years. Not as accurate as this but do not use it for deep space. And do not have the money for a mount like yours. Poor mans alignment and can be done during the day. I move my mount about because have a limited view of the night sky due to buildings and trees and light pollution. Still fun to do and I am 81yrs.