Right to the point and simple, I spent ages on youtube looking through other videos of people talking, but not actually telling or showing you how to properly align
I had the exact same issue when starting out. That's the main reason I made this video. I'm glad I could help!
Thank you so much for this tutorial! I'm getting back into Astrophotography for the first time since 1989 and have been struggling. My barn door tracker and old 35mm seems primitive. I've a NexStar 5SE, a ZWO planetary and a Nikkon DSLR.
Only your fourth video and damn it is a good one! love the quality and work you put into this video and the little extra bits that help you explain what your saying!
Twan Oligschlaeger thank you so much! I felt like this procedure was very vaguely explained in other videos, and waay too long. I made a short and clear one to help!
thank you so much for this excellent and clear tuto . I was looking for the full procedure for weeks !! good tip for the camera as well.
Glad I could help! I made this video because I could not find a good tutorial when I was starting out :)
About time. Someone with an understandable video. Nice! :)
Hey just wanted to give you a shout out on your video! The method you shared works very nicely. After doing the polar alignment you shared it was nice to slew to targets in the night sky and they would actually be in the field of view. Again thanks for this video.
Thanks for sharing this seemingly very simple approach to polar align my brand new NexStar 5SE. Looking forward to trying this method tonight. :)
LOL! You just learned me how to use my Celestron 8" arm mount w/wedge to hold and correctly slew my 300mm Canon f/2.8 lens that my Starwatcher cannot handle. First time I have seen this done or written about - and I read a lot. So simple and logic just never considered it as an option!
Cheers from Down Under ,I've heard people say its was hard to do or time consuming but that was good Straight Forward and easy to follow.
Thanks and keep it up, Clear Skies.
Excellent idea for the modification for the wedge. I bout the 5se a few months ago and plan to use a threaded rod like you did.
Mate, gonne try that tonight, as it is completely different than the manuals explanation. I was desperately trying to set it up properly, but your method sounds like a nice alternative.
Thank you for taking time to show us how to aline our telescopes.Love the photo at the end of you're video.
Hi Bowen,
Thanx a lot for the excellent tutorial! I'l try to follow your tracks.
Best regards,
Siegfried from Germany
Very useful. I have a Star Adventurer Pro and can polar align that with the scope but I have a Nexstar 5SE in my very near future so this is really, really handy.
This is a great video explaining in detail how to polar align the 4se. Great video 👓🎓🔭:)
that's brilliant way to explain ,I am thinking of buying a wedge ,but now feel more confident of working it
3:27 OOOOH Nice!
Excellent stuff. Thanks for sharing your tips!!
Backyard Starman thank you! I hope this will help you polar align your telescope! : )
Very helpful. Thank you.
Thank you for share, I don't used my celestron for 3 years and don't remember, but now.....go for my eq north alignment again. Tks
thank you for this video.
nice and simple. Thanks
Great video really helped me,you gave earned a subscriber.Btw how did you put your camera to the mount?
Awesome helpful video, so is it always the left hand star near polaris that hits centre of your star finder ?
Awesome thanks
Brilliant
excelente muchas gracias, saludos
Hot damn, this tutorial did it better than the official celestron documentation lol. I’ll be trying to diy a wedge mechanism with 3d printed plastic parts interfaced with metal rails and threads. This video is a huge help.
One question though? I am using the Celestron SLT with the curved arm. How do I adequately find the “index” position here?
Very good...👏👏👏👏
Thank you for this most informative video tutorial. I am looking forward to trying this once the weather improves. Was there a reason why you wouldn't have used the "Polar Algin" function?
Also, I just got my 4SE and haven't had any "clear skies" to use it yet. As an Astro photographer, I assume you are using the rear camera mount. I have ordered a SVBONY SV105 camera to dip my feet into planetary photography. Can you please tell me what I would need to attach the SV105 to the camera mount? I was thinking that it might be better to mount it there rather than trying to swap out the eyepiece for the camera.
Hi awesome video .. can you plz tell which dovetail is needed to mount dslr in nexstar 5se .. also I think you should make a video for it .. as don’t think any body have made one for it
Ok deze video is best ziek
I have the Nexstar 5SE, but I live 4 degrees north of the equator. Would it be possible to polar align it here? I can´t even see Polaris. Thank you for the video. I learned a lot from it.
Hi there. I have been struggling to align my scope in SH. Alignment to stars keeps failing when mount is polar aligned. Alt-ax…no problem. Any ideas?
How did you set your camera with the mount?
So does it matter the azimuth position of the mount when aligning, is there a xertain position for it to be in? Also one other question, this is gonna sound stupid, but is there a way to do this w/o polaris? There is a massive tree right in the way of it. Thanks for the tutorial, my tracking is just way out of whack and i want to know if its because of those.
What do you use to replace the telescope by a dslr on the mount/star tracker.
Thank you for this easier to follow video, I’m getting my 4se in a few days and will watch this again to set it up, is it possible to mount a spotting scope on this base like you did your camera ? I have a nice 80mm spotting scope I’d like to try on this if possible.
