Tell your friends about me then haha 😄 yeah I’m just doing the best I can and the rest will follow in it’s own time. Thank you for the comment Matthew, I appreciate that!
I live in Panama, at 8 degrees north, and between the tropical clouds and the low just-over-the-horizon position of Polaris, getting a good view of the celestial pole is a rare treat indeed. In light of that, your video is really helpful. Thanks.
What an absolute legend.. I just bought a my first tracker, a Sky Watcher Star Adventurer and your videos helped me set it up and go out on the field. Amazing work!
PS Align Pro is a great app to coarse align to Polaris. It's much easier to fine-tune afterwards. You should have Polaris within your polar scope with the coarse setup. I think this app will help many people to succeed. I will try this one out when the dark season is coming. Thank you for your great work. Keep those videos coming! Clear skies!
Another trick: I noticed it takes 17 full turns of the knob to go from 0 to 90 degrees in the SW wedge you use. That's 5,924 degrees per turn. So to align its altitude a little bit less coarsly you can set it to 0, make sure it's really leveled using a spirit level, mark knob at it's top position using a marker or a sticker and then turn (your geo. alt )/5,924 times. That's 9.45 turns in my case which is still easier to set than just using the 3 degrees/tick scale :)
This is a great video tutorial for me. I have bought iOptron SkyGuidar Pro but facing difficulty in polar aligning as Polaris is hard to find at Bortle Class 8 and 9. Hopefuly ur tricks will help me now and yes as an iPhone user I also never knew the compass option has a true north. Great man. Keep going. Love from INDIA.
I'm in Panama, even closer to the equator than Cambodia. Even on the best of days, Polaris is a distant, dim star. Mostly it's just covered by clouds or the thick humid atmosphere. Frustrating to try align!
Some analog compasses do have an adjustment for magnetic variation. It is usually a tiny screw on the back of the compass that rotates the numerical dial on the front. Thanks for the video.
i used the handheld compass with the app compass and inclinometer with the 50mm on my crop sensor took me few test shots and adjustments could do 3min without any real movement in stars and you are right about the electronics interfering i found on my skyguider pro no interference on the right flat side of it when facing polar. but other side or top it really messes the compass up...
I was thinking a good use case for aligning this way would be this next April when the next eclipse will be. I will inside the zone of totality and I wanted to take a few shots with my DSLR on my tracker of the eclipse. Of course it will be daytime, so a course alignment would be perfect for such an occasion. I’ve not yet used my tracker since I bought it yet. So hoping to get used to it before eclipse time. But realistically I could prob just use a tripod. Shutter speed will prob be fast enough to not need my tracker. Thanks for all the great videos. You’ve helped me a lot!
Even with the rough alignment, the 2 minute exposure was pretty impressive on the 200mm lens. Yes, there were plainly visible trails making the resulting image pretty unusable; however, had you aligned to true north (not magnetic) and shortened that exposure time I bet you would have gotten usable results. Obviously properly aligning works the best, but for those who want to do deep sky imaging and have no view of the celestial pole, it may still be possible to get great results. After all, any relatively aligned tracker would allow you to get longer exposures than is possible on a static tripod. For example, if I use my Lumix G9 with a lens at 100mm (so 200mm FF equivalent) to take shots of Andromeda, I'm limited to 1.5 to 2.5 second exposures depending on whether I follow NPF or the 500 rule. With the same setup imaging the Orion Nebula, the NPF rule states a max exposure time of 1.2 seconds.
This one is spot on. Simple, direct and really helpful. I still want to know if there is a reason to "calibrate" the polar alignment date and time scales on the SkyWatcher Star Adventure 2i.
I am pleased at the great job you did on this video. As you mention the north magnetic pole is in Canada but it moves every year. It is actually moving towards Northern Russia and it’s rate of change is increasing every year. I have downloaded the Polar Alignment App you mentioned in your presentation and I will check it out. The closer you live to the actual magnetic pole the more the deviation between it and the true North Pole can be.
As you mention ( after you said the compas on the phone was off) its The metal, batteries and motor of the Sky Adventurer mount generate a magetic field thats throwing off the compass. If you build a non magnetic bracket to hold the phone away from the mount just a few inches, it should be fine.
A quick test with a Phone and a Compass on the Star adventurer. The left hand side with the two buttons on effects both and the top does but nowhere near as bad. Luckily the right hand side with the main switch wheel on is fine even when it's switched on.
Great video Kamil! I have same issues with my phone compass being way off but I duu it d not know I could make changes to it. Ie “true north”. Nor did I know the PA Alignment app had that calibration feature. Thx!!
Very enjoyable and useful video to watch. I kinda don't trust compass or anything like that over the actual stars in the night sky. The stars never lie and compass is ok. What I'm going to do is find location and make sure there is a tree facing north and that little pole star is just above tree with branch pointing to Polaris or if a house rooftop with Ariel just below Polaris so it's a perfect way to knowing where to point star tracker. Few astronomers do this and works out so good. Then you can have a light beam pointing at polar and look through polar scope and beam on Polaris so everything fits perfectly. Torch red lazor beam pointed at Polaris will work nicely. As long as end of beam is on Polaris it makes life easier. Polaris is a 2nd magnitude star so it can be seen easily. It's the most important star in northern hemisphere for navigation. Polaris won't be the north star forever as in 26 thousand years Polaris won't be the pole star. Those shots you took look very nice! Do you trust these compasses over the stars and Polaris? Compass I use is ok but sometimes points in a different area to north which is a bit annoying. I'm planning this winter going to the highlands of Scotland and testing the star tracker with dslr under dark skies. You thought of buying small telescope to photograph deep sky objects that a dslr can't photograph? Thanks for sharing the video!
Thanks for the comment! Of course as long as I can physically see Polaris (it is indeed easy to spot, I can recognize it in seconds) i will use that to make my polar alignment as precise as possible. But sometimes the view is blocked and you want to take some shots of the Milky Way - I had this situation on my vacation in Italy. I had a sea-view terrace on a hill, south horizon wide open but buildings behind me. That’s when you have to resort to compasses.
