Accurate manual Polar Alignment for Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer and iOptron Skyguider Pro for both Northern and Southern Hemisphere. With this step by step guide you will achieve accurate polar alignment within 2' ArcMin.

1. STEP BY STEP GUIDE
POLAR
ALIGNMENT
HENDRIK ANNE ZWART
2' ARCMIN

2. How to
fi
nd Polaris in the Northern
Hemisphere and Polaris Australis in the
Southern Hemisphere
How to accurately Polar Align your Star
Tracker
How to make sure that you Polar Scope
is centred
How to setup and balance your Astro
Photography Rig
ABOUT THIS GUIDE
What will you learn?
How to set your Home Position

3. OUR NIGHT SKY
Our night sky is amazing and holds many secrets. Not only for
Astronomers but also for any other people who have an interest in
nature. Many centuries ago our night sky was dark as we only had
candles, torches and oil lamps to light up our surroundings and houses.
Over the course to time we have worked hard to invent arti
fi
cial lights
which became available by the late 1800’s. From this time on, the lights
have made revolutionary jumps up till todays LED society. With the
development of more high sophisticated light sources, we started to
install more and more lamps in our villages, towns and cities. As a result
our night skies became brighter and brighter.
Many of us who live in cities, are living under Bortle Class 8 or 9 skies.
This means that they cannot see much stars anymore. Not to think
about seeing our own galaxy - The Milky Way.
• Dark Skies
• Bortle Class
• Light Pollution
• Astronomy / Photography
WHAT ABOUT
A S T R O N O M Y
Back in the sixties when I was a child, in our village in the Northern
parts of the Netherlands, we had dark skies (Bortle class 1). Today,
based on a scale from 0 to 9….we are having a Bortle class 4 night sky.
This means that our night sky became about 40% brighter.

4. 80% of the world population is living under light polluted
skies. As you can see on the left side image the night sky in
the city is gone.
Why am I telling you this? This is ALARMING.
The negative effect of light pollution:
• It harms animals
• It harms Human Beings as it steals your precious sleep
• It ruins nature
Visit: www.darksky.org for more detailed information and
perhaps you want to become an advocate to support our
mission.
So you may ask yourself, what does this have to do with Polar
Alignment? Well….much! Light pollution destroys our view of
the night sky. It will be harder to
fi
nd that celestial poles and
deep sky objects. Light pollution does make astronomy
unnecessarily more dif
fi
cult and expensive.
The darker your night sky, the easier it is to
fi
nd your desired
targets and celestial poles.
Credit: International Dark Sky Association
Credit: P. Cinzano, F. Falchi (University of Padova), C. D. Elvidge (NOAA National Geophysical Data Center, Boulder).
Copyright Royal Astronomical Society. Reproduced from the Monthly Notices of the RAS by permission of Blackwell
Science.
HELP TO PRESERVE OUR NIGHT SKY

5. MILKY WAY AND DEEP SKY
Astro Photography has made majors jumps over the last couple of
years. We have gone from stationary equipment towards more mobile
equipment to capture stunning images of the Night Sky. This has a lot
to do with the the introduction of digital cameras in photography. Prior
to digital photography, capturing the night sky was done in large
observatories. Today, we have our own observatory at home. In order to
start with star tracking and capturing the Night Sky we need a Star
Tracker which will allow us to make long exposures. Without a Star
Tracker we are limited to shorter exposure times, as earth turns. For
wide
fi
eld Milky Way images (i.e. 14mm - 24mm Full Frame) we do not
need a star tracker as long as we stay within the boundaries of the 500
rule divided by focal length. The outcome gives us the maximum
exposure time before the stars start trailing. Dependent on which
latitude you are, this time may vary. The closer you are to the celestial
pole the shorter your exposure time will be. With some good
techniques we can make stunning images.
However, as soon as the focal lengths increase, the exposure times will
decrease. At some point the exposure times are becoming too short to
capture enough light of the night sky.
• Star Tracking
• GoTo Mounts
• Manual Mounts
• Mobility
• Alignment
STARGAZING
A S T R O N O M Y

