Hi, How do I get the camera to align on different visits to the same object please after breakdown and rebuild? I do not have a rotator per-se.
APT has a feature where you can specify a few stars in the field and you can place a small red ring on those stars and it saves this as an image you can superimpose back onto a short exposure so that on another night’s visit to the same object you can rotate the camera to match the stars with the rings to get the framing to match.
As far as Im aware with SGP - The only way to do this would be to plate solve the previous image and take note of the rotation… then when you come to the next night sync and solve and note the rotation… then keep rotating the camera and sync and solve until you get to the same rotational figure…
There is the manual rotator prompt in the F&M wizard and you then have to iteratively plate solve as Sara suggests.
Perhaps easier, go ‘old school’ and use a pencil to mark the positions on either side of your focuser or camera rotator or whatever you use to rotate your camera. You can use tippex, cut up self adhesive address labels, ooh all sorts to give a quick method that will get you sufficient accuracy (you will need to crop edges I’m sure).
I have contented myself with this straightforward non-tech method for years .
100% with Barry. Two tiny pencil marks is all it takes. I do similar on the mount - I can declutch RA and/or DEC from the park positions for various reasons - then put the mount back to park position with enough accuracy for Plate Solve 2 on the following session.
Kinch
On the target properties panel, populate the RA, Dec, and “Rotate camera to” (or let FMW doe it for you). Then enable the “Slew to”, “Center on”, and “Rotate camera to” options. Set the “Rotator” to “Manual Rotator” and you are all set.
I’ve been doing this for years and get back to within a pixel and 0.1 degrees in less than a minute. Even if I tear down everything, haul it to a star party in another state and put it back together, I still get right back to the same position.
The “Manual Rotator” will give the the angle and direction that you need to rotate the camera. I use an electronic angle gauge (from a hardware store, meant to set your table saw blade at a specific angle) to set the camera angle. You could also use an app on your phone. It usually takes me about 3 iteragions to get do 0.1 degrees.
If you don’t want to enable automatic centering and rotation in the target properties, you can always right-click the target and select from the pop-up menu to do the centering/rotation immediately.
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