home position and date setting circles

[UnderTheRain]

Hi firstly you've probably been asked these questions 1000 times already but for some reason after reading every guide I can find and watching tutorials I'm still a but uncertain about a couple of things. I've probably read it myself but for some reason my brain just isn't registering the information. I have an eq6.

Firstly the date setting circle on the polar scope obviously it's for setting the date but is this just for information or does the scope/synscan use this setting in some way? I have looked through the polar scope whilst turning the setting circle and it doesn't appear to do anything to the image inside the scope so is it setting something?

Do I need to set the home position in my syscan?

I tried to do a polar alignment, polaris is in the circle and then tried a 2 star alignment and my mount turned my scope upside down and was pointing it at the floor in fact I had to stop it from crashing into the tripod legs. I'm clearly missing something, it was like I was 180 degrees out.

When I rotate the RA to set the position of polaris does it matter if I have the synscan on or off? and once set do I need to return the scope to the home position?

Thanks

Brian

[steelfixer]

Hi Brian

I sure I will be corrected if I am wrong but here goes.

The date setting circle on your mount is for visual polar aligning.

Polaris orbits the pole in a very small circle and so changes position according to the time and date.

You must set the home position so your system will have a starting point to which it can refer to.

The home position should be.

weights pointing straight down you can check this with a spirit level on the weight bar if you want to be real fussy.

scope pointing in line with the weight bar.Ie if you look through the scope you should be looking near enough at polaris.

With regards to you scope going off coarse make sure you have put the date in using the American format. - month day year.

This could also be caused by the fact you have not set the home position.

Hope this helps.

[UnderTheRain]

Yeah I did set the weights down and scope up but do I need to tell the handset the orientation?

And I did see the date settings were american, this is a good shout though I can see how people can miss this.

[Cornelius Varley]

The handset requires the date (mm/dd/yy) the time and your longitude and latitude.

Peter

[steelfixer]

You need to tell the handset that this is the home position.

Alternatively slacken off the clutches and whilst gently holding the scope so it can not come to any harm send the mount to 'home'.

When it stops moving reset the scope tighten the clutches.

manually slew the scope to another position and then press 'home' it should return to the correct starting point. if this is all correct you should be able to do your star alignment.