6. As we can see in the table below, the
exposure times will radically get shorter
by increasing focal lengths.
50mm is probably the maximum focal
length which we can shoot from a tripod
(without using a star tracker) without
sacri
fi
cing too much image quality. Yes,
we also can shoot 1 sec exposures from
a tripod at 500mm but we need to
increase the ISO / Gain signi
fi
cantly to
capture enough light. This is however
not recommendable.
It is better that we start using a Star
Tracker from focal lengths between
50mm - 135mm onwards.
A Star Tracker tracks the sky: as earth
turns, the Star Tracker will take care that
the celestial object which we are
tracking will stay (relatively) in the same
position in the frame during the duration
of our imaging session.
Star trackers - we also call them mounts -
vary from Manual Mounts to advanced
GoTo Mounts.
GoTo Mounts have the advantage over
Manual Mounts that all Deep Sky
Objects are in a Star Database and the
tracker automatically slews to the
desired target. No manual intervention is
needed, only then keying in the Deep
Sky Object name, number or co-
ordinates. The opposite is true for the
Manual Star Trackers.
Credit: Hendrik Anne Zwart
FOCAL LENGTH EXPOSURE TIME in Seconds
14 mm 35
24 mm 20
50 mm 10
135 mm 3,6
250 mm 2
500 mm 1

7. With the Manual Star Trackers you need to
fi
nd the Deep Sky
Objects on your own.
Manual Star Trackers - like the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer or the
iOptron Skyguider Pro are more portable than the majority of the
GoTo Mounts - i.e. SkyWatcher EQ3, HEQ5 Pro or the iOptron CEM
28 and many others.
The Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer or iOptron SkyGuider Pro you
can carry easily in a photo-backpack and take them with you on
your Astro Photography tour or on a hike to a dark site location
and it will give you more
fl
exibility on the location from where you
want to image the night sky. Portability also has some small
drawbacks as it limits the weight you can carry on your star tracker.
Refractors like the William Optics RedCat51 or the SharpStar
61EDPH are excellent examples which can be mounted on the Star
Adventurer or SkyGuider Pro. The more heavier GoTo Mounts are
the more stationary they are. Although you can still take them with
you, their weight will be limiting you on how far you can leave your
car or home. Dark site locations on the top of a mountain are
probably not in reach when your GoTo mount already weights
over 50kg.
Portability vs Stationary: all mounts have one thing in common and
that is that the Polar Alignment process will remain a manual task.
Most GoTo Mounts owners most likely will have a laptop or a ZWO
ASIAIR to control the mounts, so you can use the advanced PA
(Polar Alignment) functionality within these tools. However, in this
Guide we will concentrate on the manual Polar Alignment process.
Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer
iOptron SkyGuider Pro
M A N U A L P O L A R A L I G N M E N T

8. POLAR
ALIGNMENT
INTRODUCTION

9. Polar Alignment is perhaps the most important thing in Astro
Photography and it is critical to get this right. Phrases like:
„Polaris / Polaris Australis (in Octans) needs only to be close or
rough alignment“ will not suf
fi
ce. Well? Yes and No. Yes, for
wide
fi
eld images like the Milky Way, the Polar Alignment can
be „in the neighbourhood“, but the longer focal lengths - No.
The longer your focal lengths will become the more precise
and accurate your polar alignment needs to be. Accurate polar
alignment of 2 ArcMin or better will give you great results.
When using a completely automated setup i.e. Nina,
SharpCap, ASIAIR etc. these tools will help you signi
fi
cantly to
achieve perfect polar alignment.
When using a manual Star Trackers i.e. Sky-Watcher Star
Adventurer, iOptron Sky Guider Pro you will have to perform
Manual Polar Alignment. Polar Alignment can be a tedious
process and will make or break your Imaging Session. Learning
to perform Manual Polar Alignment is critical and will allow you
to be
fl
exible and able to bring your Star Tracker with you on
tours into mountains or on to hard accessible dark skies areas.
Over the years I have created a method to achieve accurate
Polar Alignment with a Mobile Star Tracker. When working
precisely with this Method you should be able to achieve Polar
Alignment within 2 ArcMin or better.
As a vivid Astro Photographer I use multiple Mounts / Trackers,
both GoTo and Manual, to support my business. Although I
don’t need to, I always like to Polar Align my GoTo Mount
manually, to so see and test how accurate my Polar Alignment
method is. Recently I set up my GoTo Mount, which is driven by
the ZWO ASIAIR and performed the Polar Alignment manually.
After getting Polar Alignment, I switched on the ASIAIR and
started the Polar Alignment process. After Plate Solving, the
ASIAIR told me that my Manually Polar Alignment was
0,17’ArcMin - 17“ArcSec. What a fantastic result.
Manually Polar Alignment will not only help you to understand
how your Star Tracker works, but also will allow you to learn
more about orientating the night sky.
Many Astro Photographers are using a Mobile Star Tracker like
the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer, iOptron Sky Guider Pro, etc.,
which are the most common Mobile Star Trackers for Milky Way
Wide Field and Deep Sky Wide Field, to take images of the
Night Sky. There are also small GoTo Mounts which also need
Manually Polar Alignment.
Credit: Hendrik Anne Zwart - NGC1499

