Interesting as always but if I well understood you did not dealign the mount when you changed from Sharpcap to Nina and thus you did not start from scratch in the two cases. So I m not sure if this was actually tbe most appropriate/valid test of each programme's PA abilities ...
This! With the way you did it you could have been comparing alignment by eye after the sharpcap alignment and you would have said it was spot on and just as good as Sharpcap. All you showed was that NINA appeared to agree with sharpcaps result when it was almost polar aligned, not what it looked like when unaligned. I think NINA is doing a better job than Sharpcap (mostly due to not having to point at the pole, great for those with trees) - but the test should be apples-to-apples.
Makes sense! OK, how about it this way, next time I do it? - Polar alignment before the session starts - Misalign the mount by a roughly known quantity in Alt and Az (to misalign each software the same way) - ASIAIR PA -> Drift measurement - Misalign the mount by the same rough known quantity - NINA PA -> Drift measurement - Misalign the mount by the same rough known quantity - Sharpcap PA -> drift measurement Would that work?
@@CuivTheLazyGeek That would work but to be more accurate you would have to randomise the direction of misalignment that would mimic a normal setup that is roughly polar aligned. Ie level mount and align mount to north/south and then set latitude . Then try the the various options. To be completely blind get your partner to move your tripod to any random direction and mess up your latitude then setup with rough polar alignment. You can also then do the same test with nina then with a star not looking at the celestial pole.
So I can compare ASIAIR to Sharpcap and to NINA, but I don't have a PoleMaster ... So unless someone sends me one (with an EQ6R adapter), I won't be able to do that! I really wouldn't be buying a polemaster just to test it :p
@@CuivTheLazyGeek, great video as always Cuiv! yes please, go for the comparison between ASIAIR Pro/plus and N.I.N.A. If you can. Thanks 🙏 Cheers, Paulo
Excellent vidéo as always. But about the methodology : doing the polar alignment, you will obtain better results by using the Newton instead of the guide scope. On an Hyperstar C11, U can polar align between 4 » and 11 ». Yeah seconds… the 2 last numbers on the right. ;) Maybe trying with the télescope and not the guide scope could enhance your polar alignment. Good thoughts from frog land. ;)
Great comparison Cuiv. I’m keeping SharpCap Pro though, as it’s pretty inexpensive and it also provides good live stacking for EAA and histogram adjustment. It allows pretty easy camera adjustments too.
Excellent video Cuiv!! - I loved the inclusion of PHD guide assist to monitor drift (or lack thereof!) and verify the PA, it seems like it worked brilliantly well :-) I really am glad we have access to these wonderful PA methods these days, I can't say that I really miss having to crouch down and squint through a polar scope!! :D Clear skies mate!
I used Sharp Cap to polar align for the first time last night. I used my Celestron 6" SCT and an attached SVBony 405cc (asi 294). Took less than 5 minutes to get [Excellent] results according to Sharp Cap. Got great results, unguided for 3 hours data. I use Sharp Cap pro for everything, live stack and do not do any post processing.
I used NINA last night for polar alignment, I can say that sharpcap is a thing of the past, I have eq5pro goto and after polar alignment in NINA I made a 3 minute exposure without problems,i am talking about the ease of the sessions, together with stellarium it is very easy to select what you want to do that night.
Well done, Cuiv! I've been wondering about this exact question. But I'm not willing to give up my SharpCap Pro subscription quite yet. SC is still lots of other uses that I find useful. It's my poor Polemaster that is sitting in a box, unused, alone, and pitiably neglected. I have come to appreciate the ability of NINA to assist with polar alignment at any reasonable location in the sky.
Yes, SC Pro does have a lot of good features (that I don't use :D). That poor, poor Polemaster, it really needs some love - if you want to send it to me so I can do a Polemaster vs ASIAIR vs Sharpcap vs NINA vs Ekos battle, let me know :p
Take care that drift in declination is a symptom to misalignment only in a direction perpendicular to the "target-mount-pole" plane! In other words, by attempting to notice drift while pointing at the meridian as in the video, you only get a feel for left-right azimuth error.
Great video. As someone who has an obscured view of Polaris from my balcony, this is a welcome enhancement to Nina. I can try to mimic your style of imaging instead of spending nights out in the nearby field. :) Thanks again.
Great video.. Thanks for taking the time to essentially verify that the polar alignment in NINA is in fact accurate. It's so easy to use, and actually precise..
Great job, Cuiv! As usual, I learned something that I had taken for granted previously. I have yet to check it, but after watching your video I am convinced that my SC settings are not correct. I never even knew the option for diffraction or exact location were in there! Now I know why SC and PHD2 ALWAYS disagreed on my PA numbers. My alignment will get better. Thank you!
I did an experiment on my EQ 6 r pro mount last September. Namely I ran an RC 8" telescope for 27 minutes without any problem the stars were unmoved. Everything is controlled by the NINA program and the equipment is on Pier in the astro shed.
Many thanks, I am just getting into using NINA for polar alignment and it is good to know that it is so reliable. My little moan is that the adjustment screws on the EQ 5 mount have a coarse thread, making fine adjustments difficult. However, I am able to place my mount in exactly the same place each night, and this helps a lot. NINA is an amazing tool. Thanks for your excellent videos.
Oh yeah those adjustment screws are a nightmare! Don't worry too much about too precise for PA though, guiding will correct a huge misalignment when called upon! :D
One thing i noticed last time I tried (not the latest version though) - Sharpcap don't care if main scope and guidescope are aligned, NINA does seem to care.
In what way does NINA care? Like it would give different polar alignment results depending on whether the main scope is used on the guidescope is used?
My guiding had dramatically improved since I started to use the nina 3ppa plugin, I thought my polar scope was aligned... I was wrong!!! 10 min exposures now not really an issue which is great. Thanks for this video, very clear.
And Boom, Just like that Sharpcap just dropped its sales by heaps!.. I know i wont be renewing mine now, as that was the only reason i ever used sharpcap... This was the video is have been waiting for, as always thanks for another helpful video cuiv!. And now you mention it, I think its time for a video about PEC curves and how to program one.. Ive been waiting for a great video about that subject for ages, one that's easy to understand. All the others just blow my mind on how complex they are, I think your the man for the task Cuiv!!!.. Stay safe!
Great comparison, you are always making practical videos that really help to solve the issues we face when starting with astrophotography, thanks for the great content. For anyone interested I also did the comparison between N.I.N.A and EKOS 3 point polar alignment routines. The results on several runs was very close to each other, less than 1” verified with PHD2 GA. This wasn’t the case in previous versions of the plug-in, when I had differences of more than 5”, so it seems with the latest updates this method is becoming more and more accurate.
Watching this a year after it was posted, so late to the comments! I have used PHD2, Sharpcap, & Gemini2 PAC routines with a 305mm - 1200mm FL Newtonian and QHY174 or similar sensor sized camera to perform the PAC routines. I am at approximately 39 degree N so Polaris is fairly high up from the N horizon so no atmospheric corrections used with those routines having such a correction potential. None has ever given me a precise polar alignment. Of the three Gemini2 has given me the closest PAC and was the simplest to use, but that is confined to having a mount which uses Gemini2 in my case a Losmandy 2015 Titan GEM. The SharpCap and PHD2 results were pretty similar. I checked all of the results via the same method from my permanent pier setup in my little ROF observatory... Polar Drift Alignment using Andy Rayford's Startarg 2.0. The Gemini2 needed the least amount of corrections @ +/- 10 - 20 a.s. E/W & about the less N/S, the other 2 usually needed 30 a.s. +/- corrections to come back to the Polar alignment as indicated by using the Startarg and the Polar drift alignment routine. After doing the corrections with the Polar drift alignment method a solid Polar Alignment was confirmed each time using a 10 minute Polaris tracking time using the sight cross hairs of the StarTarg. I chose the 10 minute tracking times based on the cycle timings of the Titan's worm drives, yes the periodic error did show through the 10 minute cycle, but the measured +/- 5 - 6 a.s. periodic error tracked true to measure. Obviously the P.E. was present in the same pattern in all three methods. Either of the software based methods to Polar align your Equatorial mounts should prove sufficient and effective in a more portable setup when using a decent autoguide application with a well matched camera. The software assisted PAC routines are much quicker and easier to use for a portable setup & I would recommend them over doing an actual physical Polar drift alignment. Because I use a software assisted PAC routine via my Gemini2 PAC function, my actual physical Polar drift alignments go much quicker due to having to make only minor adjustments in the mount alignments. I usually do a PAC routine on my permanent pier setup a couple of times a year. December and June... refer to my location and seasonal climate shifts, frost lines and the ground its self where I am located. I have my pier mounted into a 40 inch deep (101cm} concrete footer with 1.25 inch (31.75mm) anchor bolts 24 inches (61cm) formed in the concrete footer. The base of the pier is 1" standard A36 steel plate with a piece of schedule 80 - 6 inch steel pipe serving as the main pier, it is mounted via a floating (tilt adjustable) base mount. The concrete footer is formed in a "bell configuration" the base in the ground is 36 inches and the finished top is 24 inches. Point of description, the pier is solid but still even at that depth and formation subject to some seasonal heave and shift. Very minor, I can use a long level on the pier shaft and see some barely noticeable tilt and shift seasonally. It has very little effect on the Polar alignments... But what can I say... I can be a bit pragmatic at times and a quick Drift PAC on the actual mount puts everything back into that near perfect place if it indeed does show any effects of the ground shift here.
