Questions on Backyard EOS

[daveelson@yahoo.com]

Hi

I joined the forum a little while ago to ask a couple of questions.

I'm back and although it's been a little while, I am just as inexperienced as I was (well almost). I had (and still have) a Meade 12 LX200 Classic. The electronics went south, and I've spent some time, and a lot of help replacing with Onstep. That has gone quite well but Dec clutch issues need me to continue to look at this.

Earlier this year I took advantage of credit card points and a sale - and purchased an Explore Scientific Iexos PMC - 8 mount and an AT60ED (because of my incoming balance issues). I took advantage of a good price on a used Canon 40d but could not then say no to a Canon Rebel T7 (new) sometime later. These are what I would use with Backyard at first.

The Meade I planned to use by wheeling it out of my north facing garage, but unfortunately - I had some neurological issues come on and my legs have lost some strength, and my balance is a bit out of whack. So, with help I placed the Meade on a south facing covered deck - permanently, and the AT60D likewise but I can handle taking it in and out of my rec room (just a couple of yards). I overlook Spokane Valley which has quite a bit of light pollution, but reasonable views of the sky.

So - I have downloaded PHD2, Astap and a few alternatives to Backyard, one of which has to me a very confusing interface! So, I'm still looking for the best all in one (or as near as I can get) software for me.

The Canon's, PHD2, Astap (and the Svobny guidescope and guidecamera  bundle that arrives today) are effectively unused. 

How would I in Backyard deal with the fact that with the scopes - I would not be able to polar align? I've been reading about plate solving so know about Blind Plate Solving - can that be done through Backyard?

One of the alternatives has three-point polar alignment - can that be done either through Backyard or a standalone? Could I switch okay from one program to another easily?

Sorry about the long preamble but it gives some reason for doing things the way I am, and any thoughts and suggestions would be appreciated.

Dave

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[astroman133]

 

How would I in Backyard deal with the fact that with the scopes - I would not be able to polar align?

First, the product is BackyardEOS, or BYE, but not just Backyard.

If your mount is a German Equatorial or a Equatorial mounted Alt-Az mount, you need to have an accurate physical polar alignment to prevent declination drift during imaging and viewing. You need the alignment to be close enough for the drift to be small enough to be corrected via autoguiding.  The closer your polar alignment the better.

You might check with your mount manufacturer or user group for help on doing a rough polar alignment when you can't see Polaris.

If you can get the polar alignment close, without BYE, then you could use BYE's Drift Alignment feature to fine-tune the polar alignment. You could also use PHD2's Drift Align tool which may be faster. IMO neither of these are particularly fast and so not suitable for a portable setup. Either one is suitable for occasional polar alignments.

I've been reading about plate solving so know about Blind Plate Solving - can that be done through Backyard?

Yes, it can be done through BYE, but not by BYE. BYE works with ASTAP to do platesolving.

The first post in the How-To's Forum explains how to use BYE/BYN and ASTAP to do platesolving. This will accurately center a provided RA/DEC in the center of the field of view. Of course, if the polar alignment is not good, the star will immediately begin to drift. Here is a link to that post:

One of the alternatives has three-point polar alignment - can that be done either through Backyard or a standalone? Could I switch okay from one program to another easily?

I have a Celestron mount that has a 3 to 6 point alignment to adjust the mount's internal pointing model. This helps you to find stars when slewing, but will not correct for polar misalignment and its accompanying drift. I know plenty of folks that do their multi-star pointing alignment with BYE in Frame & Focus mode. The crosshairs that BYE provides in F&F makes it easy to get the alignment star in the exact center of the FOV. The only caution is to give the camera a chance to rest by keeping LiveView off until you need it. This keeps the camera from overheating.

Not sure what you mean by "switch from one program to another". If you mean...can you use 2 programs to control your Canon camera, then yes, but only one at a time. If BYE is connected to your camera then it has exclusive use. If you are using some other app that also needs to control the camera then you would need to shut one down before starting the other one up.

I hope this helps.

 

[daveelson@yahoo.com]

Thanks Astroman133.

Appreciate the reply.

As regards the name of the software - I had noticed that admin sign off with "The Backyard Team" so thought I'd be okay with that, and not cause any confusion.

[s3igell]

Please understand that control of the Camera for triggering of individual exposures (or following a session Imaging Plan) is separate from either Polar Alignment or AutoGuiding.  The former is performed by BYE, but the latter two are performed by some combination of other software interfaced to the Mount via ASCOM.  (Your new mount DOES support ASCOM - per the Explore Scientific website.)

[daveelson@yahoo.com]

Right - but I'd like to know (because I won't be able to visually polar align) if I can do a blind polar align - (perhaps thru a third party plugin then) - within Backyard EOS?

If not - do you know how I would blind polar align with Ascom/Astap or any other program then use the results in BackyardEOS?.

Would it be the case of using a polar align program - then when aligned, loading up Backyard EOS ...

but once opened what would be my next option?

[astroman133]

Backyard EOS does not support any 3rd party plug-ins for doing a blind polar alignment.

As I suggested previously, you need to read the mount manuals or ask Explore Scientific how to get a rough polar alignment when Polaris is not visible.

If they are no help then you may be able to set the azimuth with a compass and set the altitude with a scale on the mount or with an inclinometer. Then when you have the mount roughly polar aligned you can use BYE or PHD2 to do a drift align to fine-tune the polar alignment. BYE would use LiveView in your Canon camera with a very bright star and PHD2 would use your guide scope and guide camera with 5 second exposures to do the drift alignment. The documentation for both BYE and PHD2 describe how to use their app to do the drift alignment. Please don't ask us volunteers to repeat the procedures here.

[daveelson@yahoo.com]

Thanks for replying.

I think BackyardEOS isn't for me.

I'd perhaps be asking too many questions.

[astroman133]

Too many questions is not a problem. However, this forum is for how to use BYE to control your Canon camera, not for how to align or use a particular mount. That said, there is no cost for asking a question.

Also, whatever product you are using, you should try to find the answer from the documentation resources for that product before asking a question in the product's support forum. That way you can ask a narrow, targeted question and have a better chance of getting a useful answer. For example, you need to use resources, other than this forum, to learn about how to do a drift alignment and why it works. Then look at how BYE's Drift Align capability to help you get a polar alignment. This is not the place to teach you what drift aligning is.

I know that when I was just getting started, I felt overwhelmed. Sometimes I had to take a step back and learn some new fundamental concepts before I could try to apply them and learn how to the more complex tasks that I needed to do.

I hope this helps.