Swifty35

So this is a diy equatorial mount and I am writing the software to slew to objects based on hour angle and declination. Sorry if that was not clear in the original post. I realized my math was off when I tried to point at an object near my local meridian and a declination of around 120 degrees. The way I have the program written only the dec axis moved significantly. However, the further from the meridian I was pointing the closer I was... but still off. That is because with a good polar alignment the instrument is pointing to 0h0m0s HA and 90 Degrees Dec. With the alignment being better further from my local meridian I think that there is an exponential error involved. This means that to point 30 degrees above the polar axis the software must calculate the position of the RA axis so that the DEC is actually pointing above the polar axis, and then begin tracking. Once I have my target centered in the eyepiece the mount tracks wonderfully, but a little goto function and understanding of the mechanics is the real goal. I am hoping that there is someone around who actually understands the way their mount works and possibly the math behind it. I am ok with geometry, but plotting a position on a sphere is something I could use some help with.

Hello all! I am in the midst of completing software to finish motorizing a celestron eq114 telescope mount. I am using hour angle and declination from stellarium to slew to my targets, however there is a significant level of error in the pointing of the instrument. It has finally occurred to me that the hor ange and dec affect each other. For example, if i want to point to an object at the local meridian at 120 degrees dec the ra axis must move 90ish degrees and then the dec must move 30 degrees "up". As the object of interest moves away from the meridian the error becomes more pronounced, so I am looking for assistance with the math to compensate for the 2 axes being dependent on one another when pointing the telescope. Thanks.