10. FOCAL LENGTH, Scope weight
The method I will be explaining in this book can be applied to
GoTo Mounts as well, when you want to test your manual polar
alignment skills.
Focal lengths for Deep Sky Wide
fi
eld will range from 135mm
to ca. 600mm. These long focal lengths are upper limit in terms
of weight for Mobile Star Trackers. The longer the focal length
the more accurate Polar Alignment you need to achieve solid
results. Telescopes like the William Optics RedCat51 (250mm),
ZenithStar 61II (360mm), ZenithStar73II (420mm), SharpStar61
EDPH (360mm) and many others are all Wide Field Telescopes.
Paired with cameras with different sensor sizes these focal
lengths need to be multiplied by the camera sensor crop
factor: 1 (Full Frame), 1.5 (APS-C), 2 (MFT) and 2.7 (1“ sensors)
to get the focal length you will be imaging with.
This means that when adding a 500mm telescope to your Star
Tracker and your camera has an APS-C sensor, your actual focal
length will be 750mm. Polar Alignment for this focal length
really needs to be within 2’ ArcMin to get round stars and solid
tracking.
William Optics ZenithStar 81 - 560mm vs M.Zuiko 12-100mm (FF 24 - 200mm)

11. Preparations
Home Position
How to make sure that you Polar Scope
is centred
Polar Alignment Method +
Requirements
INITIAL STEPS
What will you learn?
Mounting Lens & Camera
Balancing your Rig

12. NORTHERN HEMISPHERE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE
SKY-WATCHER STAR ADVENTURER
IOPTRON SKYGUIDER PRO
SKY-WATCHER STAR ADVENTURER
IOPTRON SKYGUIDER PRO
Backgrounds with this colour are related to the Polar Alignment in
the Southern Hemisphere.
L
E
G
E
N
D
To make it easy to find your way in the Polar Alignment sections, we have separated the Northern Hemisphere from Southern
Hemisphere sections by different background colours. Furthermore, you will find that we have dedicated Green colours for
the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer and dedicated Red colours for the iOption Skyguider Pro.
When your are using a Star Tracker which has the same Reticle as the one in the Skywatcher Star Adventurer or iOptron
Skyguider Pro, you can use the appropriate sections for polar alignment.
Backgrounds with this colour are related to the Polar Alignment in
the Northern Hemisphere.

13. LEGEND SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE
COMMENTS FROM THE TEXT TO POINT OUT
POINTERS IN THE IMAGE SECTION TO ACCENTUATE
MOVEMENT ACTIONS
IN ORDER TO MAKE THINGS CONSISTENT, WE HAVE OPTED FOR A COLOURED APPROACH FOR THE ACTUAL
POLAR ALIGNMENT PROCESS: COMMENTS FROM THE TEXT TO THE IMAGES, POINTERS TO ACCENTUATE AND
MOVEMENT ACTIONS, TO MAKE SURE THAT YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT IS WHAT.
HOWEVER, IN THE GENERAL SECTIONS YOU MAY SEE ONLY ORANGE / REDDISH COLOURED ARROWS AS THIS
COLOUR IS BEST SEEN ON WHITE BACKGROUND.
NORTHERN HEMISPHERE
MARKERS
POSITION MARKERS

14. POLAR ALIGNMENT
NORTHERN
HEMISPHERE
2’ ARCMIN

15. POLARIS
In the Northern Hemisphere, astronomers have a big
advantage over astronomers in the southern hemisphere. In
the Northern Hemisphere we have Polaris, which is nearly
located in the North Celestial Pole and is the 47th brightest
star. In the Southern Hemisphere we do not have such a star.
But how do I
fi
nd Polaris?
LINING UP YOURSELF
• Look into the direction of North.
• When you do not know exactly where north is, you can use
a compass. There is also one in your smartphone.
• Look / Search for the Big Dipper in sky.
• You should see this constellation (see image) .
• Depending on which time of the year you do this, you will
see the Big Dipper always at another compass direction.
• When you found the Big Dipper, concentrate on the both
outer stars (Purple Rings).
• Visualise the distance between these two stars (A).
• Now you extend the length of A - 5 times along its axis.
STEP 1
POLARIS
5 TIMES EXTENSION OF A
A
URSA MAJOR
NOW YOU SEE POLARIS
SkyGuide APP