Thanks again for the fab vid 👍🏻
As long as the spotting scope has the same mounting bar, the vixen dovetail, I believe it will work.
Hi. So I have one, do I set it 51 degrees ( where I am) by looking in the gap underneath or at the top near where you attach scope ? Cheers.
Thank you. At 2:17 I'm lost on the red circles and lines, even after reading the replies to the pinned comment. Are you using an eyepiece that has those circles built in? I admit I haven't even ordered the scope yet.
Thank you for sharing this nice video, is it the same procedure for example to track m31 and how to get that grid at minute 2:33 to polar align correctly?
thank you
Once the telescope is aligned with the bright stars you can select the desired object and it will track it. - that grid is where you can see the celestial pole - where the lines converge. This must me centered it the view.
Hi,
Firstly thanks for the tutorial you've made it seem less daunting than others have made it feel.
Secondly, I would to ask what you used to image the shared image? Was it the Dslr only or dslr connected to the 4se?
Hi, great video, thanks 👍Can you post a link for the vixen plate you used to attach your DSLR at the end? Thanks!
www.astromarket.org/zwaluwstaarten-klemmen/geoptik-vixen-style-prismarail-80mm/p,4360 This is the one I use
have you tried the Asiair?
Is it possible to zoom it up?
Is it as good as eq mount
Hi Bojay. I’m looking forward to trying this out. Can you tell me how you ‘slew to the north / zenith’ without first having to align?
Whenever I switch on my handset it prompts me to hit ‘enter’ to start the alignment process. I’ve not discovered a way of slewing without that first appearing / demanding attention.
For example, I’m unable to switch on and just slew to the moon or anything else visible in the sky. Many thanks, it was a very good, clear & concise video.
You can already use the arrow keys to slew the telescope, even if it displays 'start alignment'. So it wont block moving the telescope in Altitude and azimuth ;)
Hi Bowen. In 2.21 minutes into the video you say “center Polaris as shown on screen....”. Can you explain what do you mean by that. Should Polaris be centered in the center of the red “Bullseye” or as you show in the clip - position above the Bullseye/reticle.
Thanks.
the bullseye is where the celestial pole is. if you have found it by looking at the stars (which make the arrow in the image), you will have to center the pole in your eyepiece.
Hey there, so are you using this for long exposure DSO photography? I have been immensely frustrated after buying a celestron 5se as advised on forums for a cheap entry to deep sky astrophotography but since buying it I have never once managed to get it to follow an object well enough to do a long exposure. Further research has had me be told many times DSO imaging cannot be done using my scope and I should never have been advised to get one, because it cannot track. I realise it won't perform like a much more expensive setup but I was lead to believe I would be able to get it to find and follow nebula and galaxies, and i was hoping to find my feet before spending thousands.
try to put a normal camera lens and dslr on the mount instead of the scope. this way the tracking errors will be much less of a problem with lower zoom - thats what I did
I just bought this telescope for our 21st wedding anniversary (which is tomorrow). The plan was to have it setup for a midnight picnic and so stargazing, but I’m doing something wrong because it’s not aligning no matter which stars I choose for the auto align. HELP, I’ve got less than 24 hours to get this thing right!
How many minutes of deep exposure did you achieve?
Can you do longer exposures with that wedge...like 15 mins ? Thanks
really depends on your focal length. the greater the zoom, the shorter exposures you can pull off.
How would I set up my 5se and use my asair polar align function?
Not really sure, I havent had the pleasure of using asair myself unfortunately
where did you get your EQ wedge?
what does "slew the ota up to the wedge's zenith" mean? Do you mean that the telescope should be parallel with the fork-arm? Unfortunately you show the ota moving but do not clearly show to what position it's moving.
Great video, thanks, the image that you show at the end was shot with DSLR and the lens or with the DSLR and the telescope?? cheers
thanks!! it was shot with a lens, not the telescope. the scope is too much of a zoom for this mount to track accurately
@@bojaystellar7759 - could you explain this comment? What is the point of getting the wedge if even with it the scope/mount won't track accurately enough for photography? In particular, a wedge for the Celestron 6SE would cost more than a small equatorial mount for a camera.
Wouldn't all the moving of the mount mess with how level the mount and scope is?
Great vid Bojay, I have a 5SE myself and I am finding this video very useful. Only thing that I am not sure to understand is the part at 2:21. You mentionned at 2:16 to move the tripod and the Wedge so that Polaris is centered in the eyepiece. And yet at 2:21 you are mentionning that you need to center Polaris and the 2 stars (triangle) like in the image. In the image, the triangle is not centered in the middle but at the top of the field of view. It's like we need to move Polaris from dead center, to higher up... It's confusing... If you can clarify please.
Lastly why are you not using EQ autoalign? Is it less accurate than the 2 stars align? Also why not piggy back mounting the dslr directly to the scope for DSO imaging? Thanks
Thank you. Yes, this is one of the mistakes I made in the video, as I forgot to mention the following. The dot, where the triangle points to, should in fact be centered. I showed it this way, otherwise the triangle would be outside of the field of view.