Cuiv, love the video, but I'd really like to see how well NINA does near the pole versus NINA pointing somewhere else starting from an unaligned mount. Thanks for doing this though!
Just got a call from Dr Robin. There’s a million dollar contract out on you……. Lolol! 😂. Kidding of course! Good to know info and I can add that I’ve done the same and I have the pole master. I’m seeing no real difference using the pole master compared in basically the same manner. Awesome plug-in and my pro license is going away too. Sharp cap is very handy for sensor analysis and live stacking but I’ll be ok.
Nice one Cuiv. Also seeing you've got your bazooka out, means your back is feeling better! I haven't used 3PPA yet and am still using my Polemaster, but will give 3PPA a shot.
Another excellent video mate. There is a small issue though. If your mount is turned on during PA, you will enherit the errors from at least your RA drive into your PA measurements. I always do the PA with the mount turned off, to prevent that.
Very good comparison and nice to see the two softwares agree. Since NINA gives the possibility to polar align away from Polaris, for me, the point of taking into account the atmospheric refraction is moot. One just needs to start the alignment sequence at a high enough altitude, which can be easily set before starting the routine.
For Sharpcap, not sure if this works for you, after first good alignment, I do restart and redo second or third alignment, this gives closer to excellent and confirm the polar alignment.
Good to see you back with a big scope, hope your back is ok? I mostly image from two Balconies, one looks north and can polar align with sharpcap the other south and have no view of polaris and so has been a problem with polar alignment, (still have not figured out drift alignment). From this am looking forward to getting better PA and imaging to the south this winter and looks like NINA could be my saviour. thanks for more really good advice
Thanks Mark! Yes, the back is getting better, but I'm still dreading the surgery that will remove the rods from the back... NINA should definitely help there!
Perfect, mostly being a geek interested in accuracy, ease of setup. I think all of us instinctively look at the images for round stars and tails. In my case I prefer longer 20 to 30 min subs taken over a week's time. Like to second, third, any other Comparisons. Also the course adjustments with knobs sucks. We need something better?
Makes sense! And yes we need something better for PA - it exists with motorized PA, but it's not cheap :D www.avalon-instruments.com/products-menu/mounts/m-zero-obs-wi-fi-detail
Excellent presentation as always Cuiv, thank you. I will be keeping my SharpCap Pro subscription, to support research in the field, even though I only use[ed] it for Polar Alignment. I stand on the shoulders of giants to do my pitiful attempts attempts at astrophotography and encourage all who work to support those who toil to make our hobby easier!
Thanks Anomalous! Also let's not forget that SC has millions of other features in its pro subscription (although I personally only use the PA tool), including live stack!
I use Nina because of you but every time I have a problem and try to get help in the forums and i mention i have nina, they say oh i don't use that program i use ATP. I wish everyone would just use the same thing would be much easy to explain and troubleshoot problems
i had wanted to do this very thing! thanks for saving me all the time! I use Sharpcap for polar alignment and live-stacking, but Nina for autofocus. thanks, also, for writing the Nina autofocus routine!
I didn't write the NINA autofocus routine from scratch, but I did rewrite a lot of the logic! Which has since been enhanced even more by others :) I stood on the shoulder of giants :)
Great comparison! I will keep paying SharpCap license to support it (it's a tiny fraction of money what we use for the gear :)), it's great software too!
I actually find the ending of your video the most interesting. In the end you can see that the NINA PA values varies by quite a lot. I experienced the same thing with my mount and it's been driving me crazy, I do have polaris, but didn't thought it should matter, maybe I'll try next time to perform it on polaris and see if it's more stable.
@@hottokatrazi But it continues to go up and up, going eventually way above arcminute. So either something is not working properly when it's not near polaris, or something else is going on.
Yeah something is changing, keep looking. Make a check list, and go through your setup and mount carefully, I've noticed some loose connections, also don't forget about temperature gradients. Stability before starting can be important especially if on concrete or near structures.
@@randyvee1893 It was my small rig, so is was completely assembled all the time, all I did was take it in and out, one night I had 0.2" PHD guiding, and the other night I had awful guiding and each time I tried to PA it showed different results. Even with sharpcap, I reached 0.18" total error, but then when I tried it with NINA it showed much different results. So I wonder if actually trying to PA towards polaris does make a difference. I think the night where I had 0.2" guiding was PA towards polaris. I'll give it a try next time and see.
Interesting - there could be something about aligning away from the pole, or my guess is that (like I've been told Sharpcap does), the calculation, once done, stops taking into account the earth's rotation in further platesolved frames, e.g. the longer you take on the final step, the less precise you will be - I've heard of people running Sharpcap twice because of that - and it would be far more apparent on a star close to the Celestial equator, like we had here. However, this is just a guess, I don't know for sure. You should ask the question in the NINA Discord! An easy workaround, if that guess is correct and you really really really want a super precise PA would be to run it twice in a row, so the time spent on the final step is minimum.
Cool Cuiv but I think to be fair test perhaps you need to mess up the PA in between tests, also I'm sure Robin wasn't pleased with your 'Cancel subscription' conclusion. For your money Sharpcap does much more than excellent polar alignment! . I certainly will not be canceling mine. :) . One other thing.. unless you didn't want to mess with your solar filter there is no reason why sharpcap would not polar align through the main scope perfectly. I do it all the time on my 1000mm Fl Newt.
I don't agree because both apps measure alignment thru the scope instead of the mount. First align the mount, then see if your scope is also aligned by taking a long 10 or 20 mintue exposure with mount off to study the circular star trails made. If the north/south pole is not in the image, make the proper adjustment to align your scope only. Then the app will become more reliable.
As Jesus mentions, the PHD2 guide graph is the ultimate tool to verify polar alignment (via its symptoms, equivalent to the star trails, but more precisely). Both NINA and Sharpcap do correct for the cone error of the scope wrt the mount RA axis, which is why in the end we saw PHD2 DEC really stay on the line...
I'm a noob and I hate PA, I'm deffo looking into this, 10 a year would be a blessed relief to avoid the regular pain in the butt of PA and the inevitable misalignment mistakes 😮
Good start Cuiv but I hope you will make the same PA comparison with the ASIair Plus, Stellarmate and Ekos (in Astroberry). But please start from a misaligned mount each time, and time how long you take to carry out a couple of timed alignments for each approach. By the way I use Ekos for PA, but keep my inexpensive (in my opinion) subscription to SharpCap Pro for the other functions especially LiveStacking which keeps me more visually involved on my laptop while Ekos is running everything else on the RPi4.
I actually just did my first polar alignment with N.I.N.A. But for me, I had 8 arcsec difference to Sharpcap PA. I blame the hardware I have, the AZGTI in EQ mode with those tiny azimuth screws and shaky mount - regardless I actually had a better result in drifting with NINA alignment, because I didn't have to flip down the mount in the RA axis. If you know the SW AZGTI mount, it's a pain, plus the whole thing is really not accurate, compared to a EQ6R mount or similar.
Oh yeah the AZ-GTi in EQ mode with the cheapo SW wedge will shift PA if you just breathe on it! Seriously even touching a cable or something like that affects the PA. But anyway, the DEC backlash is such that you may want to intentionally have bad PA with the AZ-GTI, so that you can guide DEC in a single direction!
You're right, I made the assumption that NINA would disagree with Sharpcap in the first place, would the below protocol work? - Polar alignment before the session starts - Misalign the mount by a roughly known quantity in Alt and Az (to misalign each software the same way) - ASIAIR PA -> Drift measurement - Misalign the mount by the same rough known quantity - NINA PA -> Drift measurement - Misalign the mount by the same rough known quantity - Sharpcap PA -> drift measurement
@@CuivTheLazyGeek Yes Sir! That's what I was thinking as well. Maybe just a tiny pencil mark or piece of tape to match your alt/az bolts to when you "off-align" so that each test starts from as close to the same place as possible. Maybe even ensure that your last adjustment on each bolt is from the same direction ;-)
Doing this would give an "apples to apples" comparison. However, I think the basic point is still proven well enough. NINA does a pretty good job. Perhaps someone could do this "apples to apples" shoot-out and add a comment. For now, I'm well enough convinced to switch over. Also, I like it that NINA would allow me to take my measurements at a higher altitude from the horizon. (Polaris is about 32* for me.) Isn't that why PHD2 wants you to measure away from the pole, because it's more accurate?
