Last night was a disaster....

[Sean L]

Hey guys, been waiting all week for a clear night and finally got one last night.  Iv been waiting all week to get some pictures of Jupiter but when I got out side last night things began to fall apart... For starters it took me 10 minutes to realize I couldn't see through the scope because I had the cover on the end....AHHHHHHH.  Secondly some one have moved my guide scope so it took me a while to get that pointing straight again... My biggest problem was that Jupiter was right above my head and had trouble pointing the scope at is, is this normal?! I have attached a picture because im not sure what the part is called but that "T" shaped screw at the bottom right of that picture becomes extremely hard to turn to raise the scope up.. am i doing something wrong?? Also when you shoot in RAW do you need to do something to your images before they go on Registax as iv only been using JPEGS until now. Thanks Guys!

[LouisJB]

Hi, the T-shaped screw is for setting up your altitude (your latitude), so for you it might be about 50 degrees or something. Once set, that's it, don't touch it - certainly not to point at a target.

You need to align with polaris, or at least set approximately your latitude and point at NCP (you can do this by eye as a starting point). There should be a rough guide to this in the manual, or have a look on line for a basic guide to aligning an EQ. On fancier scopes you get a polar scope, on the EQ2 (that looks like an EQ2) you basically do it by eye and then look through the tube to try to get a more accurate alignment.

Then, you'll find some combination of moving the scope in the two axis it rotates in will get the tube pointing to that part of the sky. I was looking at Jupiter last night, as I recall the tube/weights were right over to the side, almost horizontal (RA axis) and the declination was then such as it pointed the tube almost right up towards the zenith. Luckily Jupiter didn't get that close to zenith (the point right above you) as EQ mounts generally have a real problem pointing that way and it's a bit of a no-go area. Anything literally directly overhead I'd leave until a time when it's moved to the side or pick another target that's easier to point at.

Also have a look at Meridian flip, it's what you do when the range of movement on the mount reaches a limit and you need to continue observing as the target continues to move round.

[steppenwolf]

With regard to the latitude bolt (the 'T' one that you mention), make sure that you have slackened off the hinge bolt that clamps the two part of the hinge together before adjustment. It also pays to set up the mount without the telescope attached as this, naturally, reduces the load.

I convert my RAW images into TIF files before importing them into Registax for stacking.

Edited to add OOOPS, doubled with Louis

[Steve Ward]

A good place to start would be page 13 onwards here ...   ... http://www.opticalvision.co.uk/documents/146.pdf

[Uranium235]

Yep, looks like you need to loosen a bolt before you tighten one. If you dont loosen the other bolt first, you stand a high chance of wrecking the mount or bending the bolt - theryre not exactly made of the most resiliant metals.

Oh, and when using the bolts to PA, always use the rear bolt last as that will ensure the load is properly supported.

[Amra]

My bolt does that as well, super hard to turn (the lower one, pushed very far in, since I'm at 62N), even if I loosen the other one. Makes it troublesome to do the AlignMaster procedure for perfect polar alignment.

So I loosen the upper bolt, and manually move the latitude by hand (can take a bit of force) & then try to use the upper bolt as much as possible to adjust latitude according to AlignMaster.

I need to get new bolts, concerned about them getting bent eventually, but don't want to buy stupidly expensive bolts.

[Sean L]

Thanks guys, hopefully it will all work tonight

[esxste]

Hi Sean, 

I have a similar mount and posted a quick guide on getting polar aligned here: http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/204630-help-in-colchester-essex/#entry2170260

I hope that helps you.