Since 2017, Ive captured several deep sky images with the SkyGuider Pro, with a DSLR camera attached to a camera or small telescope. My phone has an amoled display. You also need to set the rotation center of the mount, which can be calibrated after clicking the clear rotation center button on-screen. Depending on the telescope mount, the view through the polar scope may be obstructed when the telescope is in the rest position. - When the moon will rise and set ? As a beginner, am I better off starting without the iPolar, or should I jump to the improved technology? How to polar align a star tracker mount - BBC Sky at Night Magazine It was nice to talk to you at NEAF. Now you can get familiar with Astronomy by identifying stars, planets, and constellations. You need to hook a computer up to your telescope to use a polemaster I believe. Before you converted did you do a polar alignment with your gear hanging on it ? Create a smart scope equipped with a smart phone in the air soft gun. I presume you are looking through a polar scope? I dont mind the extra time for set up. I have a Samsung Galaxy S8. This version of the SynScan app is suited for Use StellarMate App to discover and connect to your StellarMate controller. Thanks for your reviews. Polar Align Without Polaris - Good Enough for Astrophotography? The application tracks and draws the position of the Polaris (or Octant) in real-time and. Trevor, Ive gotten a ton of inspiration and guidance from you these last few years. The Polar Scope Align app for iOS was designed to make polar alignment easier and provide an alternative method of aligning with polar scopes to improve their precision. What's the best polar alignment app for Android? - what is the Polar Clock is a lightweight, easy-to-use app, designed to help with the setup of an equatorial mount. Its a rather simple process for German equatorial mount (GEM)owners. Scope Friend nutzt die GPS-Funktion und Bluetooth um sowohl die genaue Zeit, als auch die Position zum Teleskop Handcontroller zu PolarDrift calculator is a simple polar alignment assistant tool helping astrophotographers to solve the question of optimum polar alignment sufficient to minimize the effects of field rotation. - language (Russian, English, Hungarian, Spanish, German, French, Romanian, Croatian, Italian, Sinhala, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, PoleMaster Polaroid is a pole-mounted, handset-mounted tool that enables one of the most direct and simple ways to align the pole axis with your phone and is available in a fraction of the time Very accurate alignment of the PolarFinder is an useful tool for helping you in polar alignment of your mount. Note: A mount with a built-in Wi-Fi module must be used, Every night you repeat the same operations to set up your mount. For polar alignment, iOptron sells their app for $1.99 but I have downloaded a free app (there are some ads at the bottom) called the Polar Scope Align. If you use stellarium or a star chart to locate Polaris you will see that it can be found by drawing an imaginary line through the two stars that form the end of the big dipper (the bowl end). The lack of dithering was evident in the data, and would have helped to reduce noise in the final integration. Once the plate solve has succeeded, you should see a red cross, and a red dot on the screen. When the red dot fully covers the red cross, you are all done. However, I consider this a pricey investment at $268 when I already own a QHY PoleMaster electronic polar scope for aligning my larger telescope mounts. It works indoors or outdoors. Any regrets With iOptron Sky Guider + iPolar? - Digital Photography Review Apart from the most reliable app for polar alignment (with or without a polar scope), PS Align pro has become the astronomer's swiss-army knife with all the tools added over the years. Now, go back to the Altitude adjustment bolts to raise or lower the mount further. Overall good software, works as intended. eVscope, new android stacking app, a bit of a curve ahead. It can also help a Sky-watcher equatorial mount An app for Astronomy and Astrophotography enthusiasts that use a German Equatorial Mount for your telescope. This guide originally appeared in the February 2022 issue of BBC Sky at . Edited by Ishtim, 02 May 2019 - 10:39 AM. I often use them as their graphics are better than the HC display. PolarisView is a useful utility to assist you while you align your GEM or equatorial mount for your telescope for your An app for Astronomy and Astrophotography enthusiasts. There are IOS and Android apps that tell you where to