Gasconman

18 hours ago, Jiggy 67 said:

You can’t that I’m aware of, unless you’re using a camera and some form of software but I’m no expert in that. What mount have you got? On an EQ mount PA is about aligning the RA axis of the mount with the North Celestial Pole. For that, without electronic means, you need a polar scope for accurate pa. For visual observations you can get away with pointing the mount North but don’t expect accurate polar alignment.

It's a Skywatcher EQ2 mount

8 hours ago, michael8554 said:

Hi Gasconman

If you're only doing Visual, looking through eyepieces, then roughly pointing north will be good enough.

PA only becomes important if you want an object to stay exactly in the middle of the Field of View for a long time, as in Long Exposure Astrophotography.

You can get very good PA by Drift Aligning with only a high mag eyepiece, ideally one with a reticle to aid centring.

Michael

OK, thanks; I'll investigate that

On 10/08/2020 at 19:31, Martin AB Cohen said:

Hi there.  You might find my Polar Alignment tutorial video useful.  Here's the link....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlCq_TDYDGg&t=25s

 

Martin, this video is by far and away, the best explanation of polar alignment I have seen (and I've seen a few this last week!). I've posted the following as a comment on your YouTube channel, but I'll duplicate it here as it may be of interest to other newbies, like me...

I'm a retired professional photographer but I'm completely new to viewing night skies and astrophotography. I'm expecting delivery of my first telescope tomorrow. Your video is the first I've seen that gives a totally clear explanation of all that's involved with polar alignment, so thank you very much for that. The graphic of the Earth's rotational axis shown at the beginning is brilliant. The only question that remains for me is, what if you don't have a polar scope? I've ordered an Orion 07020e 9x50 right angle finder with corrected view ('erect' being the correct terminology?). This has illuminated cross hairs, but it doesn't have the circles shown in your video. How would I use this to get exact polar alignment?

Second question, to which I can't find an answer, once I have polar-aligned correctly, if I then move the rig to a nearby spot (say within 50 metres) and make sure that the mount is again exactly level, is that OK? Or do I have to re-align the rig every time I move it?