Another disastrous night trying to polar align

[Cybermystic]

I am using a Loadstar on an 80mm refractor. I have now found the settings to boost the number of stars Sharpcap finds and that is now working perfectly.
At the beginning of the session I got plate solved, I moved the mount 90 degrees and I got the star with the line and box and how I was to move RA and DEC. Then it started not to plate solve - at all, and continued to do so. Clear night so no clouds, and anyway I could still see plenty of stars on the screen.
So I look in the "Settings" and plate solve, and I see that I don't have any plate solve applications (they are NOT FOUND). Also in TOOLS both plate solve boxes are greyed out. Does this mean I can't plate solve for the polar alignment - or do you have a separate plate solver built into Sharpcap for polar alignment only?
I am completely confused.
Greg

[Cybermystic]

O.K. so as it was such a beautiful night, I decided not to be a wimp and give up and I went back outside again. It is now 3 a.m. and I managed to polar align the array and even got a bit of imagin done as well. I'm not entirely sure how I got it working, when it's below zero and in the early hours my brain gives up - but it IS working, that's the thing
Greg

[Cybermystic]

In the cold light of day (and I mean really cold!!) and with 5 hours of sleep - I now know what all the trouble has been. Looking North from my observatory goes over a pair of apple trees I planted far too close. Althought I have taken a lot off the top of these trees, it is now clear that for a certain range of angles, some of the higher thin branches still get in the way of the Polaris region. I had to work my way between those branches to get the 2 points for the polar alignment to work. Note to self - cut some more of the high branches off this week.
Greg

[Menno555]

Hi Greg

Glad you got it solved.
Adding "apple trees" now to the list of things that can interfere with polar alignment

Menno

[admin]

Hi,

yep, tree branches can definitely cause probles, particularly if they are blocking out some stars completely as the patterns of stars that the plate solving uses will be messed up.

One trick is instead of starting scope up weights down and then rotating to horizontal, start with the scope up but 45 degrees left of vertical, then rotate to 45 degrees right. Everything will still work, but you are keeping the scope higher, so maybe seeing over the top of the trees.

Finally, SharpCap has its own, built in, plate solving engine for polar alignment. It only works in a small area (about 6 -7 degree radius) around each pole, but is optimized to be fast in that area. That lets polar alignment work when you don't have a separate plate solving engine installed.

cheers,

Robin

[Cybermystic]

I twigged (pun intended) what was going on when it was flicking between Solved and Not Solved - it could only be something moving in and out of the light path
Greg

[Cybermystic]

45 degrees left and right of vertical is basically what I ended up doing
Greg

I think it might be a tree out job in a few years