HesperLiz

Absolutely! It was a toss up between my eyes or losing my mind 😃 😄 .

Hi Neil, have thought of this and yes, marked out the legs. So excited now, I can get on and try out all the ideas which have been causing a traffic jam in my head. As I stated before, I am incredible thankful to everyone who contributed to solving my conundrum. Liz

UPDATE! I did it! I started over, rechecked all balances, levels, pointing geo. North, the park settings, etc and ensuring nothing was obstructing the polar scope passage during the day - I then worked on the assumption I was missing Polaris by millimetres due to the narrow field of view. Therefore to help me know exactly where in the cosmos I was actually pointing, I shone a laser light through the polar scope eyepiece (i kept an eye flout for aircrafts) - once I could see that I started on the adjistment bolts, checking every now and then on the progress. Bingo, Polaris was finally close enough to appear in my polar scope! I was about to finish up when the clouds rolled in, but alas, I got there! Just taken me 4+ bloody weeks and lots of doubts abouts my eyesight. Thank you everyone who responded to my call for help. All the answers got me to the finishing line as I was able to double check things, discounts others, you gave me new ideas to try and encouraged me to keep going. You are ALL amazing - much gratitude to everyone here 👏 👏. Liz

Thanks, am just waiting for moon to wax and a clear sky, a tad to try again. Everyone's suggestions have been most enlightening.

A poor design, especially as one hand is turning the bolt on the front and the other is trying to engage this awkward spring, lever thingy.

Thanks, will definitely give it a go.

Thanks for that tip - figures, the spring loaded altitude bolt on the EQ6R-Pro is a pain in the proverbial rear end. 😀

This is what has been frustrating me. Therefore the only other variable must be my eyes.

I will start form scratch again and recheck the park positions and go through to polar aligning to make sure everything is where is should be. I may have to mentally do a grid search around the area where Polaris should be.

I attempted this and had no luck. I can see thevreticule, just not beyond it. I think must to pointing the PS to an empty space near Polaris - tad needle in haystack. Positioning, the mount looks like it should be in the correct vicinity - am suspecting I need new eyeballs. 😃

Thanks, I will do as you suggest - silly of me not to try the PS in the daytime really. I had to get the 90° eyepiece as I have a dodgy knee - I would not be able to stand back up if I knelt down. I had been using my teen child to look through the built in eyepiece. As you state, full moon is not a great time to attempt polar aligning. I am is a semi rural area and my back garden backs on to other back gardens - it is quite dark usually. I too suspect Polaris is just beyond where I am looking, it's a nuisance trying to lock on to it.

Thank you! I will definitely try that. Good to know someone else has this problem. I was seriously thinking I must be going daft, being the only person who can 'see' past the reticule lol.

Thanks, I will check it again tomorrow. This still does not address the issue of not being able to see any stars beyond the reticule. I will go through the entire process again.

Thank you fir the welcome. Yes I rotated DEC axis.

I use Stellarium to double check - not sure if various star maps all have the same error in pointing me to Polaris at 11pm-ish. Where I am, Polaris is certainly not that low to the horizon - my house would infact block it.