When using a phone compass, dial compass or the polar align pro app, mount or place the device in the tracker mount with the tracker removed. Some dial compasses have dovetail mounts so they can be clamped in the tracker mount. You can make simple mounts for phones to clamp in the tracker mount also. Lastly, with dial compasses, find the declination angle from true north to magnetic north fir your location and turn the bezel on the compass to that amount. Then the compass dial will be pointing to true north.
Sky Watcher describes a procedure to polar align without using the polar scope. Summarizing: 1: Power on the mount in home position 2: Use the Syn Scann app to perform 2-star alignment (not 3, not 1) 3: In the Syn Scan app, go to Utility > Advanced > Polar Alignment. "When the routine starts you will be prompted to choose a star. Use one of the stars that you used for alignment for best result. Then follow the prompts to adjust the mount’s altitude and azimuth orientation."
Thank you again. I've had Polar Scope Align Pro for years and did not know it did all that. Even a spirit level. If you have previously set your wedge elevation to your latitude by alignment to the graticule (PS Align Pro), which is almost but not quite on Polaris - you will not need to change it again and you can lock that off. Precession, the earth does wobble on its axis so a full alignment should be done every so often when you feel like deploying a round tuit, but the cycle takes 26,000 years so short term is not exactly a problem. If you live as far north as we both do then a right-angle adaptor to the polar scope can save you a visit to the osteopath. In high latitudes if you have one tripod leg toward the pole then you get more room to see the polar scope.
I have a compass and you need to make sure the compass is level to the ground or the needle might not rotate at all. So if you lay if on top of battery door the compass will be at 45 degree angle and mine doesnt move (needle floating in liquid touches inside and wont move). So you have to press the square case of compass against the back like you showed, but keep it level "flat" with respect to ground. Maybe some compasses will work at 45 deg but mine did not.
Woa! Id learn so much in a single video! Id been taking (film) pics for years but when I bought a digital camera, I felt sooo clueless, to say the least. I recently bought a Celestron C6 plus 6.3 Corrector for $500, and a Meade ETX125 PE with tripod for just $150. Now I need a sturdy GEM Mount... I was laughing on how easy was when I saw on how to adjust your cellphone from the magnetic North to the True (Celestial) North! I got a lot of tools on my cell but I do not how to use it. Thanks for the insight, recommendations and inspirations!
Awesome video. With regard to analog compasses, I have a couple of those that have the ability to adjust for magnetic North deviations and set to actual polar north.
Thank you for the information! As someone that wears glasses, I have found that looking through the polar scope for polar alignment is a bit challenging. I just got my 2i in November and I am hoping to have polar alignment nailed by the end of the month so I can attempt to image the comet.
I found the same problem with interference with the compass, but got around it by putting the base of the phone against the top of the tracker so that it protrudes forwards. Works great. OnePlus 7T phone. Top videos by the way Kamil. Well done.
Hey. I tried your method. I must say it worked great. They only issue I had was when I tried to do it with everything attached. I kept getting a false north reading. When I took off the telescope and tried it again it worked. I actually found Polaris quickly and was able to see it almost in the circle. Few adjustments and I was aligned. Thank you for your video.
Thanks for nice, informative videos. I have been working with magnetic sensors. I think - as do some others here - that it is a bi challenging to be so close to the unit especially if it is powered on. Try to fixate the phone with some wooden (antimagnetic) sticks in position and then move the unit away. leaving the phone in place. If there is any drift in the compass - there you go. Please also consider that you are not safe even with an analogue compass - it will react to the same magnetic field. By doing the wooden frame trich maybe one can find a safe positiopn for the phone. The angular measurements should be o.k. Gyros use a different technology. I just ordered my Star Adventurer - I will do the research and let you know. //Jüri
I have a compass where I can set the declination which adjusts for true north. I have had cloudy skys since I bought my star adventurer, but I am going to try to polar align using during the day using the compass and your other suggestions. Then checking it at night
Excellent video! I assume that If you are at a place where you don't have cell service, the Polar Scope Align Pro app will not work. Is that correct? Thank you.
Slowly going through all of your RUclips videos - really informative, very clear and very educational. Many thanks for helping me to re-engage with the astrophotography hobby. I have a a question I would welcome your thoughts on: you use a Canon EOS R - if buying now would you still go for the R or maybe the Ra or possibly a R6 and why? (I understand that if you are doing more normal photography and filming the EOS R is better but for astrophotography the EOS Ra has advantages but also a hefty price hike so would be interested in your views). Thanks!
Glad you like those videos Pete! Right now I would probably go for the EOS R5, but is you are serious about astro then an Ra does sound pretty amazing. It can also be used during daytime but your white balance will be a bit off. Correctable in post production to some degree
@@kamilkp Hi Kamil. Thanks for your thoughts! I have a Canon 5d Mk III also so daylight photography should be well compensated for. Plus I have some good lenses which (with an adaptor) should be useable on any of the mirrorless cameras with the required adaptor. The R5 has an even bigger price hike over the R6 or the R/Ra. The R6 is more "comparable" to the R/Ra in terms of price. But there is a difference between the R6 (20M pixels) and the R/Ra (30M pixels) which I am not sue of the absolute benefit. Plus in overall tech, the R/Ra is about 2 years behind the R6 (e.g. Digic 10 compared to Digic8 for example). It is all a very difficult equation to resolve hence really welcome your thoughts. And, yes, your videos are very good, very explanatory and really help to educate. Well done. :-)
Got a 150/650 telescope and can exposure for 30 secs without trails(got a tracking motor) with the compass app on my iphone. (Geo north pole) and thats a hige succsess for me :D thx for the tipp
Hey Kamil, Happy New Year. I tried your alignment this past week without looking for polaris. Worked quite well. Half the time there is haze or clouds in the north sky for me. The stars on the outer edges of the frame are somewhat elongated. Center stars are round. I think it's the crappy Nikon lenses that are causing this outer edge problems. Thanks much for this video.