As for centering polaris first; I do this because polaris is bright and easy to start on. from there I move it like you said. So this serves more as a rough 'pre-alignment' to help me center it after.
Lastly, I do not use autoalign as I heard that two star align was more accurate. and I do not do the piggyback, because the 4/5se mount is really quite weak, and tracks better with less weight. I hope this clarified it a bit :)
So the dot, that Polaris and the 2 other stars point to is in reality the celestial pole? Or is there a star hiding underneath the dot? What is there on this dot that we need to align too? I was sure that having Polaris dead center in the eyepiece was the goal of a precise Polar. Alignment, Now that we need to put the dot in the middle, I just feel that I would be centering empty space in the middle of the eyepiece. Maybe it's me who is hard to understand, but I don't get the reasoning behind this last step
@@albro8853 that is indeed the case, there is no star there on the dot (celestial pole), that would be perfect but it isn't so... thats why I showed the triangle shape so it would be easier to locate.
@@bojaystellar7759 what you mean is, you first get Polaris centered so you can be sure the NCP (where the triangle points) is in the field of view. Then you center the NCP. Unfortunately he doesn't actually explain how to adjust the wedge (using the big screws) to center first Polaris then the NCP. Furthermore his "triangle" doesn't actually point anywhere since it's not exactly equilateral, and even if it were it doesn't tell you where the NCP lies along the pointing line.
You say there are 2 faint stars that form a triangle with Polaris - but in your field of vision there are dozens of stars any 2 of which would form a triangle with Polaris. Which ones are the ones you mean? This triangle will point along a line so the aim is to make sure this line is in the enter of the field of view? Also what does "move the wedge and the legs " mean: which leg, and is it better to move the wedge (how?) or move the legs?
Move the legs to change the polar alignment in Azimuth (left/right), and move the wedge to change the polar alignment in altitude (up/down)
@@bojaystellar7759 - no, assuming the setup (legs+wedge) are roughly pointing north, use the 2 large azimuth bolts on the Wedge (which for some reason you don't mention or point to). And yes of course also use the large altitude bolt (which again you inexplicably don't point out).
So i'm still not clear why you would do this. The telescope tracks in it's normal position. So why would you need to polar align like an EQ?
I think it has to do with photography which requires tracking over a long period of time, maybe greater accuracy?
@@geotechlb - more exactly a regular altaz mount needs to keep tracking in both alt and az,in a zig zag pattern, to compensate for the earth's rotation around the North Celestial Pole. Furthermore, the required zigzag would be slightly different for stars/objects that are not exactly centered. So tracking the centered star/object accurately will make the surround stars/ objects appear to move - "field rotation". But if the mount is tilted so the "alt" axis now exactly aligns with the NCP, then only only the "azimuth" axis needs to be adjusted (at 360 degrees every 24 hours) to exactly track all the stars/objects in the field of view. The process of "Polar Alignment" is simply to tilt the mount (on a wedge) so the alt axis points exactly at the NCP (which is luckily fairly close to Polaris).
Congratulations! Please tell me, what kind of wedge is that. Is it homemade or one can buy it at specialized shops? Thanks.
Thanks!! This one came with the Nextar mount I have. I'm not sure if there are seperate wedges, but I would reccomend looking for it on astro stores online.
Bro help me my direction arrows dont work and wont move the scope 😥
@@bojaystellar7759 yes bro but when it comes to moving the scope iself with the direction arrows nothing happens and it reads not responding. Ive been seeing other videos maybe it needs an update?
@@ashketchup777 Either do that, or the tip of the power cable is attached the wrong way around. There should be two pins when you remove the tip (the side thag goes into the mount), the scope wont respond if they are inserted in the wrong way...
"Adjust the legs and the wedge to center Polaris". Good luck with accurately centering Polaris by adjusting the legs. For some reason you don't explain what exactly "adjusting the wedge" means - you should have said you adjust the big azimuth and altitude screws on the wedge. Same when you center the NCP. You video is like teaching someone to drive by saying you "adjust the car".
Nowhere in any Celestron documentation does it say "adjust the legs" during the alignment process. I'm pretty sure you're doing this all wrong.
not completely wrong , but not very clear either. You would adjust the legs at the beginning so the wedge is pointing very roughly at the NCP, then make fine adjustments using the 2 azimuthal bolts on the wedge, not explained in the video.
Hi mate. Great video. Just one thing I'm unsure of is should polaris be centre of eyepiece, or towards the top of eyepiece like in your photo?
youll have to have the center of all those red circles and lines as the center of your view. I agree that I didnt say this clearly enough in the video, I apologise.
@@bojaystellar7759 thank you for your reply
Hi, how to mount a camera on to eq.?
@@RickyTOHK You use a vixen adapter plate, they're around $15-30.
@@bojaystellar7759 Dude. I still dont get it :-( Do I have to have Polaris centered in my view, a little bit slightly to the right off center, slighty to the bottom a bit off center?