I had to install the latest driver for my QHY 268C OSC to make NINA happy with that last nightly # 190. Took a little bit of work as I had to manually remove the previous driver. Windows 10 kept wanting to use the old driver. Have you tried the Hocus Focus plugin? It works pretty well for me. Can't tell too much difference between NINA and Hocus Focus. May do a test on the focus for both and see how much difference maybe? Can't wait the the stable version of 1.11 to come out. I think they have to be close as the nightly updates are almost daily now. Can't wait! ;o)
That's awesome. But as you pointed out in the comments, it would be more interesting to find out whether NINA's three points alignment can be used from other spots of the sky and actually bring one to get accurate polar alignment. I tried this before and did a drift alignment afterwards and found it actually was quite a few arcminutes away from the accurate polar alignment. Because my backyard/balcony cannot see Polaris, I used to rely on NINA's polar alignment feature before the three points alignment was available. I found it also was not very reliable. It could bring me to the ballpark, say 10-20 arcminute, but sometimes could be off by larger errors.I wonder what are the factors for more accurate polar alignment with both NINA's polar alignment and three points polar alignment. Nowadays I stop shooting from my backyard and much prefer going to darksites for the higher SNR. And my preferred polar alignment method is using ASI Air Pro. I always bring two mounts and use the one ASI Air Pro I have on both. I found it to be the most efficient way. As for Sharpcap Pro, I did purchase the annual license but found it hard to use. It certainly is because I am not familiar with the software but also because it requires the error to be less than 5 degrees, compared to ASIAirPro's generous 30 degrees. And for unknown reasons I had hard time getting my image plate solved.
Another great presentation Cuiv, thank you. NINA has come so far in just a short time. I think it's excellent. On another topic, how do you collimat the newt with the primary mirror holder taped up and covered? 😉
Thanks Neil! I don't collimate the Newt, and I never have! The R200SS is precollimated at factory and is built like a tank to hold the collimation (at least with Japan shipping providers) - that's why I went with it, I really hate doing collimation :D
Yes! It's been there for a while, but glad to see they're getting more lenses - afaik these lenses have had their IS elements disabled/manually immobilized to avoid issues! Dithering and focus on those lenses must be fun :p
I use NINA polar alignment with their default location for my C8 on an AVX mount. I can get it to 10” or below but PHD2 always complains my polar alignment is not good enough. I was going to try SharpCap but I may not bother now.
I did what I thought was an excellent PA with N.I.N.A. The next night I simply did another PA check with N.I.N.A. without making any adjustments - and the measurements were totally different, much worse. That bothers me. I have a pier mounted Losmandy Titan 50 loaded to the gills with a C14, a piggyback 100mm, and a 50mm guide scope. My focal length when using the 0.7x FR is 2737mm. Imaging camera is QHY128C for a 0.5º FOV. I always pick a star just West of Meridian and close to 0º Dec.
Depending on subframe exposure length, guiding, and mount capabilities you can live with 5 or more arc min. I prefer to try to achieve less than 2. It just seems for a few more minutes of my time why not and the less work the mount does the better my subs.
yep. I agree with this. I like to get down to about 1 arcmin, but only really because I am a bit obsessional ;-) There is really not a lot of point in fiddling for ages to get < 1 arcmin.
It's not as good a test as PHD2 though, right? Unguided sub would show the RA periodic error, whereas PHD2 can much more precisely identify the DEC drift, which is the main symptom of polar alignment we are looking for!
Cuiv, would be nice to see comparison of ASIAIR and NINA, also the accuracy 3 point polar alignment in NINA which doesn’t need visibility of the pole (believe it’s available as plug-in by Stefan Berg in NINA)
As I write this I'm prepping my small boxed PC and will install NINA or other software I might be interested using to control my EQ aligned Celestron Nexstar 5SE. I might end up tossing the PC and buying that new ASIAir Plus to simplify a lot of things. The only thing I don't know if possible is if there is an autofocuser for the 5SE. I know there is at least one solution for the larger Celestron scopes. Years ago I bought the Celestron 50mm right angle finder scope and hoping I can use that for a guide scope and only have to spend money on one of the cheaper cameras to use as a guider. I might be able to find a used one to save money.
You'll have to make your own adapter for the 5SE, or add a crayford focuser then motorize it... Neither the Celestron focus motor nor the EAF adapters work on the C5...
@@CuivTheLazyGeek Thanks Cuiv, I must attach my ears to my brain. As I can't see near Polaris I have been stuck with the PHD drift alignment tool, which does work but takes ages. Nina has saved me hours of waiting for trends to settle.
I also would like to see the ASIAIR accuracy vs NINA. I tested my ASIAIRplus vs iOptron's iPolar scope and found that the ASIAIRplus was dead on the same as the iPolar.
Should work the same, but the smaller mount with the cheap wedge would likely be much easier to accidentally bump out of alignment while making the changes!
Since I only have a star adventurer and a DSLR, I still need sharpcap to get good polar alignment. I tried to do the 3 point alignment in NINA and it just stops after taking the first shot.
Well, the drift alignment tool is the gold standard, since it uses the symptoms of poor polar alignment to perform PA by removing those symptoms. By comparing DEC drift in PHD2 to a PA routine (as I did in the video), I am already comparing the routine to PHD2 polar alignment (in terms of precision)!
Thanks for the comparison, Cuiv! Did you test while the mount was tracking? I think it´s important wether tracking is on or off - and: does NINA / Sharpcap compensate for (= does NINA / Sharpcap "know" if tracking is on or off)?
I've attempted NINA 3 point PA a number of times, but it's not close at all. I'm using my Celestron HD8 at full f10 (2032mm) which is probably the problem. I'll try switching to the guide scope.
I tested the manual method for polar alignment in NINA and was pretty impressed. i have old CG-4 mount and hence can't do guiding. Plus I was using my DSLR. My only concern with NINA was it was continuously taking photos every few seconds and then doing plat solving and giving me the alignment error, causing about 30-40 shutter releases before I got a good polar alignment of 1-2'. I cannot afford to waste my camera's shutter life on palar algnemtn. I need to find another method to do the polar alignment or find some cheap camera to do the polar alignment. Any suggestions..
I still pay for sharp cap myself. Even though 99% of my imaging is done in Nina. But I still use Sharp Cap for Lunar and Planetary. Things Nina is not designed for :-)
@@CuivTheLazyGeek Sorry for the late replay . I would love to do solar imaging its just not in the budget for a while. Still trying to decide Daystar Chromosphere Quark or Lunt dedicated solar scope. Really want to do full disc. I tried fire capture when I first started didnt have much luck with it but then again I didnt know what I was doing either :-) i might give it a try again at some point
I will be using the Vixen R200SS as my imaging scope (a second hand one) but lacking a lot of the adaptors. So for the Vixen Corrector PH you use, what are the adapters you are using, and where did you order them from?
There is a rotator that comes with the R200SS itself, so the PH Corrector fits in there - then it's just M42, 55mm to the camera, so the standard ZWO adapters work fine for that!
For my part with polar alignment, the values move without me touching the frame, I may have incorrectly configured the parameters. I will try again when my mount comes back from overhaul
Aligning away from the pole, near the Celestial equator could cause that, if the 3PPA only does initial calculation and doesn't take into account the Earth's rotation after the last plate-solving (I'm told Sharpcap also does that, but since it's close to Polaris it doesn't matter as much), but I am not sure at all...!
I was going to say you can get the polar alignment feature in Sharpcap version 2.9 for free, but I see it’s not available for download any longer. Hmmm.
May I ask a dumb question? I haven't done any astrophotography since the '70s and in that time, especially the last 10-15 years, there have been huge advances, mostly computational. In astroimaging, why would I still need a guide scope with a dedicated camera when I would be better off using the images from the main scope/camera to do polar alignment, guiding. plate solving and autofocus? Seems to me it would be easier, and a lot cheaper, to use the main scope/camera for these uses. Yes, you'd use them at the expense of capturing fewer images, , maybe not, but I don't think that's much of a sacrifice considering that I'd be saving hundreds of dollars, pounds of weight, alignment problems between smaller/larger scopes, have less complex wiring, more equipment more things to go wrong. I should be able to start the night focusing, polar aligning, plate solving, as usual but using the images/data from the larger scope/camera. You'd take the images as they come in and have software examine them for the data it needs to keep everything working smoothly. Worst case you might have to invest in a more powerful PC or add more memory to the one you use now. I think I know one objection, not guiding during a long exposure, but it seems to me that as many times as you need, you could quiry the camera for it's recent data/image, even as it's still capturing that image. In other words have it send data representing the last 5 seconds or whatever time slice the guiding software needs. Maybe that's not possible with current camera hardware but it would be possible to intercept the data, take a packet or whatever you need to send the the software/hardware, For example a packet sniffer can intercept someone's Internet streamed data and piece back together a photo you might be sending to a friend. Since the camera is gathering light for whatever time frame, say 3 minutes, and (I'm making a guess here) gathering it into memory buffer until it can dump the buffer to create the final capture/image it should be possible to 'sniff' out a small section of that gathered data every [time period] and use that data to control the scope. I'm also getting this idea from how an image on a website can be progressive, meaning it starts by showing you a lower resolution image but over time adds more data to that image to show finer and finer detail. For good or bad, at the very least this post should generate a lot of responses but maybe there's someone out there this will spark interest in and who can make my idea reality. (Maybe other people have had the idea too, I don't know.) Let the chaos begin!