@@kamilkp Thanks for the reply. I don't know what it is about Nikon lenses but I don't think they're all that great. People rave about the 14-24mm f/2.8. I don't think it's that great. Clear skies......
You are thorough about this tracker for astronomers and astrophotographers. You an also cover photographing this upcoming conjunction, which would be a different exposure as they are very bright and it will be dusk so there will be more light. Thanks.
Yes, I have found the digital compasses in the smartphones to be too inaccurate to be useful for polar alignment without a polar scope, especially with electronics around. And, I am not sure if Android phones even have the "True North" switch.
Great. Simpler: like me, use a Pentax K3-III (or full frame K1-II) with its Astrotracer mode 3 you need no GPS, no aligment, no leveling. Just press the shutter and the sensor moves to freeze the stars, up to 5 minutes (less with a 300 mm).
Orion makes a 90 degree polar scope viewer that zooms to 2X. I have yet to use one, but I'm definitely getting one soon. Also, First Light Optics is in the UK, and they sell one as well which is about $28 less than Orion's. It's looks very similar to the Orion version.
great videos there man! i follow your videos since still beginning with this. may i ask if theres an android version of this? polaris from where im at is at the horizon covered with buildings and trees. appreciate the help man. thanks and keep on shooting.
In order for an analogue or a phone compass to be accurate, the rule of thumb when I was orienteering, was that you have to be at least 2 car lengths away from any thing metal, or power line or underground cable. Analogue or phone is irrelevant, the principle above is the same. Eg, you wouldnt use a compass in a car. Ships and aircraft compasses are calibrated insitu to cancell out the effects of the nearby metalwork.
Thank you. The tripod level is not so important with any Alt-Az since the tracker does not rotate in that plane. The bubble does not have to be perfectly centred, a rough levelling in the circle will do. If you phone is in one of those cases with a magnet in the flap, take it out and do the figure of eight dance or it will point anywhere but north. You might want a GPS compass that points true north but even these are upset by the presence of magnetic fields; iron, electrical equipment, electric motor magnets.
Interesting. I wonder if the figure 8 calibration dance will correct for Kamil's issues with the phone compass sometimes being wildly off and not trustworthy?
@@starfluke I doubt it. The phone compass is often wildly off due to the presence of magnetic fields. That is not just magnets but metal objects (not just iron), electric motors, electrical power cables. I find a short plank of wood handy to stand off the phone from the Star Adventurer or other such mount, you do not want it near the motor magnets.
My smart phone's compass and inclinometer are good enough to get me within a degree or so. From there, I do a few rounds of drift alignment as I wait for the sky to fully darken. Then I'm good to go!
In the UK, we have Ordnance Survey maps that you can use, and there is a true / Map(Grid) / Magnetic north variation table in it, that tells you how many degrees per year the variance is from when the map was printed. Then you simply have to remember the old technique - From Grid to Mag - ADD, From Mag to Grid, GET RID (& add / take away the suitable amount for "True" north) Simple when you get used to it. And having a map aligned to your surroundings overcomes the lack of confidence in a temperamental phone whose calibration seems to have been lost.
Jamie, nice video! Let me ask you a few things. One is how vital is it for you to get the counterweight balanced out in relation to the camera? Can I be off a little? Off by a pound ? Off even more? I am speaking of using a FF camera with fairly heavy telephoto lens. I have the Skywatcher Pro. The other thing is how critical is it that I am exactly level? I assume everything adds up, but I just didn’t know if these two items were very important or “not quite so important to be exact”. I understand it’s hard to explain in such vague subjective words but I hope I am getting my point across. Thanks a lot!!
Regarding the compass offset. I found that while using Polar Alignment ap with my EQ6R base, that it was off. It turns out that some parts are steel and draw the compass off. When I use the phone on my EQ6R base, the vertical pin is steel. I don't have a star tracker, but you can use your analog company to see it it moves when you get close to the tracker.
when the iphone is looking for true north, then it uses gyroscopes instead of a magnetometer. Would this mean that in this mode you would not need to worry about stray magnetic fields intefering?
You can use an analog compass to find true north also. If you know your magnetic declination you subtract or add it to magnet north to get true. For instance, where I live, my magnetic declination is +3.3 degrees so I would subtract 3.3 from 360 and roughly align to 357 degrees and I would be close to true north. I use an app called CrowdMag to find my declination. Also, you have to calibrate the compass in your phone to make it accurate. You hold it firmly in your hand and make a figure 8 motion with in the air. Either vertically or horizontally doesn't matter.
I'd be really interested to see how accurate the polar alignment is if you use true north on your phone and the PS Align Pro app with the 200mm lens. Also, question, do you need to set your compass app to true north before you use the PS Align Pro app. (I find it very difficult to find and align Octans through the polar scope here in the southern hemisphere, so am lookig for another method.) Thanks for your helpful videos.
Thanks Rodney! I think it uses true north on it’s own. Really it’s just using gyroscope data most likely. I don’t think you can get away with coarse alignment for 200mm but on the other hand if you use a short enough shutter - it should work! Good luck and clear skies 😊
at 19:14 on your shot at 70mm I could just make out the whirlpool galaxy in your image. Do you have any image processing tips for making the stars of a constellation stand out? For the naked eye, ursa major really stands out, but when using a camera, the stars of the constellation get somewhat swamped by the detail. Is there a way to make the brighter stars stand out?
on my gti,and a few other peoples,when the polar scope is vertical ie the 12 oclock and 6 oclock positions are up and down,why isnt the mount the same? why is it a few degrees off? it should be vertical as well surely,no? do you know what i mean?