position Polaris on the iOptron reticule. The iPolar installation process was interesting. !Affiliate links for First Light Optics below. Setup your usual location (Lat & Long) at your site by clicking the change button on the settings dialog. You'll need to enter in the lat-long coordinates of your location, which you can easily find online or using the GPS on your phone. What did you do to locate the target ? I find adjusting the polar alignment with it to border on insanity-inducing. We'd love to hear from you! Accurate Polaris / Oct position calculation, including atmospheric refraction, stellar aberration, nutation. But.. My pictures really seem to get blown out at that time with pollution. This App controls most functions through Bluetooth from your Android cell phone or tablet. As seasoned veterans will tell you. Sign up for a new account in our community. The QHY PoleMaster is a high-precision electronic polar alignment scope. Aligning to Polaris is far more accurate. Couple that with the fact that these astrophotography filters can be expensive, and youve got some, Continue Reading Light Pollution Filters for AstrophotographyContinue, In my opinion, the best astrophotography lens is one that can capture a variety of images of the night sky in a reliable and consistent way. The SynScan hand controller is now available as an app on your smart device. I dont know if I just need to spend more time fiddling with that or upgrade to what you just shared, so I can enjoy more DSO AP with that simple setup. Its the latitude were interested in. With the preview function (which is automatically visible A simple and easy to use application for determining the location of Polaris relative to the north celestial pole. Turn the knobs a few times while looking through the polar scope. I even traded in my SkyTracker for the SkyGuider Pro, and I added the William-Optics Z61 as well. 8401 Hand Controller Star Catalogs Reloading. I have sometimes shone a green laser through the polar alignment scope to see if it hits Polaris. Because the Polaris is not exactly coincide with the Earth's rotation axis but rotates around it, one should know the exact hour angle of the Polaris to adjust (rotate) the finder. If your view of the Big Dipper or Polaris is completely obstructed, you may need to polar align using the Drift Align method I mentioned earlier. In my latest video, I captured a wide-field deep sky object using an impressive little star tracker, the iOptron SkyGuider Pro. The same process applies to a portable star tracker and is completed via the built-in polar finder scope. I have an iPhone and have an iOptron Skyguider Pro on its way. PolarScope is a polar-scope alignment app that runs on your Windows Desktop, Tablet and Phone. When Polaris rides consistently along that line, you know the polar-scope is set for subsequent alignment. PoleMaster Free Polar Alignment | QHYCCD Astronomical & Scientific Camera I hope that you now have a better understanding of how to polar align your telescope for a successful night of astronomy. Ive traveled to Costa Rica with this setup in my carry-on bag and set the rig up in 3-feet of snow in the backyard. Connect the IOptron IPolar to your laptop first so it power up (USB2) and then run the IOptron software exe file. I cannot see polaris clearly from my location any night be their trees or other obstructions. Also is this a typo.62 x 40 minutes.. Or should that be 62 x 4 minutes? Images captured using the SkyGuider Pro with the RedCat 51 and DSLR attached. Use the Zoom Buttons to zoom in and simply use your Smartphone as Telescope. iOptron app is available for iPhone or iPad for locating Polarisit does cost extra though. In beta testing at the moment but I can tell you it works exceptionally well. This will get your scope into the neighbourhood, but you will still need to do the final adjustment through the scope or viewing tube. So I have to remove the sheets, adjust and put it back. 3. Using IPolar to polar alignment once it has been fitted and aligned is really easy and is my goto method for fast and accurate polar alignment. How does autoguiding work? I prefer to make a visual observation at nightfall to align with Polaris. I was looking at the William Optics base. The iOptron iPolar Polar Alignment Software. This is the first Android app predicting whether SynScan Photo can control a Skywatcher AZ-Mount(i.e. We use cookies on our website, in accordance with our. The only trailing now was in declination due to the polar alignment being a little off. You also need to set the rotation center of the mount, which can be calibrated after clicking the "clear rotation center" button on-screen. Lastly if one was just shooting with a DSLR and camera lens oh, would you also recommend a ball head attachment to the Skyguider pro? As you can imagine, I had mixed feelings about disrupting this proven configuration to upgrade it with the iPolar device. AZ-GTiStar DiscoverySynScan AZ80)to perform multiple photographic tasks, including panorama, time-lapse or multiple-points scan. I like the Polar Scope Align app as it has other reticles if I ever get something else (unlikely). Polar Finder - Apps on Google Play iPolar is a smart electronic polar scope for everyone. