Polar Aligning

[Kidbriar]

Thanks everyone for the welcome and to the replies regarding my mount problem. The alloy bit which holds the slow Motion cable won't fit into the hole at all. It seems a conundrum because all the pictures show the bolt in the mount right up to the screw, yet there doesn't seem to be enough room for it! The threads are all there and it doesn't appear to have a screw holding it in!

[Sir-Henry]

Could you perhaps take a close-up pic of it and post it for us to see. Word descriptions are often good enough if you know the 'ins & outs' of the item being described, but often less then worthless if you don't.

[todd8137]

Hi and welcome from me

Pat

[joshyouarebaker]

Hi Kidbriar, i am new to the lounge and it is a great place to find your answers. I also have the 130EQ with the motor drive. To be honest it is quite difficult to polar align this mount as there is no polarscope or even a hole to look through which goes through the mounts polar axis. Your best bet is a best guess. I am almost there, it takes alot of kneeling down and closing one eye and bobbing my head from side to side of the mount to see if it is pointing at polaris accurately. I have a monocular which i am going to mod by putting on cross-hairs and then somehow attach the monocular to the mount as a make-shift polar scope. To be honest im not even sure if this will work? Anybody?

As for the screw, I have not had this problem and yes i probably wouldn't force it!

Oh and by the way, once you have accurate PA and you move your scope to an object (via RA and Dec movements only), get the object in the centre of the eyepiece. Then you will only need to use RA movements to track the objects. Given you have accurate PA, you will not need to touch dec again until you move to another object. I had this problem the other night, i kept having to adjust dec now and again. To be honest this mount isnt that great. the tightening screws are not very accessible and are either really tight, or really loose. Even when as tight as possible, you can still apply a little pressure and the blumming thing moves! 

Do you have the motor drive also?

[swag72]

Hi and welcome to SGL - It can all be confusing and we've all experienced similar issues. I hope that with all the links and help posted so far you've been able to sort it out.

Look forward to seeing you around

[joshyouarebaker]

@Swag72 - WOW!!! your pictures are phenomenal 

[Umbraldot]

Welcome to the forum

[Blind Pugh]

Greetings Werner and welcome from Tiree, a dark and often wet island off the coast of Scotland. Hope you have as much enjoyment from this site as I do.          

[BlabyStarGazer]

Hi Kidbriar,

My very first 'scope was the AM130EQ but I don't recall the suffering the issue that you describe.  I have just dug out my old manual for the scope/mount and still can't understand what the exact problem is.  It could be, since I recall changeing my slo-mo cables for longer ones, that this is why I didn't encounter it.   Anyhow, I'm sure that there are folk here who are better equipped than I to solve the problem!

Glad to hear that at least it hasn't discouraged you! 

Clear skies and welcome to wonderland

The BSG

[Ronos]

Hi, just joined the forum yesterday and i am a complete novis at star gazing, and this is my first post, so here goes. Am I right in saying that the white line on the eq mount lines up with the pole star, then you get the pole star into the centre off your telescope and then tighten up all your clutches, and from this point you are able to view the hole off the night sky with out moving your tri-pod. Also every time I go out to view the night sky at different locations, I repeat the same procedure as above. Thanks to all who have welcomed me to this very interesting forum.

[neil groves]

Welcome to SGL there's lots of help here so don't worry about any questions you have, we have all been there.

Once you have aligned your scope to Polaris if it is a GOTO mount you just punch in whatever you want to look at. i.e. Orion Nebula and the scope will literally go to it. Don't adjust your declination from say 51 degrees as thats where the scope starts from and how it knows where it is, also keep it pointed at Polaris. Next you need to align the scope and using your hand controller set it for 2, or better 3 stars to do this. If your Polor alignment is good it the first star shouldn't be far off.  

Now this is the tricky bit. Keep both eyes open - one looking through the viewfinder and the other on the star.  If your view finder has cross hairs move the scope using the controller toward the star until it is in the cross hair. After that you should be relatively close to the next chosen star and its a lot easier.

Happy stargazing 

I have a diagonal in the optics train which means when the scope is pointing at the star, my other eye would be at a 90 degree angle to it, now when I move my left eye up to the star, my right eye follows it, what am I doing wrong  

Neil.

[OscarTheGrouch]

Thanks everyone for the welcome and to the replies regarding my mount problem. The alloy bit which holds the slow Motion cable won't fit into the hole at all. It seems a conundrum because all the pictures show the bolt in the mount right up to the screw, yet there doesn't seem to be enough room for it! The threads are all there and it doesn't appear to have a screw holding it in!

Hi Kidbriar,

I have the same scope as you and it too has had teething problems!!

Dealing with the alignment issues and "how to use" the mount, there's a website that I found useful here: (link).  Scroll down to the "How to align" video and once you've watched that, go through the "How to use" vid just below it.  They sorted everything out for me and I now have the scope well balanced and aligned.

Moving on to the Dec and RA slow motion adjusters, these are a bit flimsy.  Just to confirm we have the same kit, it's a black plastic knob with a black plastic flexible tube connected to a cast metal tube that has a small hole in the side with a screw thread in it.  This then attaches to the RA/Dec and you tighten a small silver bolt that easily falls out and disappears.  If I've got this right, then the RA and Dec knobs are interchangeable.  Have a look at the other one and see if you can spot what the problem is.  If it's a case of you've lost the small bolt, I have a spare that I can send you (I had to replace the motor coupling on my mount and kept the bolt from the original which is exactly the same).  If you want it, PM me your address and I'll pop it in the post.  If I've got the wrong end of the stick, let me know exactly what's broken and I'll see how I can help.