Hi Kamil I wonder if you can answer this question as no one else seems to be able to, I live in Australia and so you’d think I’d polar align with the scp however it’s easier to have the phone pointing downwards to the ncp with the screen facing up to the scp, I use Sky safari 6 plus app and get good alignment to the ncp however if I turn the phone around I thought I’d be aligned with the scp to seeing as the poles are opposite…but I’m not, it can be quiet a way off, if I align initially with compass and inclinometer it’s much more inline with the app alignment to the ncp and a long way from scp, hoping you have any insite to this Nick
Hi Kamil. Great video and quite well explained. My concern is related to right position of Polaris. Why do we have to place Polaris in the exact point marked in the app? I mean, when you lead Polaris to the circle in the reticule, the NCP is already located in the cross right in the center of the circle and Polaris is going to turn all around this point and we don't need to know where exactly it is. So, why is it so important? Thanks in advance for any light you can drop on this topic and best regards. Greatings from Sevilla, Spain.
If the NCP is in the center, then Polaris is circling around it, thats true. But if you want to find NCP than it is important where exactly Polaris is on that circle at a given time. Let's say at 9 pm Polaris is on the left side of the circle than the NCP would be to the right of Polaris. But at 9am Polaris would be on the right side of the circle (12 hours = 180° rotation) and NCP is to the left of Polaris as Polaris is circling around the NCP 360° in 24 hours. If you would just place Polaris anywhere on that circle for instance again on the left side but at 9am, than the NCP would not be in the center of the circle and your polar alignment would be off. Thats why you need to know where on that circle Polaris is at your current time to place the NCP in the center as Polaris is the fixed point that you know and the NCP is the point you need to find. Hope that helps.
I can't see sigma octanis so have not tried polar alignment. I am using azgti and want to next try EQ wedge. I have used sun to mark north south in my garden-would this be accurate enough?
Update: I am using the camera lens directly now to take 8 sec exposures to see SCP and check against stelarium (I have check astronmy net to see how close it was next day as have to do this on sd card). I am at 200 mm and 40 s no trails. I want to see if I can go bit longer next.
Android user here..... I have seen 'PolarFinder Pro' and some good reviews on there. I think the author has made recent updates. Have you had a look at this or found any comparable Android apps for the adjustment process? Again this was another superb video.
is there a similar app for this for android? im also unable to see polaris from where I live, alot of trees and buildings on the horizon, but skies above are ok..=( thanks
there is one it is the same app but it cost some bucks it is the polar scope align pro it is in the playstore but make sure your phone has some magnetometer so that it works properly
Just pointred my tracker north (at home so have a pretty good idea where it is) the app says I am pointing SW. Same with Starwalk or Stellarium, they never show the stars I am pointing at.
Do you have a quick fix guide depending on what way the star trails go? If the go diag bottom right, is that likely to be angle, to far East, too far west?
Pro tip is: just do a barely polar alignment. Then use the drift method for a real alignment. You can shoot during hours without any trailing if you master this last one.
If you press your smartphone against the tracker - as you showed multiple times in your video, the compass has to be incorrect, as the Star Adventurer has a battery compartment which means you do have an electromagnet very close and of course your compass is than wrong. So any current flowing causes a magnetic field as has been discovered by H. C. Oersted in 1820, as you have learned in school. 🙂
If I use a polar scope and put Polaris on the target line but in the wrong place (like 3 o'clock instead of 6 o'clock) I get trails at just 30 seconds so just pointing the RA axis at North will not produce results you want.
I might be wrong, but I think that if you are standing too close to your car (assuming you are somewhere in the field), the smartphone (at least iOS one) compass app will tend to give you false reading more often. Stepping away from the car by a few meters makes the reading much better. I especially noticed that when standing close to a hybrid car - could be that the electric engine (or the battery?) is the source of the magnetic field that influences the readings. Again, I could be totally wrong about these causes, I'm not an expert in magnetic fields ;)
Thanks for the comment! Yes I think a bettery from an electric car might totally be a source of magnetic fields. Stepping away from the car is a good tip indeed!
Its nuts how you only have 2.94k subs now. Your videos are all done so professionally. I feel like I'm watching a big pro. Keep up the awesome work!
Tell your friends about me then haha 😄 yeah I’m just doing the best I can and the rest will follow in it’s own time. Thank you for the comment Matthew, I appreciate that!
Wow nearly 6k in 4 months! Subbed and will pass it on!
@@kamilkp can I also use it with other types of star tracker??
Sure!
@@kamilkp thanks!! I have a minitrack lx3 and I can try this method 👌🏼👌🏼
I live in Panama, at 8 degrees north, and between the tropical clouds and the low just-over-the-horizon position of Polaris, getting a good view of the celestial pole is a rare treat indeed. In light of that, your video is really helpful. Thanks.
I’m glad you found it helpful Adam!
What an absolute legend.. I just bought a my first tracker, a Sky Watcher Star Adventurer and your videos helped me set it up and go out on the field. Amazing work!
Thanks a lot!
Just got into astrophotography and your videos are so helpful, thank you very much for having this channel!
This is really handy. I have a Star Adventurer as well, and in the Southern Hemisphere it's very tricky to get it right. Thank you.
Glad I could help!
PS Align Pro is a great app to coarse align to Polaris. It's much easier to fine-tune afterwards. You should have Polaris within your polar scope with the coarse setup. I think this app will help many people to succeed. I will try this one out when the dark season is coming. Thank you for your great work. Keep those videos coming! Clear skies!
The pro tip alone makes this video worth watching!
Another trick: I noticed it takes 17 full turns of the knob to go from 0 to 90 degrees in the SW wedge you use. That's 5,924 degrees per turn. So to align its altitude a little bit less coarsly you can set it to 0, make sure it's really leveled using a spirit level, mark knob at it's top position using a marker or a sticker and then turn (your geo. alt )/5,924 times. That's 9.45 turns in my case which is still easier to set than just using the 3 degrees/tick scale :)
Yesterday I saw my first time andromeda and I was so amazed.
This is a great video tutorial for me. I have bought iOptron SkyGuidar Pro but facing difficulty in polar aligning as Polaris is hard to find at Bortle Class 8 and 9. Hopefuly ur tricks will help me now and yes as an iPhone user I also never knew the compass option has a true north. Great man. Keep going. Love from INDIA.
Yes this is actually my case, in Cambodia, polaris is so low from the horizon, thank you so much for this video !!!
