alignment problem

[MND]

Had an issue last night with aligning. I couldn't see very much, really cloudy but as I had set up I thought I'd have a mess anyway.

I could see the moon and jupiter and although I didnt need to I did a solar system align. When I aligned on jupiter and went to moon it was miles off. I tried other way round and aligned with moon but then jupiter wasnt even in view of finder scope.

I couldnt see Polaris so pointed roughly whete I thought it was. Was this the issue? How important is polar align just for general viewing?

[ronin]

For an equitorial it is fairly important and if goto in addition I would say again important.

When you do an alignment the scope is using actual positions to determine errors and so modifications that it needs to apply.

One of the problems of a goto is that the first/starting location is either assumed to be 100% correct or it is junk and not used.

A Meade assumes that you have the scope absolutly level and pointing exactly North, then it goes to where the first alignmant star should be on the previous assumption.

A goto that starts from anywhere has to be aimed at a known star so this one is then the start position.

Another point is that planets and the moon tend to move slightly different and from previous posts using them usually leads to a problem. At some time Jupiter will appear to move backwards and I have never been sure that the simple handset software can account for that.

I assume that the mount id EQ, but it is not stated.

Also if SW what software version is running.

[MND]

Its a CG5. I think I need to buy a polar scope soon as.

[Chris Rowland]

A Solar System align with a CG5 will assume the mount is perfectly polar aligned, if it isn't then slews to other objects will be out.

\\\\\\\if you do a two star alignment it will allow for the polar align error and if you more stars it will help with other errors.

And the Version 4 HCs have All Star Polar Align which means that you can polar align without using a polar align scope or being able to see Polaris.

Chris

[Owmuchonomy]

Have you aligned the finder scope with the main scope?

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[MND]

Yeah, finder is pretty much spot on. When I have something centered in finder I barely have to alter at all to centre through view finder. I think it is most likely my rough attempts at pointing North...I bought a can of yellow spray paint to mark a line but other half wasn't too impressed and said I would have a job aligning anything where she was going to shove it if I sprayed the patio

[Owmuchonomy]

As another member said you don't need to see Polaris to polar align. I'm not familiar with your software but I use Synscan and you only need to see two known stars reasonably well split to do a polar alignment. The issue comes with getting sighted on those two stars in the first place! I have three green (Farrow & Ball of course) dots on my patio that the wife hasn't seen yet. Ssshhh.

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