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. Polar Scope Align im App Store A health warning here, this software is Windows only it seems (sorry Mac users) I would love a linux version for my raspberry Pi as well please! live view and trial and error? Join StellarMate to your home WiFi network. This narrowband filter blocks nearly all light from hitting my camera sensor except for very specific wavelengths emitted from emission nebulae like the North America Nebula. I knew that feature was coming to the ASIair and thats an excellent option for those that want to keep their rig travel-friendly! Long story short, here are my questions: 1. Slew mode for quicker framing of celestial images without knocking the camera out of alignment. It can also help an equatorial mount user do polar alignment with the polar scope. One of the reasons I made Polar Scope Align was because the iOptron app was way off back then - it took them a few years of mucking about to even match their hand controller, it was quite bizarre (maybe they had outsourced the app?). One issue is with the color of the Polaris When used with phone wrapped with red Gelatin sheets, to preserve dark adaption, green is completely filtered and the star disappears. High resolution, accurate data. This tutorial is for users in the Northern Hemisphere, who are able to view the North Star, Polaris. Next, youll want to find the latitude and longitude coordinates for your location. Check out those round stars! Can the ioptron ipolar also be used for guiding? Achieving an accurate polar alignment is relatively easy with the SkyGuider Pro. This is an app to show the position of the Pole Star (Polaris in Northern Hemisphere, or Sigma Octantis in Southern Hemisphere) in the polar scope of all the iOptron(R) telescope/camera mounts. While Im intrigued by the iPolar, Im even more interested in that red aluminum-looking alt-azi base under your SkyGuider. Thanks for pointing out the typo! The cross in the middle of the circle is the North Celestial Pole (NCP), and the ring that circles it is the path of Polaris throughout the year. For those that set up and tear down their equipment each night like me, youll quickly become a master in polar alignment through experience. The imaging camera in PoleMaster has a resolution of 30 arc second, so the best polar alignment that can be achieved by PoleMaster is also in the order of 30 arc seconds. Hello, Which cable do you use to connect the canon camera to the ipolar? It sounds like the ipolar requires a computer for setup which does not appeal to me taking another piece of equipment into the field? I use this gear myself but many others use the QHY PoleMaster and rate it highly too so its a matter of preference really. Use the mount's (optional) dovetail L-bracket and counterweight shaft with the counterweight attached. In my latest adventures in the backyard, Ive set up the iOptron SkyGuider Pro once more, but this time Ive added a rather simple device that makes a critical step of the astrophotography acquisition stage process easier, and more precise. There is only a $50 difference. The next time it is clear I will see how well it did. Simply put, you need to make sure that your telescope mount is rotating on the exact same angle the sky turns on. Owners of the SkyGuider Pro looking to push the mounts capabilities further now have a dedicated device for this critical aspect of astrophotography. Even without the use of autoguiding, you may be able to capture long exposures with sharp stars depending on the mount you use. To that end I am using a smallrig very small and very stable tripod. 