You still need a guide scope for auto-guiding. The main sensor simply can't be used for that purpose... You want to guide while doing the long exposures, but you can't read from the sensor while it is exposing...
@@CuivTheLazyGeek Here's my thinking, I'm wondering if the sensor uses a buffer/memory to store information while the sensor is capturing light, if so then it might be possible to read from that buffer/memory during the exposure and use that data for guiding. I've just sent an email to someone very knowledgeable on sensors to see what he thinks is possible or not.
@@greatpix As far as I know it doesn't - the read noise that is injected once per exposure is a testament to that. And even if you could read the sensor mid-exposure, you would multiply the read noise for each exposure, which would be a very, very bad thing...
@@CuivTheLazyGeek I contacted someone who knows a lot about digital cameras and sensors and this was his reply "Image sensors offload data to essentially RAM in cameras. While they hold a charge for each photosite until that offload happens, bad things happen if that is stored too long or accessed while in the process of gathering charge. In digital cameras, the RAM used is typically multi-use. That means that multiple things can access that RAM simultaneously. Some camera companies, such as Olympus, take advantage of this by peeling off data AS IT IS BEING stored to create a slow build up of overall data.
So, yes, it is possible to create a system like you want. It’s not simple, though.
-- Thom Hogan, writer/photographer" Cuiv, I think this means we are both right but someone could possibly create a device like I was thinking of that would leave the original image unchanged but take data stored, or on it's way to being stored in RAM, and use that for the purpose I remarked upon.
none of them can beat kstars polar alignment, you don't even have to see the north, you can point the scope wherever you want and do a normal PA routine. It just works without drift alignment!
Well, the KStars/EKOS polar alignment is based on the same algorithm as the NINA 3PPA as far as I can tell - and at the end of the video I do just that with NINA, checking PA starting on Altair :) Drift here was just used to measure actual error in this case!
NINA and SharpCap Pro were not the same. They were different by 2' according to your video. They both have the same error magnitude, but in different directions.
@@CuivTheLazyGeek I think there are some other things you need to consider before making any assertions; you disabled refraction correction in SCP but I am not sure what the NINA plugin uses. The other thing to consider is that with a guidescope mounted on a big scope fixed to on a mount, you will get flexure - that will corrupt the accuracy in an unpredictable way- unlike PoleMaster mounted directly to the mount, or SCP, using a PM camera and a tiny CS-mounted guidescope (e.g. QHY). That is why things like TPoint do not even try to predict polar alignment with only a few points. Lastly - to make an assertion about what works best, requires several repeated tests. It is surprising how much variation all the methods have.
Wow, I wish my EQ6 was tracking that well. The RA curve on mine leaves the window after a minute or so, never to be seen again. Do you have PEC enabled? Which firmware version do you have?
It will depend on which region of the sky you image - it can compensate for a surprising amount of polar misalignment, but I don't have a specific figure. For mounts with high DEC backlash, having misaligned the mount is actually beneficial, since DEC can then be used in a single direction!
HELLO Cuiv. Comment ça va? Une question? Est ce que tu saurais si N.I.N.A fonctionne sur une tablette windows ayant assez de RAM et windows 10? Merci d'avance pour ta réponse
I would love to use NINA but getting lost with it, so much... I tried the other night and could not find how to choose my guide cam and clear sky's are hard to come by and did not want to waist a clear night fighting with it. Got to find lots of tutorials
I see, you should definitely try it during the day time as much as possible - I do have a very old video where I go through all the NINA basics. As a note, you don't connect to your guide cam from NINA - you connect it in PHD2 (there is no internal guider)
@@CuivTheLazyGeek So you have to select a guide star manually ? In SGP it selects a star for you and starts guiding . I have to go to SGP and choose one
@@Steve_The_Ignorant_Astronomer No the star will be selected automatically by PHD2 (prompted in the background by NINA), or even multiple stars if that's set in PHD2. Effectively NINA and SGP do the same thing to control PHD2!
@@CuivTheLazyGeek Oh sorry I did not make it that clear , I have 3 cameras hooked up when I use my ED-80 I use a mini guide scope , when I use LX-200 I use my ED-80 as guide scope , so how do I select the right guide cam ?
Interesting as always but if I well understood you did not dealign the mount when you changed from Sharpcap to Nina and thus you did not start from scratch in the two cases. So I m not sure if this was actually tbe most appropriate/valid test of each programme's PA abilities ...
This!
With the way you did it you could have been comparing alignment by eye after the sharpcap alignment and you would have said it was spot on and just as good as Sharpcap. All you showed was that NINA appeared to agree with sharpcaps result when it was almost polar aligned, not what it looked like when unaligned.
I think NINA is doing a better job than Sharpcap (mostly due to not having to point at the pole, great for those with trees) - but the test should be apples-to-apples.
Makes sense! OK, how about it this way, next time I do it?
- Polar alignment before the session starts
- Misalign the mount by a roughly known quantity in Alt and Az (to misalign each software the same way)
- ASIAIR PA -> Drift measurement
- Misalign the mount by the same rough known quantity
- NINA PA -> Drift measurement
- Misalign the mount by the same rough known quantity
- Sharpcap PA -> drift measurement
Would that work?
@@CuivTheLazyGeek Pas mal de boulot (pour un "Lazy Geek" !) mais ça doit marcher ...
@@CuivTheLazyGeek That would work but to be more accurate you would have to randomise the direction of misalignment that would mimic a normal setup that is roughly polar aligned.
Ie level mount and align mount to north/south and then set latitude . Then try the the various options. To be completely blind get your partner to move your tripod to any random direction and mess up your latitude then setup with rough polar alignment. You can also then do the same test with nina then with a star not looking at the celestial pole.
@@raeiqmusachi But then one of the random moves could favor one method over another! Well, I'll think about it!
Cuiv could you please include the ASIAIR and Pole Master? I am sure that we will learn a lot. Very interresting video! Thanks for your chanel
The battle of the beasts
So I can compare ASIAIR to Sharpcap and to NINA, but I don't have a PoleMaster ... So unless someone sends me one (with an EQ6R adapter), I won't be able to do that! I really wouldn't be buying a polemaster just to test it :p
@@CuivTheLazyGeek look forward to the ASIAIR & Sharpcap polar alignment
Cheers mate
@@CuivTheLazyGeek definitely interested in the ASIAIR + PA please :) ......
@@CuivTheLazyGeek, great video as always Cuiv!
yes please, go for the comparison between ASIAIR Pro/plus and N.I.N.A. If you can.
Thanks 🙏
Cheers, Paulo
Excellent vidéo as always.
But about the methodology : doing the polar alignment, you will obtain better results by using the Newton instead of the guide scope.
On an Hyperstar C11, U can polar align between 4 » and 11 ». Yeah seconds… the 2 last numbers on the right. ;)
Maybe trying with the télescope and not the guide scope could enhance your polar alignment.
Good thoughts from frog land. ;)
Great comparison Cuiv. I’m keeping SharpCap Pro though, as it’s pretty inexpensive and it also provides good live stacking for EAA and histogram adjustment. It allows pretty easy camera adjustments too.
Excellent video Cuiv!! - I loved the inclusion of PHD guide assist to monitor drift (or lack thereof!) and verify the PA, it seems like it worked brilliantly well :-)
I really am glad we have access to these wonderful PA methods these days, I can't say that I really miss having to crouch down and squint through a polar scope!! :D
Clear skies mate!
Oh yeah, not having to squint through a polar scope is not an experience I miss!!
Excellent video, Cuiv! Thanks for taking the time to do this. Would love to see the ASIAir in the mix here!
Yep, I intend on doing a full battle between ASIAir, Sharpcap, NINA, and potentially EKOS!
The best way to compare would be change the mount position destroying polar alignment. After that align with Nina and check it on phd2
I used Sharp Cap to polar align for the first time last night. I used my Celestron 6" SCT and an attached SVBony 405cc (asi 294). Took less than 5 minutes to get [Excellent] results according to Sharp Cap. Got great results, unguided for 3 hours data. I use Sharp Cap pro for everything, live stack and do not do any post processing.
2:37 Sharp Cap
5:31 phd2
7:53 NINA
I used NINA last night for polar alignment, I can say that sharpcap is a thing of the past, I have eq5pro goto and after polar alignment in NINA I made a 3 minute exposure without problems,i am talking about the ease of the sessions, together with stellarium it is very easy to select what you want to do that night.
Your telescopes are getting bigger again!!! So glad you are recovering! Bazooka will be back
Yessssss! Thank you! I haven't found the energy to use the big scope yet, but sometime soon!
