NINA NEW Polar Alignment - HOWTO use

Let's have a look at NINA's three point polar alignment routine! How to use it, and comparing it with Sharpcap!

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[realmcerono]

Latest version has a "start from current position" button. So you can manually point your mount whereever you want and start.

[ronniesvensson]

I’m already looking forward to your drift alignment test. Such a cliff hanger! 😃

[FrankSD]

Thanks! Excellent tutorial. I’ve also watched your later one in which you use PhD2 to verify the polar alignment, and that will good confirmation.

[amrikarim]

Someone paid attention in math class and made a NINA plugin for everyone. Thanks!

[astrojw]

I tried this the other night. It works extremely well. In fact last night after I was done imaging, I took the polemaster to see how close it was. I found it was only slightly off. This can be used without using a polemaster or other tools, as I do feel confident this add on is that good. I can see polaris, but its neat you can use any point of the sky to do this. I can see getting used to it, it would actually be faster than the polemaster.

[andersgengard]

Hi Cuiv. Yet another good video, thank you... After guiding with PHD2 for a while, you can just check the the Polar Alignment Error under the Drift-tab in PHD Log Viewer. No need to run the Guiding Assistant or to Drift Align to find out. I use to check the guiding performance in the Log Viewer now and then during my photo sessions without need to paus the exposures.

[marcycohen]

I'm a newbie - just got my setup and feeding from the firehose - I have a wonderful view of the sky from the South to the West but no Polaris so this is a total lifesaver - thank you so much for the video Cuiv!!! Also the one on using the AZ GTI mount in EQ mode - that is part of my setup so also invaluable

[enriqueboeneker]

I really like your inquisitive approach, and try to verify the result obtained with one piece of software with another. Thanks for sharing and keep that critical point of view!

[aspiran]

Thank you for this helpful video! I appreciate it a lot. I am an ex professional astronomer and an amateur astronomer who is returning to astrophotography after a couple of decades. I need to familiarise myself with things like NINA, etc. Whatever topic I search for, I encounter one of your videos, which means you are doing well. I like your older videos like this one where you are honest like a scientist and detailed as you should. The newer videos seem a bit commercial where you try to sell or advertise products assigned to you perhaps, with a smile on your face (which is always good to see) :D Those videos are, in part, informative too, so there is a scientific merit in them. But the watcher needs to be experienced enough to judge for themselves and not to fall into a commercial advert trap. Nonetheless, thank you so much for your effort.

Cheers, from a scientist to another scientist :)

[UruPTer]

Hi, cuiv, Tested with SharpCap and the plugin, both agree if you do not set the "Correct for Atmospheric Refraction" in SharpCap. Only about 5" to 6" diff. Then they both use the "apparent" celestial pole with no compensation for Atmospheric Refraction. Otherwise there is indeed a big discrepancy. Good to see that you are back in business.

[richardshagam]

I just ran the NINA 3 point alignment for the first time. Wow!!! I compared it to PHD2 drift alignment. Spot on!!! (also the first time I ran NINA, as well--everything works!)

[billblanshan]

Cuiv, I have already done comparisons with iPolar and Sharp cap and also compared against PhD drift analysis. Nina is far more accurate and I have been staying under an arc minute typically for the whole night. One suggestion, if you're wanting to polar align in the direction of Polaris, set your altitude values to the same as your GPS altitude value i.e. 29, 38, 0. And for AZ, set 0, 1, 0. Keep east direction off and stay at 10 degree movements.

[nickswimsfast]

Cuiv, I did some testing with this and found it to be much more repeatable and accurate results when I expanded the measure point distance to up to 45°. This is much closer to the RA axis sweep range that we use in sharpcap. I found my results to be much more repeatable when i did this. In order to set this up I changed my Alt, Az start point to be roughly @ 45 degrees to sweep evenly across the home position. I'd recommend you try that. I suspect you'll get more consistent results between sharpcap and nina if you do that. Thanks for sharing the knowledge!

[Lasidar]

Would love to see some more experimentation around which is more accurate (SharpCap vs. Nina vs. Polemaster), and maybe validate using PHD2 drift alignment as others have said? It would be awesome to see the results.

[enriqueboeneker]

¡Hola, Cuiv! I used this polar alignment last week. Have to admit that it is quite cool and easy to use. Unfortunately for me did not have the results I expected, since I had some issues with my guiding, even the stars I got were not so round. I have a simple Celestron AVX mount, and today I polar aligned it as I used to do before: with the any star polar align that this scope has built in. Now my guiding is decent again and my stars fairly round. So, just wanted to let you know about my personal experience with NINA’s polar alignment compared to the one built in my mount. Again, Cuiv, thanks for sharing! Cheers!

[AngryDpg]

I would also be interested in seeing how PoleMaster compares with PHD-2 Drift Alignment, SharpCap, & Nina.

[rifleman]

Speaking from the perspective of an astrophotographer in Singapore at only 1 deg N, I can positively confirm that there does appear to be some error between the polar alignment value reported in NINA polar alignment vs the PHD2 drift alignment. However, I have trusted NINA and went on to have fantastic results when polar aligning with it. The best part for me is it saves me tons of time on polar alignment, so more time could be spent enjoying taking those sweet images! Keep up the good work Cuiv! Merci beaucoup pour tes videos!

[waheex]

Great video. This surely must be the next thing to be automated. For those with large mobile setups, PA is such a massive pain. Messing around with knobs in freezing weather sucks

[ColinDies]

Isn't it funny how when the lights are turned off, we naturally speak more quietly?

Love the video, and am going to attempt this tonight. :)

[thedonahoes]

Loving all the new content, and happy you are doing better.