Held Wanted.

[BEYOND EARTH]

I recently bought a new setup which mainly is a CG-5 mount and a SW 80MM refractor. I've only used it about 5 times and cant tell you how happy I am with the OTA. I just wish I could say the same about the mount. I'm most cretin the problem is me not fully understanding how to use the mount, but I cant seem to locate anything. It seems as if the mount over shoots the abject I would like to see. Now correct me if I'm wrong but I think this has to do with polar alignment. I dont really know so any help would be great!

Thank You!

[gdheib0430]

Am assuming since you are referring to polar alignment you are utilizing a german equatorial mount. If so I will leave it to everyone else to explain or point you in the right direction as I am still using an alt az mount because I am all noobie If this your first scope I'd suggest reading up on setting up polar alignment and just using the finder scope to look a little and keep ya happy...it has worked for me very well I love the little finder scope. With the fainter DSOs thought obviously you need the eq mount because you can't see it with the naked eye. Correct me if I am wrong on this guys.

From what I have read so far I am taking from it the most important thing you need to do before aligning to polaris is to make absolute sure your mount is as level as possible...I probably can't stress this one enough because a slight mis-alignment can through you off enough degrees or arc seconds that you wont be able to find anything...once that is done I have read you need to set your az to 0degrees and begin aliging to polaris...look through your finderscope to get the general alignment and further adjust your scope with looking through the eye piece and getting it perfectly centered. As far as fine tuning the lattitude setting I haven't gotten really deep into that yet but I am thinking you can adjust it with some fine adjustment knobs to get it as close as possible.

Speaking of these setting everyone...I have been worried about getting this kind of mount because I was confused as to how one goes about pin pointing an object in the sky...do you just use the dec and ra from a sky chart or do you also need the az as well? I am pretty sure you need the az as well, but am just wanting to clarify that.

[brantuk]

Polar alignment is pretty essential with an EQ mount - so is object size and chosen eyepiece. Is it the "goto" one or are you using it manually? Start with a level tripod.

To get it roughly polar aligned for visual use - before puting the OTA on make sure the mount is pointing north - a compass will be useful. Then set the latitude scale to your latitude on Earth (Tallahassee: (capital city) 30º 26' N, 84º 17' W

Miami: 25º 78' N, 80º 22' W). Adjust the altitude and azimuth bolts till the pole star is roughly center of the polar scope. Better still get it in the small circle on the circumference of the bigger circle.

Pop the scope on and use a low power eyepiece (say 25-30mm) and adjust the RA and Dec till you see the pole star center of eyepiece. Refine this with a higher power (say 15mm). Line up the finder so it sees the pole star on the cross hairs. It should now be reasonably aligned for goto or manual use.

Edit - once it's polar aligned don't relocate the scope or you'll have to re-align. Only use the RA and Dec controls to orientate the scope on an object. And do lock the clutches if it's a "goto" and keep them locked for star alignment and slewing around.

[gdheib0430]

Polar alignment is pretty essential with an EQ mount - so is object size and chosen eyepiece. Is it the "goto" one or are you using it manually? Start with a level tripod.

To get it roughly polar aligned for visual use - before puting the OTA on make sure the mount is pointing north - a compass will be useful. Then set the latitude scale to your latitude on Earth (Tallahassee: (capital city) 30º 26' N, 84º 17' W

Miami: 25º 78' N, 80º 22' W). Adjust the altitude and azimuth bolts till the pole star is roughly center of the polar scope. Better still get it in the small circle on the circumference of the bigger circle.

Pop the scope on and use a low power eyepiece (say 25-30mm) and adjust the RA and Dec till you see the pole star center of eyepiece. Refine this with a higher power (say 15mm). Line up the finder so it sees the pole star on the cross hairs. It should now be reasonably aligned for goto or manual use.

Edit - once it's polar aligned don't relocate the scope or you'll have to re-align. Only use the RA and Dec controls to orientate the scope on an object. And do lock the clutches if it's a "goto" and keep them locked for star alignment and slewing around.

Well apparently I am making it harder than it needs to be then

[brantuk]

A lot of folks new to astronomy don't realise just how straightforward it is to use an equatorial mount. Once you know the routine it can be done in 5 mins or so. And it only needs to be extra accurate for imaging.

[Telrad]

BEYOND EARTH, try this link: Setting Up an Equatorial Mount - McWiki

[gdheib0430]

A lot of folks new to astronomy don't realise just how straightforward it is to use an equatorial mount. Once you know the routine it can be done in 5 mins or so. And it only needs to be extra accurate for imaging.

I think it has to do with me not having hands on with the mount yet as I see there is a dec and ra needed for a coordinate but have been confused on the operation of it not having hands on yet...I haven't grasped the whole 90deg thing on dec yet. I am thinking there is a +90 and -90 on the dec for coordinates? otherwise I don't see how 90 degrees equates to a 180 degree circle in the sky...been think of the sky three dimensionally as well so that probably doesn't help haha. I think I will be fine as soon as I get my hands on the mount and move it around for about 5 minutes or so and I will probably just take a step back and face plam myself for overthinking a very easy navigation concept.

[E621Keith]

Since you are using a CG5 mount, the polar alignment is very simple.

All you need to do is

1. Unlock your RA clutch, look into the polar scope, turn the circle which indicate Polaris striaght down, set the time and date ring on you RA axis to midnight November 1 and lock the time ring with the set screw.

2.Then unlock the RA clutch, turn the RA axis and you should see the date ring moves while the time ring remains stationary. Turn until the date ring reaches today's date, and then lock the RA clutch

3. Undo the time ring set screw, then unlock the RA clutch. Turn the RA axis until the time ring matches the current time, then lock RA clutch.

4. The polaris position indicator in the polar scope is now in the correct position. Use the altitude and azimuth knob on your mount to put Polaris into position.

0. In the UK, I live only a degree (approx 5 minutes) from Greenwich Meridian, so I never bother applying local time zone correction. The polar scope on my mount isn't good enough to indicate that (smallest graduation on my time ring is 10 mins). However, where you live may be quite far from you time zone time meridian, so you will need to apply a correction.

You can get the full set of instruction here:

http://www.opticalvision.co.uk/documents/53.pdf

[BEYOND EARTH]

Great thank you all for your help! Just out of curiosity how would you align for astrophotography? Would it be about the same alignment process as viewing just with a better degree of accuracy? Also I have an autoguider to help.

Thank you!