help re polar alignment and forum searching please

[Tony DancingStar]

Hi everyone, I’m Tony in Perth Australia. I used the Sharpcap Polar Alignment feature once; it was fantastic. Now I need to use it again; I have forgotten the details of how to do it, so I’d like to ask some questions.
I researched youtube etc, and I want to know if I can do the polar alignment with the mount [EQ6-R] switched off. Some tips say that the Tracking should be turned off, but my understanding of the term ‘tracking’ is just that the mount keeps the stars in the same position when it is correctly aligned and the mount is switched on; so turning tracking off means turning the mount off.
However, if the mount is off, the stars will move in every picture that Sharpcap takes for its polar alignment routine – so will or won’t that interfere with it somehow and cause a problem?
I tried to use this forum’s search box to find the answer, but it produced a very strange result – I typed “switch off mount polar alignment”; the search result said : “The following words in your search query were ignored because they are too common words: switch off alignment polar mount.” I tried deleting some of these words, but it gave me the same message every time. Finally, I just put one word into the search box: “alignment” but it said the same thing – However, the single search term “alignment” surely can’t be ‘too common’ to be findable in a search of the forum for this program????
Can anyone tell me if I’m doing something wrong when searching?
Thanks
Tony

[admin]

Hi Tony,

first the search - it isn't the best part of the forum software that I am using, but it often does a reasonable job. Sadly not with your query. The best bet actually is to search on google - like this

Code: Select all

sharpcap polar alignment tracking site:forums.sharpcap.co.uk

That should give you the google results from the SharpCap forums only.

Now for tracking - actually it doesn't matter because the camera is pointing at or very close to the pole where the stars only move incredibly slowly (rotating round the pole once every twenty four hours). I usually do it with the mount switched off and it works fine - I unlock the RA clutch to make the RA rotation.

cheers,

Robin

[Tony DancingStar]

Hi Robin thanks for that
Cheers
Tony