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Sigh...HEQ5 Polar Alignment

atmenterprises

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atmenterprises

atmenterprises

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I need help with polar alignment. I thought I had it figured out but I don't.

Last night, here's what I did:

1. Aligned my mount roughly north and found Polaris in the polar scope.

2. Turned the mount in the RA axis so that the little circle for Polaris was at the bottom of the polar scope. Set my RA setting circle to zero.

3. Looked at the hour angle from both my handset as well as a separate app to make sure they matched.

4. Turned the mount in RA to make the RA setting circle match the hour angle (it was 10:00). This made the weight bar almost horizontal...there are two sets of numbers on the RA setting circle. I used the lower set of numbers since I'm in the northern hemisphere.

5. Used the bolts to get Polaris into the little Polaris circle in the polar scope.

6. Mounted the scope and turned the DEC axis back to 0 degrees.

7. Started my two-star alignment. The scope ran into the north tripod leg...

What did I miss or do wrong? My scope doesn't have a date setting circle, so AstroBaby's polar alignment instructions won't work for me.

Thanks in advance.

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malc-c

malc-c

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Not sure but when using the clock position as dictated by the handset the 10:00 O'Clock position would be more or less at the 5 O'clock position on a normal clock face as the circle in the rectical represents the orbit of Polaris in a 24 hour period.

If you have a laptop and a suitable interface to the mount then I would suggest using the Polar Alignment tool in EQMod to position the mount in the correct hourly rotation position

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peroni

peroni

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I have to use the top RA scale to set the position of polaris as you are inputting the time since last transit.

The method I use was suggested by Dion over at Astronomy Shed (a youtube video was available). Basically,

1) level the tripod (this is very important for accurate tracking using just RA)

2) determine the last transit time for Polaris (I use Polar Finder app on Android)

3) Set the polar scope to have Polaris circle at bottom i.e. in transit

4) dial the last transit time into the RA settings circle (on my HEQ5 that is the top scale reading from right to left)

5) carefully rotate the RA axis back so it reads 0

Double check the position of the polaris circle and make sure it matches what you have in your app (or PC display). This will give you confidence that you have it set correctly.

Then set the mount back to the home position before you start your alignment routine.

Have a look at another Dion video to see how he accurately determines the home position with a spirit level and then marks it for future with a marker pen.

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mapstar

mapstar

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I use the synscan handset once the date/time and location is set:-

Utility function/Show Information/Polaris Position/Position in polar scope/Left hand arrow down to Hour Angle of polaris

This gives the Hour Angle(HA) position of polaris and you use the BOTTOM scale once you have rotated the mount to put polaris in transit, rotating anti clockwise from the polar scope end (RA).

Found this which may prove useful and explains it better than I ever could:-

http://www.dulcemelos.ca/en/articles/heq5.asp

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