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How do I align my mount with SharpCap?

Posted: Fri Feb 23, 2024 6:56 pm
by JavierGoff
I'm new to SharpCap and I'm having some trouble with polar alignment. I have a Skywatcher EQ6-R Pro mount and a ZWO ASI120MM-S camera. I followed the instructions from the SharpCap user manual, but I can't seem to get the alignment error below 1 degree. I always get a message saying 'No stars detected' or 'Too many stars detected'. I've attached some screenshots of my settings and the error messages. Can anyone please help me figure out what I'm doing wrong?

Re: How do I align my mount with SharpCap?

Posted: Sat Feb 24, 2024 2:26 pm
by admin
Hi,

unfortunately the screenshots didn't come through on that post, so not sure what to suggest. A sort of basic thing to check though is that you can see stars (in reasonably good focus) in the image from your camera when aligning. You shouldn't need to apply a display stretch to see at least a good 10-20 stars. A good starting point for camera settings is to set a 2s exposure and relatively high gain (probably put the gain slider around 50 to 75% of the way to the right hand side).

Hope this helps,

Robin