Well done, Cuiv! I've been wondering about this exact question. But I'm not willing to give up my SharpCap Pro subscription quite yet. SC is still lots of other uses that I find useful. It's my poor Polemaster that is sitting in a box, unused, alone, and pitiably neglected. I have come to appreciate the ability of NINA to assist with polar alignment at any reasonable location in the sky.
Yes, SC Pro does have a lot of good features (that I don't use :D). That poor, poor Polemaster, it really needs some love - if you want to send it to me so I can do a Polemaster vs ASIAIR vs Sharpcap vs NINA vs Ekos battle, let me know :p
Take care that drift in declination is a symptom to misalignment only in a direction perpendicular to the "target-mount-pole" plane! In other words, by attempting to notice drift while pointing at the meridian as in the video, you only get a feel for left-right azimuth error.
Great video. As someone who has an obscured view of Polaris from my balcony, this is a welcome enhancement to Nina. I can try to mimic your style of imaging instead of spending nights out in the nearby field. :) Thanks again.
Always happy to see my videos are helpful Rick!
Great video.. Thanks for taking the time to essentially verify that the polar alignment in NINA is in fact accurate. It's so easy to use, and actually precise..
Thank you!
Thanks, much appreciated, I was only buying Sharpcap for the polar alignment but do plan to try out NINA
Cuiv! Don't breathe! You will get excellent polar alignment that way!
Hahaha exactly!
Great job, Cuiv! As usual, I learned something that I had taken for granted previously. I have yet to check it, but after watching your video I am convinced that my SC settings are not correct. I never even knew the option for diffraction or exact location were in there! Now I know why SC and PHD2 ALWAYS disagreed on my PA numbers. My alignment will get better. Thank you!
I did an experiment on my EQ 6 r pro mount last September. Namely I ran an RC 8" telescope for 27 minutes without any problem the stars were unmoved. Everything is controlled by the NINA program and the equipment is on Pier in the astro shed.
Many thanks, I am just getting into using NINA for polar alignment and it is good to know that it is so reliable. My little moan is that the adjustment screws on the EQ 5 mount have a coarse thread, making fine adjustments difficult. However, I am able to place my mount in exactly the same place each night, and this helps a lot. NINA is an amazing tool. Thanks for your excellent videos.
Oh yeah those adjustment screws are a nightmare! Don't worry too much about too precise for PA though, guiding will correct a huge misalignment when called upon! :D
One thing i noticed last time I tried (not the latest version though) - Sharpcap don't care if main scope and guidescope are aligned, NINA does seem to care.
In what way does NINA care? Like it would give different polar alignment results depending on whether the main scope is used on the guidescope is used?
very much so. With the guidescope i got a horrible alignment and with the main, it was good. But again, not an up to date version.
My guiding had dramatically improved since I started to use the nina 3ppa plugin, I thought my polar scope was aligned... I was wrong!!!
10 min exposures now not really an issue which is great.
Thanks for this video, very clear.
Great to hear! Thanks for that feedback Ross!
And Boom, Just like that Sharpcap just dropped its sales by heaps!.. I know i wont be renewing mine now, as that was the only reason i ever used sharpcap...
This was the video is have been waiting for, as always thanks for another helpful video cuiv!.
And now you mention it, I think its time for a video about PEC curves and how to program one.. Ive been waiting for a great video about that subject for ages, one that's easy to understand. All the others just blow my mind on how complex they are, I think your the man for the task Cuiv!!!.. Stay safe!
Yes, I need to do PEC! Thanks for reminding me! But I think I'll do it in Greenswamp Server :)
Very much interested in this shoot-out.
Thank you! As others have mentioned however, the protocol wasn't good enough, so there will likely be a round 2
@@CuivTheLazyGeek I am quite impatient in getting an alternative to SC. The only reason I keep it is for polar alignment. Ready to dump it.
Great comparison, you are always making practical videos that really help to solve the issues we face when starting with astrophotography, thanks for the great content.
For anyone interested I also did the comparison between N.I.N.A and EKOS 3 point polar alignment routines. The results on several runs was very close to each other, less than 1” verified with PHD2 GA. This wasn’t the case in previous versions of the plug-in, when I had differences of more than 5”, so it seems with the latest updates this method is becoming more and more accurate.
Thanks for the feedback on EKOS! Really interesting! It's really good to have so many options!
Watching this a year after it was posted, so late to the comments! I have used PHD2, Sharpcap, & Gemini2 PAC routines with a 305mm - 1200mm FL Newtonian and QHY174 or similar sensor sized camera to perform the PAC routines. I am at approximately 39 degree N so Polaris is fairly high up from the N horizon so no atmospheric corrections used with those routines having such a correction potential. None has ever given me a precise polar alignment. Of the three Gemini2 has given me the closest PAC and was the simplest to use, but that is confined to having a mount which uses Gemini2 in my case a Losmandy 2015 Titan GEM. The SharpCap and PHD2 results were pretty similar.
I checked all of the results via the same method from my permanent pier setup in my little ROF observatory... Polar Drift Alignment using Andy Rayford's Startarg 2.0. The Gemini2 needed the least amount of corrections @ +/- 10 - 20 a.s. E/W & about the less N/S, the other 2 usually needed 30 a.s. +/- corrections to come back to the Polar alignment as indicated by using the Startarg and the Polar drift alignment routine. After doing the corrections with the Polar drift alignment method a solid Polar Alignment was confirmed each time using a 10 minute Polaris tracking time using the sight cross hairs of the StarTarg. I chose the 10 minute tracking times based on the cycle timings of the Titan's worm drives, yes the periodic error did show through the 10 minute cycle, but the measured +/- 5 - 6 a.s. periodic error tracked true to measure. Obviously the P.E. was present in the same pattern in all three methods.
Either of the software based methods to Polar align your Equatorial mounts should prove sufficient and effective in a more portable setup when using a decent autoguide application with a well matched camera. The software assisted PAC routines are much quicker and easier to use for a portable setup & I would recommend them over doing an actual physical Polar drift alignment. Because I use a software assisted PAC routine via my Gemini2 PAC function, my actual physical Polar drift alignments go much quicker due to having to make only minor adjustments in the mount alignments. I usually do a PAC routine on my permanent pier setup a couple of times a year. December and June... refer to my location and seasonal climate shifts, frost lines and the ground its self where I am located. I have my pier mounted into a 40 inch deep (101cm} concrete footer with 1.25 inch (31.75mm) anchor bolts 24 inches (61cm) formed in the concrete footer. The base of the pier is 1" standard A36 steel plate with a piece of schedule 80 - 6 inch steel pipe serving as the main pier, it is mounted via a floating (tilt adjustable) base mount. The concrete footer is formed in a "bell configuration" the base in the ground is 36 inches and the finished top is 24 inches. Point of description, the pier is solid but still even at that depth and formation subject to some seasonal heave and shift. Very minor, I can use a long level on the pier shaft and see some barely noticeable tilt and shift seasonally. It has very little effect on the Polar alignments... But what can I say... I can be a bit pragmatic at times and a quick Drift PAC on the actual mount puts everything back into that near perfect place if it indeed does show any effects of the ground shift here.
Cuiv, love the video, but I'd really like to see how well NINA does near the pole versus NINA pointing somewhere else starting from an unaligned mount. Thanks for doing this though!
I am planning on doing this!
Thanks for doing these. You must be feeling better since you set up the big mount. Awesome!
Indeed I do feel better! Although the rods in my spine are still annoying (can't wait until I can remove them)...
any 3 star polar alignment is at the mercy of the goto slew accuracy. A mount with absolute Encoders would help to verify this
Just got a call from Dr Robin. There’s a million dollar contract out on you……. Lolol! 😂. Kidding of course! Good to know info and I can add that I’ve done the same and I have the pole master. I’m seeing no real difference using the pole master compared in basically the same manner. Awesome plug-in and my pro license is going away too. Sharp cap is very handy for sensor analysis and live stacking but I’ll be ok.
Hahaha! Yeah I have to say Sharpcap is amazing, but the only Pro feature I use is the PA... so yeah, not renewed...
Nice one Cuiv. Also seeing you've got your bazooka out, means your back is feeling better! I haven't used 3PPA yet and am still using my Polemaster, but will give 3PPA a shot.
Thanks Sean! I think you will be very satisfied by the 3PPA tool!
Another excellent video mate. There is a small issue though. If your mount is turned on during PA, you will enherit the errors from at least your RA drive into your PA measurements.
I always do the PA with the mount turned off, to prevent that.
Aha, this makes sense - I think for NINA's 3PPA the tracking is turned on automatically, but I will check, thank you!
Very good comparison and nice to see the two softwares agree. Since NINA gives the possibility to polar align away from Polaris, for me, the point of taking into account the atmospheric refraction is moot. One just needs to start the alignment sequence at a high enough altitude, which can be easily set before starting the routine.