16. RETICLES
The Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer uses another reticle than the
iOptron SkyGuider Pro. Both reticles have their own way of
working. Both reticles can be used in both Northern - and
Southern Hemisphere. In the Polar Alignment section we will
describe how to use the reticles.
TRACKER SWITCHED ON
• Remove polar scope protective cap from the back.
• Remove polar scope protective cap from the front. You
need to remove this cap before you mount your bracket
holder onto the tracker.
• Look through your polar scope and verify whether you
see either polar scope reticle.
• Upper reticle is used in the Sky-Watcher Star
Adventurer (simpli
fi
ed presentation for the Northern
Hemisphere). This is used when using the Polar Scope
Align Pro app and you are in the Northern Hemisphere.
• Bottom reticle is used in the iOptron SkyGuider Pro.
STEP 7
IOPTRON SKYGUIDER PRO
STAR ADVENTURER RETICLE WHEN
LOOKING THROUGH THE POLAR SCOPE

17. POLAR
ALIGNMENT
IOPTRON SKYGUIDER PRO
HOW TO ALIGN
This method is a manual alignment process.
It may have some small deviation and is
dependent on how precise your work.
However, when you follow the steps you will
achieve accurate polar alignment for your tracker.
DISCLAIMER

18. HOW TO ALIGN
iOptron SkyGuider Pro
TRACKER IS TURNED ON?
LOOK THROUGH YOUR POLAR SCOPE
• You may see the reticle in this position. However, the look
/ position can differ from your view.
• Polaris is situated outside of the pole scope reticle.
• The „Pole Scope Reticle“ does not point to the „6“ o’clock
position towards the bottom.
• POLAR ALIGNMENT
• In order to get an exact Polar Alignment, the „6“ needs
to point towards 6 o’clock.
• To achieve this you could open the RA clutch and
approximate the position of the reticle to 6 o’clock
(downwards position). However, this is not very
precise!
• To See where Polaris should stay at a time „X“, we can
use the Polar Align Pro or the iOptron App. In the app
you will see where Polaris needs to be, but this is the
position for when the reticle is positioned at exactly 6
o’clock.
STEP 1
STEP 2
POLARIS
This is an example of how it can look like.
This can differ from your situation. No worries.
LIKE THIS

19. POLAR ALIGNMENT
SOUTHERN
HEMISPHERE
2’ ARCMIN

20. POLARIS AUSTRALIS
In the Southern Hemisphere, astronomers have a big challenge
to Polar align their star trackers. In the Southern Hemisphere
we don’t have Polaris. We have to align our equipment with a
star constellation in Octans. One of the stars is
𝜎
oct - Sigma
Octans - Polaris Australis. This star however, is very dim and not
so easy to
fi
nd.
LINING UP YOURSELF
• Look into the direction of South
• When you do not know exactly where south is, you can use
a compass. There is also one in your smartphone.
• Look / Search for the Octans.
• You should see this constellation (see image)
•
•
•
• To
fi
nd Polaris Australis, we need to spend more time on
fi
nding it, compared to Polaris in the Northern
Hemisphere.
STEP 0
PART 2
POLARIS AUSTRALIS
This is what you normally will hear. In a sky full of stars it is
hard to
fi
nd a dim star
𝜎
oct which has a brightness of
about 5.44 mag (rel). In comparison Polaris (NH) has a
brightness of 1.46 mag (rel).
N
O
T
E
𝜎
oct
𝛿
oct
SkyGuide Pro App

21. POLARIS AUSTRALIS
In the next sections we will discuss the perhaps easiest option
to
fi
nd Polaris Australis. It is de
fi
nitely bene
fi
cial to use one of
the stargazing apps to
fi
nd your way in the night sky. These
apps will help to position yourself correctly and give you an
idea of where to look!
LOOKING SOUTH
• Try to
fi
nd the constellation of APUS. Look for the pattern
you see in the image.
• Apus has a prominent shape and has some brighter stars.
• The purple circle shows you a combination of stars which
will guide you to draw some imaginary lines.
• The bright star on the right side is
𝛿
oct
• The two little gemini stars are
𝝅
oct
• Remember this combination as a guideline
• To get to this combination of stars:
• Draw a curved line from
𝜶
aps
• Draw straight line from
𝜸
aps
STEP 1
PART 3
𝜶
aps
𝜸
aps
𝜷
aps
𝜹
aps
𝜹
oct
𝝅
oct

