As any seasoned astroimager would agree, achieving good polar alignment is not an easy task. One may spend hours under precious dark sky trying to get that perfect polar alignment, but in the end, one often does not know whether good alignment has in fact been achieved. Even after you have obtained good alignment, a gentle knock on the mount may send the polar alignment off and one may no other choice but to start from scratch again. With an hour here and an hour there trying to get Polar aligned, it would be dawn and time to pack up the gears?
Now there is a great solution to this age-old problem that is polar alignment – PoleMaster. PoleMaster is an innovative product pioneered by QHYCCD to relieve the pain of polar alignment. With PoleMaster and following a few simple, easy-to-follow steps, you can achieve that perfect polar alignment in 2-3 minutes, with an accuracy of up to 30 arc seconds.
Background
How does PoleMaster work? Well, the idea is actually fairly simple. You find out where the pole is, then determine the mechanical axis of rotation of your mount and finally make the two coincide. While the idea is simple, this has not been implemented in a commercial product – until now. PoleMaster makes use of a super-sensitive wide-field imaging camera along the axis of RA to monitor the polar region in real-time (so not only it can detect Polaris but also the dimmer stars surrounding). From the positions of these stars, PoleMaster can determine the position of the true pole and compare that to the mechanical axis of RA rotation. Polar alignment is now a simple matter of moving the two centers of rotation so they overlap. Piece of cake! In comparison with other polar alignment techniques.
PoleMaster has the following advantages:
- Speed and convenience: With PoleMaster you do not need to move the telescope to a specific place just so to unblock the polar scope. You do not need to kneel or contort your body to look through the polar scope. You do not need to fully dark adapt just to see the pole star. You do not need to level your mount. You do not need to worry about entering the date and time in your handset and figure out where to rotate the mount to coincide with the current pole star position.
- Accuracy: With a high precision camera, one can achieve accuracy not achievable with the naked eye. As the imaging camera in PoleMaster has a resolution of 30 arc seconds, the best polar alignment that can be achieved by PoleMaster is also in the order of 30 arc seconds.
- Wide-angle view of the polar region: A wide field of view of 11×8 degree makes it super easy to locate the pole star
- Easy to install: PoleMaster can be easily installed onto any equatorial mount through mount-specific adapters, even on the mount without polar scope.
- Real-time polar alignment checking/adjustment: By using PoleMaster you can monitor your polar alignment in real-time. In the event that polar alignment is lost, it is now a simple matter to bring it back without having to start from scratch.
- Three-star alignment no longer needed: Once you are polar aligned, you will only need to perform one-star alignment – a real time saver.
- Perfect companion to single axis mounts: When used with single (RA-only) axis mount, the good polar alignment will minimize drift in the DEC axis, therefore, maximizing the performance of your mount.
Technical spec:
The standard package includes the following items:
|
PoleMaster is a patented QHYCCD product. |
Available adapters:
- EQ6 EQ6 / NEQ6 / AZEQ6 / Atlas EQ-G / Atlas Pro / LXD55 / LXD75, EQ6Pro, NEQ6, HEQ6, AZ-EQ6GT, EQ6-R & Orion Atlas / Bresser EXOS 2
- Celestron CGEM/CGEM-DX/CGEM II / EQ5 / EQ3
Polemaster attached to Universal adapter with Vixen dovetail - HEQ5 / EQM-35 – Sirius EQ-G
- AZEQ5
- Celestron AVX / CG-5
- Taka EM200/EM11
- Taka EM400/EM500
- Losmandy G11 / GM8
- EQ8
- SX4 / SXD / SXW / SX2 / SXD2 / PM-VIXEN
- Vixen AP-SM
- AstroPhysics 900
- Astrotrac / Skywatcher StarAdventurer
- Vixen GP
- Vixen SXP / AXD
- MESU
- UNC – for 1/4″- 20 UNC (universal) thread
- Universal with VIXEN dovetail – with special price!
We installed the PoleMaster onto the EQ6. Disabled RA and DEC pulse guiding and get this graph in PhD. This period is about 10minutes. The DEC drift is very small. In total 30 minutes, the DEC drifting is about 1.5arcsec. (Red line is DEC, blue line is RA). It means the polar error is 18 arcsec.
 South hemisphere supporting. |
Documentation:
- Drivers & Software
- Lunatico User manual
- QHY User manual
- Quick guide to use the Polemaster (Spanish version, courtesy of Fernando de la Torre Vacas)
- Banco de Pruebas “”BUSCADOR DE LA POLAR ELECTRÓNICO LUNÁTICO POLEMASTER” – Revista Astronomía nº. 215, Mayo 2017
