From: Mark Gaffney <markgaffney@me.com>

Date: April 9, 2010 1:40:11 PM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: drift aligning...

Hi Milton,

Have you thought of providing more detailed drift alignment directions in Astro IIDC? I realise you have "Analyse RA/DEC Tracking" which provides the reticle needed & Astro IIDC already has the ability to bin images so stars become more obvious. The proceedure of drift aligning is not clear however from the instructions I`ve seen in the Manual. Someone like you will know this by rote but for me I`d find myself referring back & forth to somewhere else for the actual proceedure! I was looking at this little app which I think is only for Windows for instance..

http://www.andysshotglass.com/StarTarg.html

I`m not aware of a drift alignment process for Macs being available apart from perhaps Astroplanner..? I have WCS for instance & could purchase this app above but don`t have a Windows lap-top that can be used in the field so I`d have to take my monitor, keyboard & mouse outside on long cables to use them!

Celestron`s "All Star" is my usual method but if I want to refine this to any degree I`m "all over the shop" with the problems described. Astroplanner 1.6 had both Iterative PA & a Drift alignment helper but last time I tried DA with version 2 beta of AP there were teething problems. My version 1 AP is corrupt & I`m finding it hard to return to the original anyway...

Just a suggestion..!

Mark.