2. Microsoft Apps This is Canons latest astrophotography camera, and it has some seriously impressive specs (like a full-frame 30.3 MP astro-modified sensor). How do these compare? It can handle up to 14 lbs of gear, which means that small refractor telescopes like the William Optics RedCat 51 are no problem for the SkyGuider Pro. I have recently been reading and watching videos about the many things PS align Pro can do. Fornax Mounts LighTrack II Review | Alternative to iOptron & Sky-Watcher When loaded up, use the polar clock utility to show where Polaris needs to be in your polar scope (you need to put your location into the app). You can see any stars, constellations and deep sky objects you are watching in Stellarium Mobile Sky Map is a fully-featured planetarium for your phone. Polar alignment doesnt just help you take better images, its absolutely imperative for success. Yes exactly. The equipment used in this example a Sky-Watcher HEQ5 German equatorial mount. I see you have what appears to be the William Optics wedge, rather than the OEM wedge from iOptron. This is the only piece of software I use my laptop for and once polar alignment is done, it gets turned off and put away. If I travel up into Oklahoma, like the Oki-Tex Star Party (36 degrees), I need the High Latitude version. Use this app to control the AZ GTi mount or other Sky-Watcher or Orion telescope mounts fitted with a SynScan Wi-Fi adapter. Rather than going through the rotation center calibration process (that involves confirming 3 positions of the mount), I opted to enter the rotation center using the manual input rotation center button. Hi Nick. This is the official companion app for SkymemoT camera mount from Kenko. If you Show Package Contents and double click on the app in the MacOS folder it will connect, but there is constant screen flashing making polar alignment difficult, at best. APT Darkness Clock (APT DC) is a free app without ads, that calculates the suitable time for deep sky astrophotography or observing in selected night and location. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. They just need to hire one developer. How to use the iOptron's iPolar software for super accurate polar alignment Astro La Vista 7.85K subscribers 30K views 2 years ago In this video we go through the simple steps involved in. Features: I have used the iOptron SkyGuider Pro with the RedCat 51 extensively. Is it better that I upgrade my Skyguider pro with Ipolar or ASIair as you use a phone with ASIair. **Telescopes**https://www.firstlightoptics.com/telescopes/ref/astrolavista/ **Mounts**https://www.firstlightoptics.com/astronomy-mounts-by-type/ref/astrolavista/**Cameras/Astrophotography**https://www.firstlightoptics.com/astro-photography/ref/astrolavista/ **Eyepieces**https://www.firstlightoptics.com/eyepieces-barlows/ref/astrolavista/ **Filters**https://www.firstlightoptics.com/filters/ref/astrolavista/ **Accessories**https://www.firstlightoptics.com/accessories/ref/astrolavista/**Binoculars**https://www.firstlightoptics.com/binoculars/ref/astrolasvista/ With MacOS now supported that might give us hope that a wired IOS or iPadOS is on the way soon, which would Would whole heartedly agree with this. And the stunning images! All of my images will be landscapes using a DSLR and wide angle lens. Hello, i really enjoyed watching your videos and im inspired. would you please edit my name in the comments to Mel for the Great Red Spot and Olympus Mons: It may also be used with other brand telescope/camera mounts with similar polar scope reticle. If you have found this review helpful, please let me know in the comments. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. They recommend taking a new frame each time you Polar Align but I havent and it works just fine I tick the auto-load last dark frame option for this so I never have to worry but do always make sure I keep my IPolar protected from dust. It is important to note that the tripod needs to be pointing North before leveling. It displays Polaris' hour angle, local, sidereal and UTC time and GPS coordinates. Is polar scope align availableon Android ? Peter Zelinka | iOptron SkyGuider Pro Review When you were using a heavy lens, did you remove the lens from the mount when fine-tuning the polar alignment, and then put it back? 8402A Hand Controller. Or another? Polar Alignment App Part 2 of 2 - Daytime Alignment Test Accuracy The process involves removing the control board and unplugging a few small cables. I am trying to find a way to install a 90 viewer. No problem. A beginners guide to using IOptrons IPolar mount add-on for Polar alignment. Does the laptop need to be connected throughout shooting or can it be switched off after alignment is finished and how long will it stay aligned if I use a heavier rig with lets say a 400mm lens. Polar scope chart on an iPhone Figure 13. No human interaction required when iOS devices can using location service normally.iOS users can manually enter the location when location service is unavailable. Easy Polar Alignment for Astrophotography - [Step by Step] - AstroBackyard Settings: Think of a polar scope, the Ekos/Sharpcap routines, or the iPolar program as a quick and simple approximation. Its this level of accuracy that users of the SkyGuider Pro have been asking for. With the M1 chip and Mac OS Big Sur v11.6 when double clicking on the app I get the message "Cannot use iOptron iPolar". Also it will work with Parallels Desktop for Mac & Windows 7, 8.2 or 10. 