True, with 3PPA, atmospheric refraction really doesn't matter! :D
For Sharpcap, not sure if this works for you, after first good alignment, I do restart and redo second or third alignment, this gives closer to excellent and confirm the polar alignment.
Very useful video!
Good to see you back with a big scope, hope your back is ok?
I mostly image from two Balconies, one looks north and can polar align with sharpcap the other south and have no view of polaris and so has been a problem with polar alignment, (still have not figured out drift alignment).
From this am looking forward to getting better PA and imaging to the south this winter and looks like NINA could be my saviour.
thanks for more really good advice
Thanks Mark! Yes, the back is getting better, but I'm still dreading the surgery that will remove the rods from the back...
NINA should definitely help there!
Perfect, mostly being a geek interested in accuracy, ease of setup. I think all of us instinctively look at the images for round stars and tails. In my case I prefer longer 20 to 30 min subs taken over a week's time. Like to second, third, any other Comparisons. Also the course adjustments with knobs sucks. We need something better?
Makes sense! And yes we need something better for PA - it exists with motorized PA, but it's not cheap :D www.avalon-instruments.com/products-menu/mounts/m-zero-obs-wi-fi-detail
Super merci.
Interesting result, I have found SCP to be more accurate.
Make a test with asiair PA… im sure its not good as sharpcap or nina. You must test it..!
I will do this!
Solid vid--SO glad NINA has polar alignment now, and that it works through my main scope (I use an OAG) One less thing to worry about. :)
Excellent presentation as always Cuiv, thank you.
I will be keeping my SharpCap Pro subscription, to support research in the field, even though I only use[ed] it for Polar Alignment.
I stand on the shoulders of giants to do my pitiful attempts attempts at astrophotography and encourage all who work to support those who toil to make our hobby easier!
Thanks Anomalous! Also let's not forget that SC has millions of other features in its pro subscription (although I personally only use the PA tool), including live stack!
I use Nina because of you but every time I have a problem and try to get help in the forums and i mention i have nina, they say oh i don't use that program i use ATP. I wish everyone would just use the same thing would be much easy to explain and troubleshoot problems
Hahaha yes! But then with NINA you really want to be asking in their Discord, they can really resolve a lot of issues quickly!
"Polar Alignment BATTLE! WHO WINS??"
We win, we win Cuiv.
Hehehe exactly!
i had wanted to do this very thing! thanks for saving me all the time! I use Sharpcap for polar alignment and live-stacking, but Nina for autofocus. thanks, also, for writing the Nina autofocus routine!
I didn't write the NINA autofocus routine from scratch, but I did rewrite a lot of the logic! Which has since been enhanced even more by others :) I stood on the shoulder of giants :)
@@CuivTheLazyGeek Either way, we’re all grateful.
SharpCap now has overshoot focusing, I had them add it on their last update.
@@billblanshan3021 I’ll experiment with it Friday night!
Great comparison! I will keep paying SharpCap license to support it (it's a tiny fraction of money what we use for the gear :)), it's great software too!
Also Sharpcap does have a lot of really good features in its Pro subscription!
I actually find the ending of your video the most interesting.
In the end you can see that the NINA PA values varies by quite a lot. I experienced the same thing with my mount and it's been driving me crazy, I do have polaris, but didn't thought it should matter, maybe I'll try next time to perform it on polaris and see if it's more stable.
you really dont need to bother about sub arcminute polar alignment.
@@hottokatrazi But it continues to go up and up, going eventually way above arcminute. So either something is not working properly when it's not near polaris, or something else is going on.
Yeah something is changing, keep looking. Make a check list, and go through your setup and mount carefully, I've noticed some loose connections, also don't forget about temperature gradients. Stability before starting can be important especially if on concrete or near structures.
@@randyvee1893 It was my small rig, so is was completely assembled all the time, all I did was take it in and out, one night I had 0.2" PHD guiding, and the other night I had awful guiding and each time I tried to PA it showed different results. Even with sharpcap, I reached 0.18" total error, but then when I tried it with NINA it showed much different results. So I wonder if actually trying to PA towards polaris does make a difference. I think the night where I had 0.2" guiding was PA towards polaris.
I'll give it a try next time and see.
Interesting - there could be something about aligning away from the pole, or my guess is that (like I've been told Sharpcap does), the calculation, once done, stops taking into account the earth's rotation in further platesolved frames, e.g. the longer you take on the final step, the less precise you will be - I've heard of people running Sharpcap twice because of that - and it would be far more apparent on a star close to the Celestial equator, like we had here. However, this is just a guess, I don't know for sure. You should ask the question in the NINA Discord! An easy workaround, if that guess is correct and you really really really want a super precise PA would be to run it twice in a row, so the time spent on the final step is minimum.
Cool Cuiv but I think to be fair test perhaps you need to mess up the PA in between tests, also I'm sure Robin wasn't pleased with your 'Cancel subscription' conclusion. For your money Sharpcap does much more than excellent polar alignment! . I certainly will not be canceling mine. :) . One other thing.. unless you didn't want to mess with your solar filter there is no reason why sharpcap would not polar align through the main scope perfectly. I do it all the time on my 1000mm Fl Newt.
Yep, others have pointed that out, I plan on doing that as well :) Interesting, I didn't realize Sharpcap had gotten better and could work on long FL!
Not forget Ekos/ Stellarmate
Yeah, I might do it - as far as I can tell NINA uses basically the same algorithm, but if I ever get into Ekos I will try.
I don't agree because both apps measure alignment thru the scope instead of the mount. First align the mount, then see if your scope is also aligned by taking a long 10 or 20 mintue exposure with mount off to study the circular star trails made. If the north/south pole is not in the image, make the proper adjustment to align your scope only. Then the app will become more reliable.
What you comment is calculated by PHD2 with more precision during the guidance session. This is exactly what CUIV did.
As Jesus mentions, the PHD2 guide graph is the ultimate tool to verify polar alignment (via its symptoms, equivalent to the star trails, but more precisely). Both NINA and Sharpcap do correct for the cone error of the scope wrt the mount RA axis, which is why in the end we saw PHD2 DEC really stay on the line...
I'm a noob and I hate PA, I'm deffo looking into this, 10 a year would be a blessed relief to avoid the regular pain in the butt of PA and the inevitable misalignment mistakes 😮
Good start Cuiv but I hope you will make the same PA comparison with the ASIair Plus, Stellarmate and Ekos (in Astroberry). But please start from a misaligned mount each time, and time how long you take to carry out a couple of timed alignments for each approach. By the way I use Ekos for PA, but keep my inexpensive (in my opinion) subscription to SharpCap Pro for the other functions especially LiveStacking which keeps me more visually involved on my laptop while Ekos is running everything else on the RPi4.
Not sure I will do the EKOS part - but I'll certainly try the ASIAir one!
thanks, you just saved me 12 pounds a year 👍
Glad I could help
I actually just did my first polar alignment with N.I.N.A. But for me, I had 8 arcsec difference to Sharpcap PA. I blame the hardware I have, the AZGTI in EQ mode with those tiny azimuth screws and shaky mount - regardless I actually had a better result in drifting with NINA alignment, because I didn't have to flip down the mount in the RA axis. If you know the SW AZGTI mount, it's a pain, plus the whole thing is really not accurate, compared to a EQ6R mount or similar.
Oh yeah the AZ-GTi in EQ mode with the cheapo SW wedge will shift PA if you just breathe on it! Seriously even touching a cable or something like that affects the PA. But anyway, the DEC backlash is such that you may want to intentionally have bad PA with the AZ-GTI, so that you can guide DEC in a single direction!
Don't you think you should have messed around with your Alt/Az bolts to mess up your alignment prior to trying NINA?
You're right, I made the assumption that NINA would disagree with Sharpcap in the first place, would the below protocol work?
- Polar alignment before the session starts
- Misalign the mount by a roughly known quantity in Alt and Az (to misalign each software the same way)
- ASIAIR PA -> Drift measurement
- Misalign the mount by the same rough known quantity
- NINA PA -> Drift measurement
- Misalign the mount by the same rough known quantity
- Sharpcap PA -> drift measurement
@@CuivTheLazyGeek Yes Sir! That's what I was thinking as well. Maybe just a tiny pencil mark or piece of tape to match your alt/az bolts to when you "off-align" so that each test starts from as close to the same place as possible. Maybe even ensure that your last adjustment on each bolt is from the same direction ;-)
@@LM-ek2hb Sounds good! That's gonna waste some imaging time :-( hahaha
@@CuivTheLazyGeek Put it on the "Full Moon - To Do List" :-)
Doing this would give an "apples to apples" comparison. However, I think the basic point is still proven well enough. NINA does a pretty good job. Perhaps someone could do this "apples to apples" shoot-out and add a comment. For now, I'm well enough convinced to switch over.
Also, I like it that NINA would allow me to take my measurements at a higher altitude from the horizon. (Polaris is about 32* for me.) Isn't that why PHD2 wants you to measure away from the pole, because it's more accurate?