I'm in Panama, even closer to the equator than Cambodia. Even on the best of days, Polaris is a distant, dim star. Mostly it's just covered by clouds or the thick humid atmosphere. Frustrating to try align!
Some analog compasses do have an adjustment for magnetic variation. It is usually a tiny screw on the back of the compass that rotates the numerical dial on the front. Thanks for the video.
Thanks for the comment, good to know!
i used the handheld compass with the app compass and inclinometer with the 50mm on my crop sensor took me few test shots and adjustments could do 3min without any real movement in stars and you are right about the electronics interfering i found on my skyguider pro no interference on the right flat side of it when facing polar. but other side or top it really messes the compass up...
I was thinking a good use case for aligning this way would be this next April when the next eclipse will be. I will inside the zone of totality and I wanted to take a few shots with my DSLR on my tracker of the eclipse. Of course it will be daytime, so a course alignment would be perfect for such an occasion. I’ve not yet used my tracker since I bought it yet. So hoping to get used to it before eclipse time. But realistically I could prob just use a tripod. Shutter speed will prob be fast enough to not need my tracker.
Thanks for all the great videos. You’ve helped me a lot!
Even with the rough alignment, the 2 minute exposure was pretty impressive on the 200mm lens. Yes, there were plainly visible trails making the resulting image pretty unusable; however, had you aligned to true north (not magnetic) and shortened that exposure time I bet you would have gotten usable results. Obviously properly aligning works the best, but for those who want to do deep sky imaging and have no view of the celestial pole, it may still be possible to get great results. After all, any relatively aligned tracker would allow you to get longer exposures than is possible on a static tripod. For example, if I use my Lumix G9 with a lens at 100mm (so 200mm FF equivalent) to take shots of Andromeda, I'm limited to 1.5 to 2.5 second exposures depending on whether I follow NPF or the 500 rule. With the same setup imaging the Orion Nebula, the NPF rule states a max exposure time of 1.2 seconds.
This one is spot on. Simple, direct and really helpful. I still want to know if there is a reason to "calibrate" the polar alignment date and time scales on the SkyWatcher Star Adventure 2i.
I am pleased at the great job you did on this video. As you mention the north magnetic pole is in Canada but it moves every year. It is actually moving towards Northern Russia and it’s rate of change is increasing every year. I have downloaded the Polar Alignment App you mentioned in your presentation and I will check it out. The closer you live to the actual magnetic pole the more the deviation between it and the true North Pole can be.
As you mention ( after you said the compas on the phone was off) its The metal, batteries and motor of the Sky Adventurer mount generate a magetic field thats throwing off the compass. If you build a non magnetic bracket to hold the phone away from the mount just a few inches, it should be fine.
A quick test with a Phone and a Compass on the Star adventurer. The left hand side with the two buttons on effects both and the top does but nowhere near as bad. Luckily the right hand side with the main switch wheel on is fine even when it's switched on.
Using compass in our iPhone is super pro tip. Thanks for sharing. It works great
Great video... Thanks for taking the time to help out beginners
Thanks for video Kamil, I'm using app Polar Scope Align Pro for landscape photography with wide angle 14mm up to 30mm and very happy with a result!
Great! Yeah with that focal lengths on full frame it’s very usable!
@@kamilkp Yes yes exactly full frame in my case ... Nikon Z6
Great video Kamil! I have same issues with my phone compass being way off but I duu it d not know I could make changes to it. Ie “true north”. Nor did I know the PA Alignment app had that calibration feature. Thx!!
Thanks buddy every bit of information helps me out!
Very enjoyable and useful video to watch. I kinda don't trust compass or anything like that over the actual stars in the night sky. The stars never lie and compass is ok. What I'm going to do is find location and make sure there is a tree facing north and that little pole star is just above tree with branch pointing to Polaris or if a house rooftop with Ariel just below Polaris so it's a perfect way to knowing where to point star tracker. Few astronomers do this and works out so good. Then you can have a light beam pointing at polar and look through polar scope and beam on Polaris so everything fits perfectly. Torch red lazor beam pointed at Polaris will work nicely. As long as end of beam is on Polaris it makes life easier. Polaris is a 2nd magnitude star so it can be seen easily. It's the most important star in northern hemisphere for navigation. Polaris won't be the north star forever as in 26 thousand years Polaris won't be the pole star. Those shots you took look very nice!
Do you trust these compasses over the stars and Polaris? Compass I use is ok but sometimes points in a different area to north which is a bit annoying. I'm planning this winter going to the highlands of Scotland and testing the star tracker with dslr under dark skies. You thought of buying small telescope to photograph deep sky objects that a dslr can't photograph? Thanks for sharing the video!
Thanks for the comment! Of course as long as I can physically see Polaris (it is indeed easy to spot, I can recognize it in seconds) i will use that to make my polar alignment as precise as possible. But sometimes the view is blocked and you want to take some shots of the Milky Way - I had this situation on my vacation in Italy. I had a sea-view terrace on a hill, south horizon wide open but buildings behind me. That’s when you have to resort to compasses.
When using a phone compass, dial compass or the polar align pro app, mount or place the device in the tracker mount with the tracker removed. Some dial compasses have dovetail mounts so they can be clamped in the tracker mount. You can make simple mounts for phones to clamp in the tracker mount also. Lastly, with dial compasses, find the declination angle from true north to magnetic north fir your location and turn the bezel on the compass to that amount. Then the compass dial will be pointing to true north.
Great video! I noticed that the link to your astro-presets is broken though.
Sky Watcher describes a procedure to polar align without using the polar scope. Summarizing:
1: Power on the mount in home position
2: Use the Syn Scann app to perform 2-star alignment (not 3, not 1)
3: In the Syn Scan app, go to Utility > Advanced > Polar Alignment. "When the routine starts you will be prompted to choose a star. Use one of the stars that you used for
alignment for best result. Then follow the prompts to adjust the mount’s altitude and azimuth orientation."
