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Michael...I'm interested in how you adjusted the focus. I just got my Pole Master and don't see any access for the focus adjustment. Where's it at? The first time I hooked mine up the stars were big and burry. After restarting, they popped into focus nicely. I don't see where it's necessary to refocus the camera but if there's a way I wantta know!

On Sun, Dec 20, 2020 at 6:00 AM Michael Herman <mherman346@...> wrote:

Hi Tom, et al,

I tried the Polemaster for the first time few weeks ago.

I found the QHY software difficult to use.? It has poor?explanations of its commands, and was frustrating at first.? As Brian said, there are settings in the QHY software.? I know that you just emailed that you found and used the Gain and other settings. with no benefit.? ? The software is?not friendly, though it?can work.? It is poorly explained by the online YouTube offerings I viewed.

So here are some notes about my experiences.??

1. The program frequently crashed or froze up with no mouse response.. For some reason I found that I had to move the mouse to different places on the program or completely off the program window to get response. ? I had to kill the program in Windows using control panel when it would freeze?up.? There was no benefit to restarting the computer.? The software seems as though it is not running the camera capture in a separate "thread"...so when the program is busy with a poor USB connection, it just hangs up waiting for its image to download.? ??That is poor user interface programming in the modern age of multi-threading.?

2. There is a Gain setting that the YouTube said to use.? I pushed up the?gain and this helped.? You already tried that and had no benefits.?

3. In the YouTube video I viewed, and in some online?email notes, people said "the focus is set at the factory so don't adjust it"? ?But?on my unit, the focus was not set properly.? The stars were blurred and therefore of low intensity.? I had to unlock the lens focus with the small allen wrench that comes with the QHY?camera.? Then I got the PoleMaster to focus by adjusting the focus on the stars until they were sharp.? When they were sharp, their intensity increased in the PC display, and then the other stars showed up.? I think this is what is causing the problem with your unit.?

4. There is a rotator slider for the pole star star pattern.? The horizontal slider is tiny, and you must move it with the mouse...very clumsy.? You can maybe more it with the left and right keyboard keys, but the mouse has to be over the slider to get those keyboard?keys to activate the rotation slider.? The horizontal slider has a left stop and a right stop of course.? So the star pattern can go around only so far in each direction.? This is somewhat aggravating.? The rotation gadget slider only has coarse rotation steps also.????

5. ?The star pattern magnification on the software display was affected when I adjusted the lens focus to get the stars sharpest in the video image,.? The change in magnification of the star circle target dots generated by the software on the screen is not adjustable in the present software.? So even when you rotate the star target dots rotated to match your sky pattern,? the star camera image dots don't necessarily go into the center of the software image target circles.? You might find that the real star camera points only go into the inner corner of the provided circle pattern.? This makes the hand fitting of the real star pattern to the software adjustable star target circles somewhat tricky.??

6. There is no "back" button on the software.? If you are at a software step, and want to go back ...I had to click the top right X and kill the program, giving a system crash error.? Then I had to start the program over several times.??

7. The last step is the "Monitor" step.? I found this also tricky, but necessary.? In that step the software is watching all the target stars.? You just try to get the polaris star, or the NCP target, in its target circle.??I turned on the Windows Magnifier applet and used that to really magnify the star and Polaris target, or the NCP target and the virtual NCP star created by the software (as it monitors all the stars around Polaris in the sky.? Since I'm Red-Green colorblind, the software generating the NCP target in Red made it hard for me to see.? Magnifying it helped a lot.??

Bottom line: the PoleMaster is a clever product.? But it's?software is rudimentary and weak... hard to use.? In the future ... everything is perfect, but we don't live there yet!.? ?I'd give it a C-?for the software.? However once you figure it out by running it a few times,?you can figure it out by its behavior.? ?I took the PoleMaster from a G11T to a separate? G11 and got polar aligned quickly on the 2 nd mount.? ?

Then I ran a test of Drift Alignment using PHD2's drift tool.? That showed very good polar alignment, that could be further perfected during a Drift Align.? That report is attached.? (I had notes from using PoleMaster but that report is on another laptop... 400 miles away. )? ?Polemaster got my mounts closer to correct polar alignment than I could get with the polar scope.? Still...I needed the Polar Scope to get close enough to run PoleMaster to get the field of stars it?was expecting.??

So I guess the best method for getting long FL imaging system ready for deep sky exposures, for a mount that has been moved, would be:

? Use the Polar Scope

? Then use PoleMaster

? (If really critical, then Drift Align with say PHD2)

? Then start your Deep Sky or other imaging.??

Chip mentioned that SharpCap has better software for this PoleMaster alignment.? I have not yet tried that. Chip always explains his very practical experience in these matters...so I have more to try.??

Best of luck, and stay well all,

Michael

(Off to bed at last...)

On Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 9:12 PM Brian Valente <bvalente@...> wrote:

if you are using polemaster, you can adjust the exposure and gain settings to be more sensitive. Not sure when?you are doing this, but I find earlier in the evening can be a challenge. it needs to be a little darker

If i was roughly pointed at polaris, very rarely have i only seen a few stars that fit the polemaster pattern, and usually that was when it was too light

On Sat, Dec 19, 2020 at 9:07 PM Tom & Barbara Coverdale <tcoverda@...> wrote:

Robert, very timely post. I had a clear sky, level tripod and a good North alignment with my laser BUT I could never find more than 2 stars fitting the alignment pattern. I spent 2.5 hours trying every setting, releveling my tripod, and finally went home, frustrated and cold!! Do you or anyone have any suggestions on what I could be doing wrong? I am new to using my GM-8 but it is ridiculous to not be able to achieve polar alignment!!! Thanks for any suggestions!

--- robert.ian.taylor@... wrote:

From: robert.ian.taylor@...
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Losmandy_users_io] Pole master on G11 with Digital Drives
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 2020 15:33:44 -0800

[Edited Message Follows]

Had a clear night tonight so tried the polemaster out. Very impressed with how quick this is to get good polar alignment.

--

Brian?

Brian Valente

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