I had to install the latest driver for my QHY 268C OSC to make NINA happy with that last nightly # 190. Took a little bit of work as I had to manually remove the previous driver. Windows 10 kept wanting to use the old driver. Have you tried the Hocus Focus plugin? It works pretty well for me. Can't tell too much difference between NINA and Hocus Focus. May do a test on the focus for both and see how much difference maybe? Can't wait the the stable version of 1.11 to come out. I think they have to be close as the nightly updates are almost daily now. Can't wait! ;o)
Good that you were able to make it work! I haven't tried Hocus Focus yet, but I will. At some point :)
That's awesome. But as you pointed out in the comments, it would be more interesting to find out whether NINA's three points alignment can be used from other spots of the sky and actually bring one to get accurate polar alignment. I tried this before and did a drift alignment afterwards and found it actually was quite a few arcminutes away from the accurate polar alignment. Because my backyard/balcony cannot see Polaris, I used to rely on NINA's polar alignment feature before the three points alignment was available. I found it also was not very reliable. It could bring me to the ballpark, say 10-20 arcminute, but sometimes could be off by larger errors.I wonder what are the factors for more accurate polar alignment with both NINA's polar alignment and three points polar alignment. Nowadays I stop shooting from my backyard and much prefer going to darksites for the higher SNR. And my preferred polar alignment method is using ASI Air Pro. I always bring two mounts and use the one ASI Air Pro I have on both. I found it to be the most efficient way. As for Sharpcap Pro, I did purchase the annual license but found it hard to use. It certainly is because I am not familiar with the software but also because it requires the error to be less than 5 degrees, compared to ASIAirPro's generous 30 degrees. And for unknown reasons I had hard time getting my image plate solved.
Very interesting on the 3PPA - I will be testing further as per your (and others) comment when I feel like wasting some perfectly good imaging time :D
Nice. I really like the ASIAIR PA feature the best so far, but for a computer setup NINA seems to be the better value. Cheers Kurt
I will also add ASIAIR to the comparison next time :)
Another great presentation Cuiv, thank you. NINA has come so far in just a short time. I think it's excellent. On another topic, how do you collimat the newt with the primary mirror holder taped up and covered? 😉
Thanks Neil! I don't collimate the Newt, and I never have! The R200SS is precollimated at factory and is built like a tank to hold the collimation (at least with Japan shipping providers) - that's why I went with it, I really hate doing collimation :D
Have you Seen the Dragonfly Telephoto Array?
Yes! It's been there for a while, but glad to see they're getting more lenses - afaik these lenses have had their IS elements disabled/manually immobilized to avoid issues! Dithering and focus on those lenses must be fun :p
I use NINA polar alignment with their default location for my C8 on an AVX mount. I can get it to 10” or below but PHD2 always complains my polar alignment is not good enough. I was going to try SharpCap but I may not bother now.
I did what I thought was an excellent PA with N.I.N.A. The next night I simply did another PA check with N.I.N.A. without making any adjustments - and the measurements were totally different, much worse. That bothers me. I have a pier mounted Losmandy Titan 50 loaded to the gills with a C14, a piggyback 100mm, and a 50mm guide scope. My focal length when using the 0.7x FR is 2737mm. Imaging camera is QHY128C for a 0.5º FOV. I always pick a star just West of Meridian and close to 0º Dec.
Interesting - I will need to run such a test, thanks for letting me know!
Depending on subframe exposure length, guiding, and mount capabilities you can live with 5 or more arc min. I prefer to try to achieve less than 2. It just seems for a few more minutes of my time why not and the less work the mount does the better my subs.
Completely agree!
yep. I agree with this. I like to get down to about 1 arcmin, but only really because I am a bit obsessional ;-) There is really not a lot of point in fiddling for ages to get < 1 arcmin.
A good test would be unguided 2-5 minute sub with both claiming to be less than 2 arc/sec
Maybe you only had tracking on but without guiding, not sure I may have missed that point.
It's not as good a test as PHD2 though, right? Unguided sub would show the RA periodic error, whereas PHD2 can much more precisely identify the DEC drift, which is the main symptom of polar alignment we are looking for!
Absolutely!
Cuiv, would be nice to see comparison of ASIAIR and NINA, also the accuracy 3 point polar alignment in NINA which doesn’t need visibility of the pole (believe it’s available as plug-in by Stefan Berg in NINA)
That's what I was using for NINA in this video! Also at the end of the Video, I run the 3PPA towards Altair!
@@CuivTheLazyGeek ahh I’ve yet to finish the vid, watching while working… hehe
If you could do more with the ASIAIR, it would be greatly appreciated, as I have one on order.
I want to try that indeed! :D
As I write this I'm prepping my small boxed PC and will install NINA or other software I might be interested using to control my EQ aligned Celestron Nexstar 5SE. I might end up tossing the PC and buying that new ASIAir Plus to simplify a lot of things. The only thing I don't know if possible is if there is an autofocuser for the 5SE. I know there is at least one solution for the larger Celestron scopes. Years ago I bought the Celestron 50mm right angle finder scope and hoping I can use that for a guide scope and only have to spend money on one of the cheaper cameras to use as a guider. I might be able to find a used one to save money.
You'll have to make your own adapter for the 5SE, or add a crayford focuser then motorize it... Neither the Celestron focus motor nor the EAF adapters work on the C5...
@@CuivTheLazyGeek I discovered the JMI Telescopes MOTOFOCUS for the 6SE/5SE works. $200.
@@greatpix not sure whether that will work well as these are DC motors rather than steppers...
Interesting video and comparison , thanks!
Glad you liked it!
Thank you, Cuiv!
My pleasure!
Excellent video, thank you Cuiv. What is your Bortle sky on that roof?
Around 8/9!
Hi Cuvi, I recommend blinding ur location (long and lat.) If you don't mind geeks visiting u on their holidaytrip to Japan ;).
Yeah don't worry, they're not exact by a few hundred meters (in either Sharpcap or NINA :D)
NINA does do Polar Alignment well, but SharpCap seems to be faster at it?
Basically yes :)
Hi Cuiv,
If I understood correctly you carried out the PHD drift test close to the pole. Should it not be done close to the South equator?
No I did it near the Celestial equator - towards Altair!
@@CuivTheLazyGeek Thanks Cuiv,
I must attach my ears to my brain.
As I can't see near Polaris I have been stuck with the PHD drift alignment tool, which does work but takes ages. Nina has saved me hours of waiting for trends to settle.
I also would like to see the ASIAIR accuracy vs NINA. I tested my ASIAIRplus vs iOptron's iPolar scope and found that the ASIAIRplus was dead on the same as the iPolar.
OK I will try this!
@@CuivTheLazyGeek Yay! Looking forward to your results.
Now this is getting interesting to me.. i wonder how NINA polar alignment will work for the portable AZ GTI setup?
Should be no different, right?
Should work the same, but the smaller mount with the cheap wedge would likely be much easier to accidentally bump out of alignment while making the changes!
Since I only have a star adventurer and a DSLR, I still need sharpcap to get good polar alignment. I tried to do the 3 point alignment in NINA and it just stops after taking the first shot.
That's a bummer - you've set 3PPA to the manual setting?
@@CuivTheLazyGeek Yup! But its all good, once I get a goto then I can ditch Sharpcap 😊
These are gold!
THank you!
interesting . could you compare NINA vs PHD2 drift alignment tool?
Well, the drift alignment tool is the gold standard, since it uses the symptoms of poor polar alignment to perform PA by removing those symptoms. By comparing DEC drift in PHD2 to a PA routine (as I did in the video), I am already comparing the routine to PHD2 polar alignment (in terms of precision)!
@@CuivTheLazyGeek thanks. NO drift; NO Problem!
@@jonnic2000 exactly :-)
Thanks for the comparison, Cuiv!
Did you test while the mount was tracking? I think it´s important wether tracking is on or off - and: does NINA / Sharpcap compensate for (= does NINA / Sharpcap "know" if tracking is on or off)?
Can u use Sharp Cap to PA with just a DSLR and tracker and no view of Polaris?
I've attempted NINA 3 point PA a number of times, but it's not close at all. I'm using my Celestron HD8 at full f10 (2032mm) which is probably the problem. I'll try switching to the guide scope.
Interesting - it really seems that I need to investigate some more!
I tested the manual method for polar alignment in NINA and was pretty impressed. i have old CG-4 mount and hence can't do guiding. Plus I was using my DSLR. My only concern with NINA was it was continuously taking photos every few seconds and then doing plat solving and giving me the alignment error, causing about 30-40 shutter releases before I got a good polar alignment of 1-2'. I cannot afford to waste my camera's shutter life on palar algnemtn. I need to find another method to do the polar alignment or find some cheap camera to do the polar alignment. Any suggestions..
I still pay for sharp cap myself. Even though 99% of my imaging is done in Nina. But I still use Sharp Cap for Lunar and Planetary. Things Nina is not designed for :-)
Yep! I plan on trying out Firecapture though, I hear a lot of good things about it for Solar in particular!
