Stellarium Mount Control (2020) - Day and Night use!

Sometimes Stellarium can be used to locate and slew to objects and easier when typical Plate Solving is not an option. This is the case for daytime objects such as the sun or using a camera lens for night time objects. For imaging in the daytime SharpCap was used and for the camera lens imaging Backyard EOS was used for focusing since it can control the lens and APT was used for capturing.

Setting EQMOD to use with PHD2, APT, and Stellarium:

I am now part of the High Point Scientific Affiliate program which means if you purchase anything from High Point Scientific through any of the links listed below, my channel gets a monetary token of appreciation. High Point has price matching and lifetime support on products they sell.

Kurt’s Highpoint Link:

Kurt’s links
————

[paulwhitton]

Your tutorials are very good and well demonstrated. Thank you I have learned so much from your videos. One question - in stellarium there is a setting for ‘use EQMod coordinates’ or use ‘stellarium coordinates’ - which do you choose, and what effect does it have with the selection made.
Ps I use stellarium (latest version) 20 and you do not need stellarium scope. As you say it works well.

[gomanastro]

OMG, I should have read the manual--- CONTROL 3 ! i have been battling this for a few months, adjusting the scope on every object, thanks so much!

[davidjennings]

Hello, I just wanted to thank you for this invaluable information that you have provided in the video. Never tried using N.I.N.A. before so last night and the night before have been somewhat frustrating in getting it to properly plate solve for the Polar Alignment. I did better manually polar alignment but then did not have any real star alignment, just the rough Polar. Goto was off a little but showing what you have done here will help me sync up what my scope is looking at verses what Stellarium thinks it's pointing to. I did just purchase the Backyard EOS to assist as well, loved how you can view and adjust the scope within the EOS software. Thanks again..

[dankahraman]

Excellent Kurt I didn't know about the Cntrl+3 keys!

[ranjitgovindaraj]

Another great tutorial Kurt. Didn’t think of using BYEOS for Frame and Focus. Clear skies. 🤞🏼 It’s been clouded out for almost two months now. Feels like I’ve forgotten everything 😆

[katiepaine]

ctrl 3...that is the secret i've been looking for to tell stellarium that my scope is in a different position, to align them, yay...thanks :)

[dankahraman]

Kurt I have used APT on my modded Canon T3 with a Sigma 50mm f/1.4 lens. In fact I had it doing plate solving intermittently (with Solve, ASTAP option). I don't understand when it didn't work all the time. Nonetheless I got some beautiful shots of the MW with ISO 800, f/2, 20 second exposures with 100 subs. I do have a guide-scope/guide camera mounted on top of the main DSLR at the shoe box. Image pre-processing in SiriL and processing in Astrotools. Yes I did flats, bias and dark frames as well.

[whatmattersmost]

Great vid! Please do more vids comparing APT & Backyard EOS, I like to know why you like 1 for one thing and the other for the other thing?

[newbee]

Hi Kurt, an other great video, I think that you may have shed some light on a issue I am having with Stellarium, mainly synchronizing the mount after an object is selected. I can get the mount to slew okay ctrl 1, but then I cant get the mount to sync' on the target, after watching your video I think I can see where I was going wrong. I'll have to wait for a break in the clouds to try my theory out. Cheers, Robert, Down Under.

[brucemullis]

Just what I was looking for, thanks. Was trying to find out how to fine tune the go to on Stellarium. I have a similar setup. Is balance an issue or is it so minute a difference it doesn't really matter for the light weight?

[salomon]

Which version of Stellarium are you using? I have version 0.20.0 and was not sure whether you need Stellarium scope or not. I have had a hard time "syncing" stellarium with the scope and I am wondering if it's because I do t have stellarium scope. Thanks for the great video. Very helpful.

[woldsweather]

Whoa how did you get Stellarium scope? I have Stellarium but not seen this window at start of video.

[richardnovak]

Very helpful video I'm new to this and would appreciate help. I have an iOptron CEM26 mount. I am using SharpCap and just started with Stellarium. Thanks to your video, I can now slew to an object but there is no "target circle" and Scope Label as the mount slews. Obviously I cannot then center the object in Stellarium. I am practicing in the house because it is raining. Would you help out?

[dankahraman]

Backyard EOS won't work on my 64 bit OS! Very good tutorial nonetheless.

[dankahraman]

I use the same cheating techniques with the Moon!