22. POLAR
ALIGNMENT
SKY-WATCHER STAR ADVENTURER
HOW TO ALIGN
This method is a manual alignment process.
It may have some small deviation and is
dependent on how precise your work.
However, when you follow the steps you will
achieve accurate polar alignment for your tracker.
DISCLAIMER

23. HOW TO ALIGN
Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer
TRACKER IS TURNED ON?
LOOK THROUGH YOUR POLAR SCOPE
• You may see the reticle in this position. However, the look
/ position can differ of course.
• Polaris Australis is situated outside of the pole scope
reticle.
• POLAR ALIGNMENT
• In order to get an accurate Polar Alignment, we need
to turn the reticle into correct position.
• For the Sky-Watcher Southern Hemisphere’s reticle it is
not important that the reticle points exactly vertically
like the iOptron reticle. This is because the SW uses the
octans pattern to align the reticle.
• To see where Polaris Australis should stay at a time „X“,
we can use the Polar Align Pro. In the app you will see
where Polaris Australis needs to be.
STEP 1
STEP 2
SkyWatcher Star Adventurer Equatorial Wedge
This is an example of how it can look like.
This can differ from your situation. No worries.
POLARIS AUSTRALIS

24. HOW TO ALIGN
Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer
TRACKER IS TURNED ON
• Activate App
• Polar Scope Align Pro
• Sky-Watcher SAM
• The App will show you the exact position of where Polaris
Australis needs to be for exact polar alignment.
• On the image to the right, Polaris Australis is marked
with an orange .
• This is the position for Polaris Australis for this time!!!
• At the top left you see:
• Date
• Time - GMT + Time difference
• Longitude / Lon
• Latitude / Lat
STEP 2
STEP 3

25. This Step by Step guide wouldn’t have be possible without the use of
product information, references to products, using screenshots from
the tools we use to make astrophotography accessible for all.
A big thank you goes to all astronomers around the world -
Manufactures of equipment, App developers and photographers to
make our lives as astronomers so much easier.
Trademark Notice: Product or Corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identi
fi
cation and
explanation without the intent to infringe.
Sky-Watcher: Is a copyright of Paci
fi
c Telescope Corp.
iOptron: Is a copyright of iOptron Corporation.
Polar Scope Align Pro: Is trademark of Dimitrios Kechagias.
Sky Guide: Is a copyright of Fifth Star Labs LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or
other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval
system without permission in writing. Permission requests should be
sent to the author at nordiclightphoto@icloud.com.
www.nordiclightphototours.com
Disclaimer: Nordic Light Photo Tours nor the Author do not take any responsibility nor can
they be held responsible for when the reader does not achieve the results as outlined in
the eBook. It it the readers sole responsibility to work precisely and carry out the work.
• SKY-WATCHER
• IOPTRON
• POLAR SCOPE ALIGN
• SKYGUIDE
• AUTHOR
DISCLAIMER
COPYRIGHTS - TRADEMARKS
© 2022 - Hendrik Anne Zwart

26. Hendrik Anne Zwart was born in 1964 in the Netherlands. He was given
his
fi
rst camera at the age of 7 and has been captivated by
photography ever since. He is never without a camera, in order to be
able to capture the light at the right moment at any time.
Today he is a landscape and time-lapse photographer with a focus on
Northern Europe above the Arctic Circle. There he leads photo
workshops and tours at "Nordic Light Photo Tours". Central themes are
photographing the Nordic Light in the majestic landscape of
Scandinavia and - the most fascinating light in the world - the Northern
Lights.
For him, Nordic Light is the most beautiful light he has ever seen and it
never ceases to amaze him. This "woah effect" is always overwhelming
for him and has awakened in him a boundless passion for the Nordic
landscape.
Furthermore he is focusing on capturing the night sky, from Milky Way
to Deep Sky Objects. One of his main goals is, is to help other
photographers to capture stunning images with entry level equipment.
Besides this, he is an active member and advocate of the International
Dark Sky Association (IDA) to
fi
ght against Light Pollution and to
preserve our night sky.
His photographs have inspired him to look at life from different
perspectives.
AUTHOR
PERHAPS NICE TO KNOW
© 2022 - Hendrik Anne Zwart