@@CuivTheLazyGeek Sorry for the late replay . I would love to do solar imaging its just not in the budget for a while. Still trying to decide Daystar Chromosphere Quark or Lunt dedicated solar scope. Really want to do full disc. I tried fire capture when I first started didnt have much luck with it but then again I didnt know what I was doing either :-) i might give it a try again at some point
I will be using the Vixen R200SS as my imaging scope (a second hand one) but lacking a lot of the adaptors. So for the Vixen Corrector PH you use, what are the adapters you are using, and where did you order them from?
There is a rotator that comes with the R200SS itself, so the PH Corrector fits in there - then it's just M42, 55mm to the camera, so the standard ZWO adapters work fine for that!
For my part with polar alignment, the values move without me touching the frame, I may have incorrectly configured the parameters. I will try again when my mount comes back from overhaul
Aligning away from the pole, near the Celestial equator could cause that, if the 3PPA only does initial calculation and doesn't take into account the Earth's rotation after the last plate-solving (I'm told Sharpcap also does that, but since it's close to Polaris it doesn't matter as much), but I am not sure at all...!
@@CuivTheLazyGeek I would try again when my mount came back. Thank you for your videos from France
You never touched your mount. How does sharpcap pa if you don't touch your mount? Is it just software mapping?
I was going to say you can get the polar alignment feature in Sharpcap version 2.9 for free, but I see it’s not available for download any longer. Hmmm.
Hahaha yeah - also it is definitely far weaker than the PA in v3.x
Why can I get always under 10" with sharpcap?
May I ask a dumb question? I haven't done any astrophotography since the '70s and in that time, especially the last 10-15 years, there have been huge advances, mostly computational.
In astroimaging, why would I still need a guide scope with a dedicated camera when I would be better off using the images from the main scope/camera to do polar alignment, guiding. plate solving and autofocus? Seems to me it would be easier, and a lot cheaper, to use the main scope/camera for these uses. Yes, you'd use them at the expense of capturing fewer images, , maybe not, but I don't think that's much of a sacrifice considering that I'd be saving hundreds of dollars, pounds of weight, alignment problems between smaller/larger scopes, have less complex wiring, more equipment more things to go wrong.
I should be able to start the night focusing, polar aligning, plate solving, as usual but using the images/data from the larger scope/camera. You'd take the images as they come in and have software examine them for the data it needs to keep everything working smoothly. Worst case you might have to invest in a more powerful PC or add more memory to the one you use now.
I think I know one objection, not guiding during a long exposure, but it seems to me that as many times as you need, you could quiry the camera for it's recent data/image, even as it's still capturing that image. In other words have it send data representing the last 5 seconds or whatever time slice the guiding software needs. Maybe that's not possible with current camera hardware but it would be possible to intercept the data, take a packet or whatever you need to send the the software/hardware, For example a packet sniffer can intercept someone's Internet streamed data and piece back together a photo you might be sending to a friend. Since the camera is gathering light for whatever time frame, say 3 minutes, and (I'm making a guess here) gathering it into memory buffer until it can dump the buffer to create the final capture/image it should be possible to 'sniff' out a small section of that gathered data every [time period] and use that data to control the scope. I'm also getting this idea from how an image on a website can be progressive, meaning it starts by showing you a lower resolution image but over time adds more data to that image to show finer and finer detail.
For good or bad, at the very least this post should generate a lot of responses but maybe there's someone out there this will spark interest in and who can make my idea reality. (Maybe other people have had the idea too, I don't know.)
Let the chaos begin!
You still need a guide scope for auto-guiding. The main sensor simply can't be used for that purpose... You want to guide while doing the long exposures, but you can't read from the sensor while it is exposing...
@@CuivTheLazyGeek Here's my thinking, I'm wondering if the sensor uses a buffer/memory to store information while the sensor is capturing light, if so then it might be possible to read from that buffer/memory during the exposure and use that data for guiding. I've just sent an email to someone very knowledgeable on sensors to see what he thinks is possible or not.
@@greatpix As far as I know it doesn't - the read noise that is injected once per exposure is a testament to that. And even if you could read the sensor mid-exposure, you would multiply the read noise for each exposure, which would be a very, very bad thing...
@@CuivTheLazyGeek I contacted someone who knows a lot about digital cameras and sensors and this was his reply "Image sensors offload data to essentially RAM in cameras. While they hold a charge for each photosite until that offload happens, bad things happen if that is stored too long or accessed while in the process of gathering charge. In digital cameras, the RAM used is typically multi-use. That means that multiple things can access that RAM simultaneously. Some camera companies, such as Olympus, take advantage of this by peeling off data AS IT IS BEING stored to create a slow build up of overall data.
So, yes, it is possible to create a system like you want. It’s not simple, though.
--
Thom Hogan, writer/photographer"
Cuiv, I think this means we are both right but someone could possibly create a device like I was thinking of that would leave the original image unchanged but take data stored, or on it's way to being stored in RAM, and use that for the purpose I remarked upon.
Nice intro buddy.
Thank you! A subscriber sent it to me!
none of them can beat kstars polar alignment, you don't even have to see the north, you can point the scope wherever you want and do a normal PA routine. It just works without drift alignment!
Well, the KStars/EKOS polar alignment is based on the same algorithm as the NINA 3PPA as far as I can tell - and at the end of the video I do just that with NINA, checking PA starting on Altair :) Drift here was just used to measure actual error in this case!
Does this work with just a DSLR?
NINA and SharpCap Pro were not the same. They were different by 2' according to your video. They both have the same error magnitude, but in different directions.
Very good point! I really need to do more testing on this :)
@@CuivTheLazyGeek I think there are some other things you need to consider before making any assertions; you disabled refraction correction in SCP but I am not sure what the NINA plugin uses. The other thing to consider is that with a guidescope mounted on a big scope fixed to on a mount, you will get flexure - that will corrupt the accuracy in an unpredictable way- unlike PoleMaster mounted directly to the mount, or SCP, using a PM camera and a tiny CS-mounted guidescope (e.g. QHY). That is why things like TPoint do not even try to predict polar alignment with only a few points. Lastly - to make an assertion about what works best, requires several repeated tests. It is surprising how much variation all the methods have.
@@astroshed NINA also disables refraction so that's fine, and good point of flexure and repeated tests!
ASIAir PA FTW!!! 🤣🤣🤣
I can add it to the comparison :)
"Sharpcap corporate fat-cats hate this one weird trick.." 🤣
If only the Sharp cap dev was a fat cat :)
@@CuivTheLazyGeek Yea, I've seen some of his videos/lectures on RUclips. They're very good.
He seems like a decent bloke alright..
Wow, I wish my EQ6 was tracking that well. The RA curve on mine leaves the window after a minute or so, never to be seen again. Do you have PEC enabled? Which firmware version do you have?
No PEC on there - and no idea what firmware I have! I never updated it since I received the mount a few years ago...
Hey Cuiv, how come you use 3 rings on your newt with two close together? I assume initially for stability with flexure, would this be why?
It's to be able to easily install a small dovetail clamp on top, for example see here: ruclips.net/video/llVj_k7tpN4/видео.html
@@CuivTheLazyGeek Ahhhh okay great thank you! :)
What is the maximum PA Total Error acceptable to get good guiding? How much of an error can PHD guide out?
It is said that it can compensate well 5' of PA error.
It will depend on which region of the sky you image - it can compensate for a surprising amount of polar misalignment, but I don't have a specific figure. For mounts with high DEC backlash, having misaligned the mount is actually beneficial, since DEC can then be used in a single direction!
HELLO Cuiv. Comment ça va? Une question? Est ce que tu saurais si N.I.N.A fonctionne sur une tablette windows ayant assez de RAM et windows 10? Merci d'avance pour ta réponse
Hello hello! Ca devrait fonctionner sans probleme si la tablette est 64 bits - et si les ports USB ont assez de jus pour le materiel...
@@CuivTheLazyGeek Oui, merci pour l'information.
Bon ciel
I would love to use NINA but getting lost with it, so much... I tried the other night and could not find how to choose my guide cam
and clear sky's are hard to come by and did not want to waist a clear night fighting with it. Got to find lots of tutorials
I see, you should definitely try it during the day time as much as possible - I do have a very old video where I go through all the NINA basics. As a note, you don't connect to your guide cam from NINA - you connect it in PHD2 (there is no internal guider)
@@CuivTheLazyGeek So you have to select a guide star manually ? In SGP it selects a star for you and starts guiding . I have to go to SGP and choose one
@@Steve_The_Ignorant_Astronomer No the star will be selected automatically by PHD2 (prompted in the background by NINA), or even multiple stars if that's set in PHD2. Effectively NINA and SGP do the same thing to control PHD2!
@@CuivTheLazyGeek Oh sorry I did not make it that clear , I have 3 cameras hooked up when I use my ED-80 I use a mini guide scope , when I use LX-200 I use my ED-80 as guide scope , so how do I select the right guide cam ?