scblue01

Thanks Jiggy 67 and jfrijhoff, both really useful tips. I will have a go at adjusting the c/w arm on the Skyguider, but I might need to take a few brave pills first, do not want to break it. The angle eyepiece sounds great, no mention of a Skyguider fit though, I will have to ask FLO if it works on the SG. I measured the polar scope e/p and it is around 30mm, so should fit. Now, while I do hate kneeling on the icy granite slabs (which do look great in summer sunshine), the thing that annoys me most is the size & coarse marking of the Skyguider reticle, the SW Star Adventurer is much easier to use. So a magnified view courtesy this angle e/p should really help get a more accurate polar alignment.

Hi jfrijhoff, Thanks for that, really useful for setting up a SW SA tracker. Unfortunately the Ioptron SkyGuider Pro (mine) doesn't have a Meridian Indicator (required for the calibration method described), rather it uses builtin illumination of the reticle to indicate verticality, ie the reticle is only lit when its vertical, but its pretty vague, +/- 10 to 15 deg. I guess it would be fine for shorter focal length scopes, say up to 135 but I'm using 400. But, as I recall Peter Zelinka has used a 600 camera lens, so good accuracy must be doable.

I don't mind getting down on my knees, on cold stone, nor do I mind straining my neck to 50+ deg, but I do struggle with aligning that PA reticle vertically, while peering upwards in said position. I know there are methods for tweaking the reticle up and down to refine verticality, but my WO wedge is a hard tweak vertically. However, I think I've found a way to do it more accurately and more easily, and one that does not involve lots of trigonometry. So, here goes, and apologies if this a well known method, or if it is a load of rubbish: Remove the tracker head, set it up on a level surface facing a distant, known vertical. Align the reticle with said vertical, then lock the RA clutch. Next, remount the tracker head back onto its wedge. With the mount levelled, now measure the angle of the dec bracket using the same inclinometer (mine was now 8.3 deg). In future, when doing polar alignment, I will set the dec bracket to that angle, my new 'vertical' reference.