polar alignment without polaris?

[Gazer914]

hi guys i havent posted in a while so here goes, (this may or may not be a silly question) the mount i curently have is the HEQ5 Pro Synscan and i was wondering if there was a way to polar align the mount without polaris? i live in flats and at the moment when it does get dark enough to see polaris i cannot bring it into the polar finder as the view is blocked.

i done a google search and a couple of things have come up..ie (http://www.cloudynights.com/item.php?item_id=2682) which does go through a polar alignment but i just wondered if there was something more simple, i do have the means to conect the scope to the laptop with eqmod but have never used it before.

i can use the scope on the original mount (EQ5) and use it like point and shoot but it kinda defeats the puropse of spending all that money on an HEQ5 lol.

anyway any help greatley appreciated.

stuart

[Daddystu]

Alignmaster can get you polar aligned without polaris. You would still have to set your mount up towards the area of the NCP as accurately as possible with your altitude and azimuth adjustments. I've not done it this way but I see no reason why it shouldn't work at least for visual. Consecutive runs may give you enough accuracy for AP too. Hope that helps.

[Tinker1947]

I think the handset has a Polar align option, my NEQ6 does, using this option it will align using other stars in my case atm Arcturus you may need to download a new firmware file, once done a 2 star align, then polar align i then do another 2 star and another Polar, then finish with a 1 star align, this allows for reasonable tracking, and very accurate GoTo...

[astrosathya]

Hi Stuart,

The latest version of the synscan firmware V 3.35 has the polar alignment option. It works just like alignmaster. All you need to do for this option to be visible is to do a standard 2 or 3 star alignment, after which the polar alignment error pops up in the handset screen. You then choose Align--> Polar align and simply follow the instruction. Mind you, the first time it will select a star, press enter and it will tell you to use the handpad keys to center it in the eyepiece (good to have a crosshair eyepiece), it then offsets the star and tell you to center it using the azimuth or altitude adjustment bolts depending on which one of them you are correcting. You only use one of them, not both altitude and azimuth. After one is corrected, it moves onto the second. About three iterations should get you reasonable close to 5 arc seconds off the NCP. It helps to have the mount levelled as otherwise when you correct one axis, the other axis gets offset slightly.

[Gomtuu]

I haven't used the polar alignment function yet, but I'm wondering how good it is for astrophotography?