4. Polar scope dial. Polar Scope Align Pro by Dimitrios Kechagias - AppAdvice In an e-mail form Ioptron support I was told yesterday that an app is forthcoming for iPolar. Light Pollution Filters for Astrophotography, The Best Lens for Astrophotography (That You Probably Already Own), Astrophotography in Costa Rica (Carina Nebula). Upgrade your iOptron SkyGuider Pro with iPolar (Review) - AstroBackyard Brand new predictions e.g. instead of my full name pls. Nam Glad to hear this was useful for you its a great option for SkyGuider Pro owners. I just got the Sky guider Pro bundled with i-Polar. Use it to identify stars, planets, nebulae and more. iPolar Electronic Polarscope Software (Windows) Its very easy to do it and also cheap. I am not sure when should I stop rotating. When you retighten the mount axes, you can move alignment dont overtighten, just enough to hold it and I also dont over under the fixings to reduce movement when I tighten just leave them finger tight but moveable. As you may already know, the SkyGuiders job is to accurately track the apparent motion of the night sky for long-exposure astrophotography. Its free and you can use it wherever you can take your android device, travel, outdoors, hiking and more.. Updated Review: Menu button started appearing magically. Today we're proud to provide quality products direct to your doorstep through an experience you'll enjoy. Should be officially released soon as foc upgrade to ASIAir app. I wont go into detail here but after physically installing your IPolar in your mount, you will need to align the camera with the mount this is simple and is detailed in their installation instructions the software does this for you! Polar alignment is critical to the tracking accuracy. A step-by-step walkthrough of my deep-sky astrophotography process. Hi Merrick! No big deal for those that like to tinker with electronics, but definitely an adventure for people like me. It features a large aperture optical telescope and a computerized GoTo mount. Hi Trevor This will ensure that nothing moves or shifts during your observations or astrophotography. A German equatorial mount will have azimuth adjustment knobs for moving the mount left to right. You will be amazed. 2) Tonight at a OnStep is a DIY computerized GoTo controller for Telescope mounts. In this video we go through the simple steps involved in setting up and using iOptron's iPolar digital polar scope. It doesn't have exactly that function. I dont want to buy from amazon as the shipping cost and customs regilations here makes it even more difficult and time consuming. Privacy Policy | Maybe via smartphone and an App and built in WiFi is a must today. - What are the GPS coordinates? ** The Polaris application Use this app to program supported motorized camera mount for astrophotography and time-lapse photography. Your polar alignment app should have a button to adjust the view to inverted. The tracking speed is set at 1X for sky imaging. Community Forum Software by IP.BoardLicensed to: Cloudy Nights, This is not recommended for shared computers, Morpheus Eyepieces on sale at EyepiecesEtc.com, Dual-band 7 nm instead of uv/ir cut for quark, OTA to suit CGX with view to Astrophotography, The NEAF Report from nPAE Precision Astro Engineering. All of the telescope mounts on the list above include a polar alignment scope (depending on the version you order), with the exception of the Celestron CGEM. GOTOSTAR Support. The device was recognized in my device manager, and I connected the camera by clicking the connect button at the top left-hand of the screen. After the polar alignment process is complete, you can unplug the cable and put it away. Powered by Invision Community. It offers a live-view overlay of the night sky to confirm the constellations and stars you are observing. At focal lengths of 200mm+, capturing an image of 3-minutes or more requires a precise polar alignment of the mount. - Where is north? Thank you for the awesome, and very thorough, review of the iOptron SkyGuider Pro with iPolar!