That’s probably for goto mounts, not the SA
@@kamilkp indeed, it is for goto mounts. This might still be helpful tho, as many versions of the SA also have goto now
Thank you again. I've had Polar Scope Align Pro for years and did not know it did all that. Even a spirit level.
If you have previously set your wedge elevation to your latitude by alignment to the graticule (PS Align Pro), which is almost but not quite on Polaris - you will not need to change it again and you can lock that off. Precession, the earth does wobble on its axis so a full alignment should be done every so often when you feel like deploying a round tuit, but the cycle takes 26,000 years so short term is not exactly a problem.
If you live as far north as we both do then a right-angle adaptor to the polar scope can save you a visit to the osteopath.
In high latitudes if you have one tripod leg toward the pole then you get more room to see the polar scope.
I have a compass and you need to make sure the compass is level to the ground or the needle might not rotate at all. So if you lay if on top of battery door the compass will be at 45 degree angle and mine doesnt move (needle floating in liquid touches inside and wont move). So you have to press the square case of compass against the back like you showed, but keep it level "flat" with respect to ground. Maybe some compasses will work at 45 deg but mine did not.
Thanks for the input Frank! Good suggestion indeed!
Woa! Id learn so much in a single video! Id been taking (film) pics for years but when I bought a digital camera, I felt sooo clueless, to say the least. I recently bought a Celestron C6 plus 6.3 Corrector for $500, and a Meade ETX125 PE with tripod for just $150. Now I need a sturdy GEM Mount... I was laughing on how easy was when I saw on how to adjust your cellphone from the magnetic North to the True (Celestial) North! I got a lot of tools on my cell but I do not how to use it. Thanks for the insight, recommendations and inspirations!
Awesome video. With regard to analog compasses, I have a couple of those that have the ability to adjust for magnetic North deviations and set to actual polar north.
Thank you, such a perfectly explained process!
Thank you for the information! As someone that wears glasses, I have found that looking through the polar scope for polar alignment is a bit challenging. I just got my 2i in November and I am hoping to have polar alignment nailed by the end of the month so I can attempt to image the comet.
I found the same problem with interference with the compass, but got around it by putting the base of the phone against the top of the tracker so that it protrudes forwards. Works great. OnePlus 7T phone. Top videos by the way Kamil. Well done.
Hey what's the Android equivalent of this app?
@@prasadshriram2737 I use Compass 3.0.2 by SimplyWerx
@@damianohara2699 got a link buddy?
A Boy Scout type compass allows you to rotate the dial and adjust from magnetic to true north. It is adjustable.
Super useful, thanks a lot! Now, it's time to start design new sturdy battery cover included phone holder by 3d printer.
Such a cool idea!
Hey. I tried your method. I must say it worked great. They only issue I had was when I tried to do it with everything attached. I kept getting a false north reading. When I took off the telescope and tried it again it worked. I actually found Polaris quickly and was able to see it almost in the circle. Few adjustments and I was aligned. Thank you for your video.
Awesome! I’m glad to hear that!
Thanks for nice, informative videos. I have been working with magnetic sensors. I think - as do some others here - that it is a bi challenging to be so close to the unit especially if it is powered on. Try to fixate the phone with some wooden (antimagnetic) sticks in position and then move the unit away. leaving the phone in place. If there is any drift in the compass - there you go. Please also consider that you are not safe even with an analogue compass - it will react to the same magnetic field. By doing the wooden frame trich maybe one can find a safe positiopn for the phone. The angular measurements should be o.k. Gyros use a different technology. I just ordered my Star Adventurer - I will do the research and let you know. //Jüri
I have a compass where I can set the declination which adjusts for true north. I have had cloudy skys since I bought my star adventurer, but I am going to try to polar align using during the day using the compass and your other suggestions. Then checking it at night
Excellent video! I assume that If you are at a place where you don't have cell service, the Polar Scope Align Pro app will not work. Is that correct? Thank you.
Slowly going through all of your RUclips videos - really informative, very clear and very educational. Many thanks for helping me to re-engage with the astrophotography hobby. I have a a question I would welcome your thoughts on: you use a Canon EOS R - if buying now would you still go for the R or maybe the Ra or possibly a R6 and why? (I understand that if you are doing more normal photography and filming the EOS R is better but for astrophotography the EOS Ra has advantages but also a hefty price hike so would be interested in your views). Thanks!
Glad you like those videos Pete! Right now I would probably go for the EOS R5, but is you are serious about astro then an Ra does sound pretty amazing. It can also be used during daytime but your white balance will be a bit off. Correctable in post production to some degree
@@kamilkp Hi Kamil. Thanks for your thoughts! I have a Canon 5d Mk III also so daylight photography should be well compensated for. Plus I have some good lenses which (with an adaptor) should be useable on any of the mirrorless cameras with the required adaptor. The R5 has an even bigger price hike over the R6 or the R/Ra. The R6 is more "comparable" to the R/Ra in terms of price. But there is a difference between the R6 (20M pixels) and the R/Ra (30M pixels) which I am not sue of the absolute benefit. Plus in overall tech, the R/Ra is about 2 years behind the R6 (e.g. Digic 10 compared to Digic8 for example). It is all a very difficult equation to resolve hence really welcome your thoughts. And, yes, your videos are very good, very explanatory and really help to educate. Well done. :-)
Got a 150/650 telescope and can exposure for 30 secs without trails(got a tracking motor) with the compass app on my iphone. (Geo north pole) and thats a hige succsess for me :D thx for the tipp
Hey Kamil, Happy New Year. I tried your alignment this past week without looking for polaris. Worked quite well. Half the time there is haze or clouds in the north sky for me. The stars on the outer edges of the frame are somewhat elongated. Center stars are round. I think it's the crappy Nikon lenses that are causing this outer edge problems. Thanks much for this video.
Yes if center is good then it’s the lens’ fault
@@kamilkp Thanks for the reply. I don't know what it is about Nikon lenses but I don't think they're all that great. People rave about the 14-24mm f/2.8. I don't think it's that great. Clear skies......
