What is the minimum laser power required to align an astro tracker?
Hello everyone,
There's a tutorial on YouTube on how to align a tracker using a laser. You can also see the beam reaching up into the sky.
The search results on the Internet usually show lasers with a power of 1mW, less often 5mW.
So it should work with a 1mW laser? But when I point my green laser pointer, which has roughly that power, at the clear sky, I can't see anything.
Where is my mistake in thinking?
(1 rating, 1 votes, rated)You need to be a registered member to rate this.
Loading...
You don't need a laser. if you get quick and dirty (eg for visual observation) then just look through the polarscope and make sure that the polar star is inside the round.
if astrophotography must be high-precision, you either align very accurately with the Polarscope and the Cook Abmethod (or you ask a smartphone app on which position of the round polaris should stand) or you align directly with an electronic polarscope, or you use the polar alignment function of your recording software.
I don't have a Polarscope, I just have a small tube for my LX2. I also wanted to avoid creeping around on the ground to align trackers. Once I've done, there's no fun in the dark and cold.
Ideal would probably be something like an angle detector, but I didn't want to invest a lot of money and the 1 mW lasers are available from 14 EUR.