You can see the optical resolution as the size of the smallest detail your equipment can see: the higher the optical resolution, the smallest the details you can see. This is dependent on both the focal length of the telescope or of the lens you use and the pixel size of your camera sensor. Having said that, the main factor that determines how accurate the PA must be is the optical resolution of your setup. The fact in some cases, you can get away with a less precise PA should not be a reason for you to get sloppy on this. The rule of thumb is that PA must be as accurate as you can get it. How Accurate Does Polar Alignment Need To Be? Why Is Polar Alignment important?ДЄs mentioned before, PA is crucial in deep-sky astrophotography.ДЄ good PA allows you to do the required long exposures without having trailing stars and will enable you to photograph the same region of the sky for hours, without significant drifting (or rotation) of the target.Д®xample of (very bad) trailing stars from a poor PA.

This is the most basic and crucial step you must master before moving further into astrophotography. Polar alignment (PA) is the process of aligning an equatorial mount to the celestial pole, i.e., with the Earth axis of rotation. High-end equatorial mounts do also track in declination, while star trackers track only in right ascension (more later on the meaning of declination and right ascension). If the axis of rotation of the mount is aligned with that of the Earth, the mount is able to track the stars across their journey through the night sky while also nulling the field rotation. Working scheme of an equatorial mount and how it tracks the stars. Supposing you have it leveled to the ground, Alt/az mounts track the stars with movements in altitude (up and down) and in Azimuth (left and right). There are two kinds of tracking mounts: alt/az and equatorial mounts. Tracking is the ability of a mount to move the payload (the telescope and the camera) in sync with the stars, so that your target does not move in the field of view of your instrument. Since Earth rotates once every 24 hours, stars look like they move across the sky at a speed of about 15Вє / hours (i.e., 360Вє/24hrs). This rotation causes the apparent motion of the celestial bodies (the stars, the planets, the Moon, the Sun, and all the deep sky objects) in the night sky.

12) Conclusion Polar Aligning And Tracking: Are Those The Same Thing?Д«ut while Polar Alignment and Tracking are not the same thing, they do work together to produce the best possible images when photographing the night sky.ДЇirst, let me remind you that, in the grand scheme of things, everything moves, and nothing stands still.ДЄt this very moment, we on Earth are revolving around the Sun, which is revolving around the galactic center of our Milky Way Galaxy, which is moving with respect to other galaxies, and so on and so forth.Д«ut Earth also rotates on itself once a day.

Accuracy of backyardeos polar alignment