You are thorough about this tracker for astronomers and astrophotographers. You an also cover photographing this upcoming conjunction, which would be a different exposure as they are very bright and it will be dusk so there will be more light. Thanks.
Yes, I have found the digital compasses in the smartphones to be too inaccurate to be useful for polar alignment without a polar scope, especially with electronics around. And, I am not sure if Android phones even have the "True North" switch.
That’s why it’s handy to have an old-school analog compass to cross-reference readings
Subscribed! Great video.
I used this method with the solar eclipse. Did not take long, beautiful baby!
This is amazing!!! I wish I knew about this.
Great. Simpler: like me, use a Pentax K3-III (or full frame K1-II) with its Astrotracer mode 3 you need no GPS, no aligment, no leveling. Just press the shutter and the sensor moves to freeze the stars, up to 5 minutes (less with a 300 mm).
Thank you so much for the tip. I was going crazy looking through that small view finder and I could not find the North star.
Orion makes a 90 degree polar scope viewer that zooms to 2X. I have yet to use one, but I'm definitely getting one soon. Also, First Light Optics is in the UK, and they sell one as well which is about $28 less than Orion's. It's looks very similar to the Orion version.
Excellent videos. Thank you for taking the time to do it for us.
I’m glad it’s appreciated 🙏
I use a mark on my driveway made at solar noon for establishing true North, and I use an "Angle Cube" to set the altitude for coarse polar alignment.
great videos there man! i follow your videos since still beginning with this. may i ask if theres an android version of this? polaris from where im at is at the horizon covered with buildings and trees. appreciate the help man. thanks and keep on shooting.
Thanks! Unfortunately I’m not aware of any app for Android that would have this functionality 😕
In order for an analogue or a phone compass to be accurate, the rule of thumb when I was orienteering, was that you have to be at least 2 car lengths away from any thing metal, or power line or underground cable.
Analogue or phone is irrelevant, the principle above is the same. Eg, you wouldnt use a compass in a car. Ships and aircraft compasses are calibrated insitu to cancell out the effects of the nearby metalwork.
Thank you.
The tripod level is not so important with any Alt-Az since the tracker does not rotate in that plane. The bubble does not have to be perfectly centred, a rough levelling in the circle will do.
If you phone is in one of those cases with a magnet in the flap, take it out and do the figure of eight dance or it will point anywhere but north. You might want a GPS compass that points true north but even these are upset by the presence of magnetic fields; iron, electrical equipment, electric motor magnets.
Interesting. I wonder if the figure 8 calibration dance will correct for Kamil's issues with the phone compass sometimes being wildly off and not trustworthy?
@@starfluke I doubt it. The phone compass is often wildly off due to the presence of magnetic fields. That is not just magnets but metal objects (not just iron), electric motors, electrical power cables. I find a short plank of wood handy to stand off the phone from the Star Adventurer or other such mount, you do not want it near the motor magnets.
@@jeffslade1892 , my more recent experience causes me to agree with you.
thanks for the really practical tips
My smart phone's compass and inclinometer are good enough to get me within a degree or so. From there, I do a few rounds of drift alignment as I wait for the sky to fully darken. Then I'm good to go!
Thanks for the information.
In the UK, we have Ordnance Survey maps that you can use, and there is a true / Map(Grid) / Magnetic north variation table in it, that tells you how many degrees per year the variance is from when the map was printed. Then you simply have to remember the old technique - From Grid to Mag - ADD, From Mag to Grid, GET RID (& add / take away the suitable amount for "True" north) Simple when you get used to it. And having a map aligned to your surroundings overcomes the lack of confidence in a temperamental phone whose calibration seems to have been lost.
Very good informations like everytime in yours vidéos ! Thks 👏👏👏
Thanks, I appreciate the comment 😊
Hi could you please make a video on how to do a manual 3 star polar alignment in the Nina plug-in with the older non-go to Star Adventurer?
Jamie, nice video! Let me ask you a few things. One is how vital is it for you to get the counterweight balanced out in relation to the camera? Can I be off a little? Off by a pound ? Off even more? I am speaking of using a FF camera with fairly heavy telephoto lens. I have the Skywatcher Pro. The other thing is how critical is it that I am exactly level? I assume everything adds up, but I just didn’t know if these two items were very important or “not quite so important to be exact”. I understand it’s hard to explain in such vague subjective words but I hope I am getting my point across. Thanks a lot!!
THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THIS
So you are just pointing the tracker true north and setting your angle? Wouldnt you still be way off of the north star?
Thanks a lot for These Good informations 🙏
Great video - what if I coarsely PA and use 30 seconds shots with 200 mm FL?
Thanks!
Regarding the compass offset. I found that while using Polar Alignment ap with my EQ6R base, that it was off. It turns out that some parts are steel and draw the compass off. When I use the phone on my EQ6R base, the vertical pin is steel. I don't have a star tracker, but you can use your analog company to see it it moves when you get close to the tracker.
Great tips. Thanks very much
when the iphone is looking for true north, then it uses gyroscopes instead of a magnetometer. Would this mean that in this mode you would not need to worry about stray magnetic fields intefering?
EXCELLENT tutorial!!!
You can use an analog compass to find true north also. If you know your magnetic declination you subtract or add it to magnet north to get true. For instance, where I live, my magnetic declination is +3.3 degrees so I would subtract 3.3 from 360 and roughly align to 357 degrees and I would be close to true north. I use an app called CrowdMag to find my declination. Also, you have to calibrate the compass in your phone to make it accurate. You hold it firmly in your hand and make a figure 8 motion with in the air. Either vertically or horizontally doesn't matter.
I'd be really interested to see how accurate the polar alignment is if you use true north on your phone and the PS Align Pro app with the 200mm lens. Also, question, do you need to set your compass app to true north before you use the PS Align Pro app. (I find it very difficult to find and align Octans through the polar scope here in the southern hemisphere, so am lookig for another method.) Thanks for your helpful videos.
