Polar alignment dilemma

[D4N]

Mounts seem to often use illogical systems for time zones which mess everything up, I just set mine GMT and leave it there then there are no issues.

TSED70Q, iOptron Smart EQ pro, ASI-120MM, Finepix S5 pro.

[Tums]

Although I'm pretty sure I had 'Home' position yesterday afternoon , I'm now checking to make sure, and found this thread

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/71355-help-with-heq5-home-position-please/

Going to take a day off from it today, as I've completely done my Noodle in the last couple of days Need to have a chill out day before work tomorrow .

So thanks for all the help so far. and I'll be back end of the week.

[jambouk]

Ignore the setting circles, they are next to useless; in fact they are worse than useless.

Weight arm pointing north but to the ground, scope pointing north but towards polaris.

I look forward to hearing the results. If you were in the home position, then my guess is you entered something wrong on the handset.

Jd

[Owmuchonomy]

What lat long coordinates did you enter?

[Tums]

What lat long coordinates did you enter?

002.24.28 W 52.46 N

I know these are o.k. Because there the same as in my 130P ,which works fine. I have checked and rechecked , date/time etc. so pretty sure the settings are correct

[Feral Rabbit]

You're not the only one having problem Tums. I have only just started astronomy (with the intention of getting into astrophotography which seems a looooooong way off at present) and am finding it all rather taxing too. Although I seem to have got to grips with polar alignment by visually doing it.

I found that making sure the Polarscope was properly zero'd is the first thing to do. (At the time I thought just screwing it into the mount was all you had to do until I started to try to Polar Align and realised the scope was well off. I had to asked a few questions at my local astro shop which I bet seemed a bit dumb at the time  , to realise that you needed to align the polarscope. This video spoke a thousand words for me, it was a godsend. and my scope is now spot on   

Click here

I can now set up with a levelled tripod and mount, facing North (with a compass) and have my declination dialled in on the mount and Polaris is within a few degrees of the circle in ten minutes. I use a Polar Finder app on my Android phone to show me where Polaris is supposed to be on the circle and adjust the mount accordingly.

The alignment process is still work in progress though

[Tums]

Hey Folks, after basically trying to process so much info, and completely, frying my brain, I have gone no where near for a few days. And used the time to think about what I was doing wrong.

Anyway tonight , went outside early, got mount set up,level,pointing North etc, then made sure I was actually in 'HOME' position, went through the handset , time/date , long/lat etc. thought right I have a good idea where Arcturus is, let's see what happens........ Low and behold, the scope slewed pretty close. So tried some others in different parts of the sky. All worked fine. Hoorah!!!

Next time I get out, I'm going to go through Polar aligning again. So I'll let you know how that goes.

But for tonight, I'm really Happy I actually got back to Stargazing again.

Many Thanks to everyone for your Info, and patience.