eq6 and polar scope home position

[red dwalf]

hi all,

just been looking at my newly bought neq6 and have a question regarding the polar scope set up,

when the mount is in the home position i.e. mount in the upright position and scope pointing at polaris,

then when looking through the polar scope what position should the polaris circle be in ?

when i look through my polar scope the polaris circle is in the 7 o`clock position roughly, is this the correct position it should be in ?

thanks for the help.

P.S.

near the polar scope on the mount is a metal pointer, and on the polar scope itself there is a small white line, should these be lined up ?

[Spikey]

If you're controlling & polar aligning via EQMod I don't think it matters as you'd have to move to a polar scope home position after the mount is in the home parked position.

[red dwalf]

Cheers, I'm really just trying to visually align the mount on polaris but as said above the polaris circle in the polar scope is at around the 7pm position, just wondering if this was right or does the polar scope need moving round

[jambouk]

The position of the polaris circle doesnmt matter when you are in the home position; it is purely by chance where it is, 3, 6, 9, 12, 2:45.... You can take the polar scope reticle out and try and get it to 6 if you want, but it will probably be hard to get it bang on, and there is no benefit anyway from my understanding. When polar aligning, just rotate the RA until the polaris circle is in the roght place, adjust alt and azimuth levers to centre polaris and hey presto, polar aligned. Even when you release the RA cluth and rotate the RA, the NCP will stay in the middle of the polar scope reticle. As you are polar aligned.

I've set my mount up so when he RA setting circle is at 00:00 the polaris circle is as near 6 o'clock as i can tell. So when i rotate the RA to say an hour angle of 21:00, the Polaris circle rotates to 21:00 and i only needed to look through the polar scope to centre polaris, not to position he polaris circle....

Long winded, sorry.

James

[red dwalf]

Great help thanks, was just thinking it looked in a strange position, would have thought the polar circle might in the same position for every scope, but that doesn't seem to be the case

[jambouk]

No, depends on the orientation of the reticle in the polar scope, and on the orientation of the polar scope in the mount. Hit and miss on two counts. As i say, you can unscrew the focus bit of the polar scope and gain access to the polar scope reticle and release its three grub screws and rotate it to a more desirable position whilst in the home position, but you'd then need to re align the reticle with the mount which is a bit of a pain, for what i think is zero gain.

I don't know about the setting circles on the eq6, but get the polaris circle to the 6 o clock position, then fix your setting circles on the RA to 00:00, hen when setting up, when he handset tells you the hour angle for polaris just rotate the RA to that time and hey presto, the polaris circle is in he correct place.

James

[Matt Scunthorpe]

First of all, rotate the RA so the circle that reprewents Polaris is at the bottom of the big circle, as this is when it is in transit (highest in the sky), remember its mirror so top is bottom etc.

When you turn the handset on and put in date/time etc, it will say 'Polaris HA' then a time, like 19.25 for example, this was when Polaris was last in transit. Set the setting circle to 0. Then turn the RA so it reads 19.25, this will put the polaris circle in the position you need to put Polaris when your out aligning.

You will need to check if you use the bottom or the top numbers on the setting circle as one is NOrthern and one is Southern hemisphere, and i believe they are different between mounts.

There is a goos video on this i will try and find when not on my phone.

Like said above though, if you have a laptop there are programes that will do it for you, i dont so i use this method.

Matt.

Sent from my GT-I9100P using Tapatalk

[Alien 13]

Great help thanks, was just thinking it looked in a strange position, would have thought the polar circle might in the same position for every scope, but that doesn't seem to be the case

 

Hi as James has already said the position it ends up in is random, if the mount has setting circles then these would be moved to fit your polarscopes position. Remember that polaris rotates around the NCP so at some time of the day ist going to be in a position that makes your mount look wierd anyway.

[jambouk]

We are probably teaching rob how to suck eggs; i suspect he's just confused why the polaris reticle on his new mount is in a different orientation to his old mount.

I'm looking forward to visiting soon rob

James

[Spikey]

It confused me when I upgraded from my HEQ5 to an NEQ6. I thought all skywatcher polar scopes were set identically in orientation, which I now know they are not.

[jambouk]

I suspect that is what has confused rob. I've only ever had one EQ mount so i know no difference, but i had such bother getting my head around polar alignment, and read and broke/dismantled so much that i worked out its orientation would be hit and miss from one scope to another

James

[Kenza]

If you're controlling & polar aligning via EQMod I don't think it matters as you'd have to move to a polar scope home position after the mount is in the home parked position.

If I understand, it doesn't matter how the polaris circle is oriented if you are using EQMod. You just set the mount in home position and then power up and connect to EQMOD and perform the polar align procedure, right?

[Spikey]

If I understand, it doesn't matter how the polaris circle is oriented if you are using EQMod. You just set the mount in home position and then power up and connect to EQMOD and perform the polar align procedure, right?

Spot on exactly !