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Find Misalignment

How to find polar alignment errors.

Step 1: Take observations

You can use pocs run alignment to take a series of pictures that samples the sky. This procedure will produce a series of pictures for use in the analysis steps below. There are a number of configurable options but the default should be fine for a first step:
$ pocs run alignment --help
Usage: pocs run alignment [OPTIONS]
Runs POCS in alignment mode.
Not specifying coordinates is the same as the following: -c 40,90 -c 55,60 -c 55,120 -c 70,210 -c 70,330
╭─ Options ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
--coords -c TEXT Alt/Az coordinates to use, e.g. 40,55 [default: None] |
--exptime -e FLOAT Exposure time in seconds. [default: 30.0]
│ --num-exposures -n INTEGER Number of exposures. [default: 5]
│ --field-name -f TEXT Name of field. [default: PolarAlignment]
--help Show this message and exit. │
╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

Step 2: Download drift data from the observations

  • Beginner's tutorial on how to create, open and run a Jupyter notebook: https://www.dataquest.io/blog/jupyter-notebook-tutorial/
  • Download the Jupyter notebook file PANOPTES - 03 Drift Observation Polar Alignment.ipynb in this link to your local laptop/computer.
  • Follow the steps in the Jupyter Notebook, run one cell at a time consecutively until you reach the end of the notebook.

Step 3: Fix misalignment in your mount

  • Use the alt (deg) and az (deg) values obtained from the notebook to do the polar alignment as described in Fix Misalignment.