Thanks Rodney! I think it uses true north on it’s own. Really it’s just using gyroscope data most likely. I don’t think you can get away with coarse alignment for 200mm but on the other hand if you use a short enough shutter - it should work! Good luck and clear skies 😊
can i ask why did you use f 5.6 and 640 ISO ? so far almost all places mention to use 3200 or 6400 with the widest possible F number.
Thank you so much Kamil. :)
at 19:14 on your shot at 70mm I could just make out the whirlpool galaxy in your image. Do you have any image processing tips for making the stars of a constellation stand out? For the naked eye, ursa major really stands out, but when using a camera, the stars of the constellation get somewhat swamped by the detail. Is there a way to make the brighter stars stand out?
Check out my review of the Kase Starglow filter
on my gti,and a few other peoples,when the polar scope is vertical ie the 12 oclock and 6 oclock positions are up and down,why isnt the mount the same? why is it a few degrees off? it should be vertical as well surely,no? do you know what i mean?
Hi Kamil
I wonder if you can answer this question as no one else seems to be able to, I live in Australia and so you’d think I’d polar align with the scp however it’s easier to have the phone pointing downwards to the ncp with the screen facing up to the scp, I use Sky safari 6 plus app and get good alignment to the ncp however if I turn the phone around I thought I’d be aligned with the scp to seeing as the poles are opposite…but I’m not, it can be quiet a way off, if I align initially with compass and inclinometer it’s much more inline with the app alignment to the ncp and a long way from scp, hoping you have any insite to this
Nick
Very helpful video
Thanks, good advices👍
Hi Kamil. Great video and quite well explained. My concern is related to right position of Polaris. Why do we have to place Polaris in the exact point marked in the app? I mean, when you lead Polaris to the circle in the reticule, the NCP is already located in the cross right in the center of the circle and Polaris is going to turn all around this point and we don't need to know where exactly it is. So, why is it so important? Thanks in advance for any light you can drop on this topic and best regards. Greatings from Sevilla, Spain.
If the NCP is in the center, then Polaris is circling around it, thats true. But if you want to find NCP than it is important where exactly Polaris is on that circle at a given time. Let's say at 9 pm Polaris is on the left side of the circle than the NCP would be to the right of Polaris. But at 9am Polaris would be on the right side of the circle (12 hours = 180° rotation) and NCP is to the left of Polaris as Polaris is circling around the NCP 360° in 24 hours. If you would just place Polaris anywhere on that circle for instance again on the left side but at 9am, than the NCP would not be in the center of the circle and your polar alignment would be off.
Thats why you need to know where on that circle Polaris is at your current time to place the NCP in the center as Polaris is the fixed point that you know and the NCP is the point you need to find.
Hope that helps.
@@0815mkl Helped a lot. Thanks for the explanation. Best regards.
What app Will you recomand for Android?.
Doesn't the metal in the tracker throw off the phone compass? i think u need to get the phone away from the tracker, but parallel (or perpendicular).
Hello is there an android alternative to this app? Thank you!
I can't see sigma octanis so have not tried polar alignment. I am using azgti and want to next try EQ wedge. I have used sun to mark north south in my garden-would this be accurate enough?
Not likely. If you can’t see the celestial pole then drift alignment is your friend.
Update: I am using the camera lens directly now to take 8 sec exposures to see SCP and check against stelarium (I have check astronmy net to see how close it was next day as have to do this on sd card). I am at 200 mm and 40 s no trails. I want to see if I can go bit longer next.
App works without Cellular signal?
Android user here..... I have seen 'PolarFinder Pro' and some good reviews on there. I think the author has made recent updates. Have you had a look at this or found any comparable Android apps for the adjustment process? Again this was another superb video.
You could try 'PolarFinder Pro' or you could use the app from the manufacturer. I've been using SAM for a year and works perfectly.
Solid video!
is there a similar app for this for android? im also unable to see polaris from where I live, alot of trees and buildings on the horizon, but skies above are ok..=( thanks
Not that I know of unfortunately 😕
there is one it is the same app but it cost some bucks it is the polar scope align pro it is in the playstore but make sure your phone has some magnetometer so that it works properly
Just pointred my tracker north (at home so have a pretty good idea where it is) the app says I am pointing SW. Same with Starwalk or Stellarium, they never show the stars I am pointing at.
Upgraded to Pro and no better and it shows my height asl as -90m it should be 63.
You can adjust a compass with the magnetic declination.
Do you have a quick fix guide depending on what way the star trails go? If the go diag bottom right, is that likely to be angle, to far East, too far west?
I don’t have such a guide yet but I have it on my roadmap. Thanks for the input!
Wouldn't the compass or phone compass be thrown off by the metal in the Starguider?
Pro tip is: just do a barely polar alignment. Then use the drift method for a real alignment. You can shoot during hours without any trailing if you master this last one.
THANKYOU...
If you press your smartphone against the tracker - as you showed multiple times in your video, the compass has to be incorrect, as the Star Adventurer has a battery compartment which means you do have an electromagnet very close and of course your compass is than wrong. So any current flowing causes a magnetic field as has been discovered by H. C. Oersted in 1820, as you have learned in school.
🙂
nice , my phone dosent support apps like compasess or google sky map apps can you recommend me some phones that do ? thanks !
Any modern smartphone really. Either with Android or iOS. You could get an old iPhone 6 e.g. relatively cheap nowadays
If I use a polar scope and put Polaris on the target line but in the wrong place (like 3 o'clock instead of 6 o'clock) I get trails at just 30 seconds so just pointing the RA axis at North will not produce results you want.
I might be wrong, but I think that if you are standing too close to your car (assuming you are somewhere in the field), the smartphone (at least iOS one) compass app will tend to give you false reading more often. Stepping away from the car by a few meters makes the reading much better. I especially noticed that when standing close to a hybrid car - could be that the electric engine (or the battery?) is the source of the magnetic field that influences the readings. Again, I could be totally wrong about these causes, I'm not an expert in magnetic fields ;)
Thanks for the comment! Yes I think a bettery from an electric car might totally be a source of magnetic fields. Stepping away from the car is a good tip indeed!