polar reticle aligned ... hopefully

[Demonperformer]

With the pillar permanently installed, and a clear night in prospect tonight, I thought it was now time to tackle this horrible job. So I have just spent an hour outside fiddling with the polar scope reticle on my EQ6, to try and align it on my television aerial.

What a fiddly job!  Apart from worrying that the tripod was going to overbalance because of the angle I needed to have it to get the aerial in the right position, I was constantly getting the direction I had to adjust the screws wrong and making things worse.  Eventually I popped in doors to get a pen and paper and wrote down what I needed to do as I was doing it - 'object too far left, loosen left screw, tighten right screw'.  Not complicated, but for some reason I kept wanting to do it the other way round.

Still, after an hour (I kid you not!) I finally had it aligned so that the tip of the aerial stayed in about the same position wherever the RA axis was pointed, so that is job done and will never need to be done again ... hopefully ...

[jambouk]

I'm surprised it only took an hour!

Glad its sorted.

James

[wxsatuser]

Think I spent near two hours

[m.tweedy]

Paul Buglass sorted mine at Kielder a few years ago. I have not dare touch it since.

[Demonperformer]

I can understand that.  I kept seeming to make it worse rather than better.

[jambouk]

I think it's very difficult to get it bang on, and at some stage one had to decide if itms sufficiently correct for ones planned usage (eg visual observing) or if you need it as accurate as possibleu (for unguided imaging).

I'd be interested to know how accurate the reticles are in terms of their manufacture and also as the NCP moves in relation to Polaris. Purely an academic interest not a practical one.

James

[Epicyclus Dave]

Hullo , i decided to set my NEQ-6 polar scope in the summer , and could not get it to settle , then i noticed the recticule eyepiece with the cross hairs that screws into the polar scope body had a little play on the threads , after watching astronomy sheds you tube vid for setting up the mount, i went to B&Q and got a packet of plumbers rubber "O" rings (about an inch diam. ) done the thread mod as in the video and re-fettled the 3 grub screws again ...... Bingo .......spot on , the rubber ring allows enough compression for good focus when threaded up finger tight into the polar body.

Dave.

[Epicyclus Dave]

i was about 4 hours in total including the mod

[sbooder]

Here is a good tip for the Polar reticle.