Polar aligning with AZ EQ6

[pragmatist]

Well i have had 1 night and a bit outside with my new setup and disaster is the only way to describe it. First night my longitude and latitude were incorrectly inputted in the synscan, my own silly fault. Result, the goto was all over the place. 2nd night before the clouds rolled in correct L&L was inputted which although much much better i still found the goto is still miles out. Altitude is correct at 52 degrees, mount spirit level straight, scope in the correct home position and marked from a few days earlier thanks to Astronomy shed youtube video.. 1 star alignment on arcturus, not too far out and alignment successful after a bit of slewing. Tried a test on Mizar and the scope slewed well below, probably by a couple of feet under the constellation itself.

The only thing i can think of is that when i inputted the time for the synscan i just used my watch which is probably not very accurate. How accurate does it have to be? i am about 20 seconds slow.

Also and the worse thing is that i cannot find polaris in the finder scope, i really struggle to line up the mount to the pole star and know for sure it is the pole star i am viewing. Through the polar scope there seems to be 2 or 3 contenders in that area of the polar scope.

Bearing in mind this is for visual only but it is also for goto enabled visual, do i have to be super accurate with polar alignment?

I really want to enjoy my equipment but finding this stage really difficult. Its a huge learning curve and i may need help from someone in my new Astronomy club but thought i would ask here as well, it's a helpful forum.

Thanks,

Matt

[PhobosPhil]

Did you say yes or no for daylight savings time? I got that wrong recently and it put me about a foot out. I also put in dd mm yy rather than mm dd yy, but 1. that was more than a couple of feet out, and 2. i dont think it would have let you put 25 in the month box. I made that mistake on the 11th so it was happy to accept it as November.

[pragmatist]

I put yes for daylight saving.

[Hobbes]

Hi Matt

When you are polar aligning there should be no doubt about which star is Polaris. It is significantly brighter than anything else in the FOV. Polaris is Mag 2 while everything else around is Mag 6 or fainter. If you have several candidates then you're not looking at Polaris.

Make sure that you know where Polaris is naked eye and get your tripod lined up as accurately as you can. Pop the mount on and again do a naked eye alignment then look through the Polar scope. I sometimes find I need to shift the mount around a bit or even swing the tripod around to get it lined up - means I have to re-level but it only takes a couple of mins.

Don't despair It does get easier with practice, my first attempt took ages but the time quickly came down and now just takes 5 mins.

[pragmatist]

Ok thanks Hobbes. Will persist if this weather allows.

[PhobosPhil]

I found this video helped me quite a bit, though I was a little confused that he seemed to polar align twice.

[pragmatist]

Is it necessary to adjust the hour angle on the polar alignment scope? I understand all of this video but did not know about that. Is this the same as the synscan gives for polaris in case you do not have an iphone out in the field?

Thanks,

Matt

[jam1e1]

which mode are you using? if for visual Az mode should be easier

PS if helps see a thread I did in mounts section - do search for this mount

[pragmatist]

Hi jam1,

It's for visual but I want to master equatorial before trying az. I want to be able to set both up.

[PhobosPhil]

Is it necessary to adjust the hour angle on the polar alignment scope? I understand all of this video but did not know about that. Is this the same as the synscan gives for polaris in case you do not have an iphone out in the field?

I dont know to be honest, after getting some help at the NLO and seeing that video above, i've only had 2 attempts at it, and both have been at home with the android version of polar finder.

On my first attempt, after the aformentioned problem with the date, and then getting daylight savings wrong, it was getting me in the general area of where I told it to go. It seemed to be tracking quite well (for me at least) as I took a 70 second picture of the dumbell nebula and the stars were dots and not lines, but it was off to the left of the image so I dont think i've got polar alignment spot on yet.

The other attempt at polar aligning didnt end well, as I did the first of the 3 star alignment, then turned round only to find the clouds had totally rolled in behind me!

Its been cloudy since then, until last night, but my hayfever was playing up so wouldnt have seen much anyway.

Previously when I had a go at aligning it before getting a smart phone, I used polar finder on my pc before leaving the house and printed a load of diagrams for every 15 minutes for the times I expected to be out, so I knew roughly where it should be without having to understand how to use the setting circles.

[jam1e1]

my advice is then use any eq6 videos already on net setup is almost identical, astronomy shed videos work for me, good luck, worth having a play I got frustrated at first as spent number of hours getting to set up right, once you get the hang of it, a lot more satisfying :)polar alignment doesn't have to be super accurate but helps to be as close as possible so objects end up nearer to centre of EP

[pragmatist]

Thanks guys, just one last question, do you polar align with weights on and then attach the scope or do you align with the scope on? I suppose it's easier to put the scope on after just in case you have to move the tripod slightly.

[jam1e1]

Align with nothing on then add weights/scope in my opinion