Polar Alignment speed ?

[PaulR]

Hi Folks

Been doing my polar alignment with sharpcap, all works fine up to the time to move the mount.
Basically whats happening is that I seem to have to wait about 60 seconds per frame to tell me where to move the mount.
Last night I was doing this and it took me about an hour to get properly polar aligned. So it all worked but just took what seems a long time to acheive when I have read on other forums that people can do this in like 5 mins.

Im using a QHY 5II camera on a ZWO guide scope (60mm, FL 280 mm)
I have the exposure setting in sharpcap set to 2 seconds.

Thanks for reading

[admin]

Hi,

the first thing to do would be to work through the steps suggested in the troubleshooting guide (if you haven't already) – see https://www.sharpcap.co.uk/sharpcap/fea ... leshooting

Cheers, Robin

[PaulR]

thanks Robin

read all that , dont remember seeing the "could not solve" when i was doing stage 3 .

[admin]

Okay, then the next thing to check is to keep an eye on the frame count in the bottom left corner of the shop Window and check that it is counting up smoothly and roughly the expected rate. For instance if you have set a 2 second exposure then the frame count should increase every 2 seconds or thereabouts. That's just to prove that the frames are coming off of your camera and freezer SharpCap without any pauses or interruptions. Once you've made certain of this, also keep and I on the frame sole status in the polar alignment to check that it isn't coming up with frequent could not solve messages.

Next thing is to deliberately cover the telescope while you are polar aligning you should then get a black frame on the camera within a few seconds and at that point SharpCap should quickly give the could not solve message. Then you can uncover the telescope again and you should see that the could not solve message goes away rapidly after a frame with stars appears on the screen. Checking this validates that SharpCap is responding rapidly to each new frame that comes from the camera.

Hopefully the results of these tests will reveal any problems causing SharpCap to respond slowly during the polar alignment procedure.

Cheers, Robin

[PaulR]

Thanks will give all that a go next time its clear outside.
Im pretty sure there is no fault in sharpcap its more like my sharpcap settings or as you say lack of solveable images .
Will let you know

[PaulR]

Okay, then the next thing to check is to keep an eye on the frame count in the bottom left corner of the shop Window and check that it is counting up smoothly and roughly the expected rate. For instance if you have set a 2 second exposure then the frame count should increase every 2 seconds or thereabouts. ...

Sorry for the delay in coming back but this is the first time ive had to do a fresh polar align since last post
the problem seems to be that the frame count is not counting up , eg if I set a 2 second count , its showing a frame when it feels like it , can be 1 min , 2 mins or 5 mins.
Ive watched other videos and they all show the frame count in the bottom left counting up smoothly.
In the end it takes so long that it crashes sharpcap and I have to reboot my PC and everything else to regain connectivity to the camera.
Very frustrating , polar alignment seems to be my nemesis right now

[admin]

Hi Paul,

In that case it sounds like you have some sort of basic problem with the communication between the camera and the PC – the sort of things are usually down to USB related issues and there's a handy troubleshooting checklist that you can find here that might help: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=349&p=1556#p1556

Cheers, Robin