GPS readings and GOTO mounts

[lardy]

I have always been a visual observer .. never done a drift alignment, never needed to. Setting up my mount therefore has never been the in-depth requirement of the astrophotographer.

Always picked up my Long and Lat from my SatNav/internet and punched the numbers into the handset with out any thought ... even the 62 Mins on my home location which the handset never excepted so I knocked a couple minuets off to 59mins, good enough for me  

Now I want to dabble in a bit of AP with a DSLR. My mount has always been a little off, nothing to worry about being visual but I decided to sort it out and start to make preps for the winters DSLR fest that I'm planning to undertake ...APT and Alighmaster downloaded.

One of my GPS coords  is N50.52301929999999  Ok so thats 50degrees 52mins 30secs or so I thought, how wrong am I   it converts to 50° 31' 22.8678" .... Now I know why my mount was always that little bit off .... My SatNav gives digital coordinates my mount requires degrees mins secs, simple mistake, been doing it for years

[ronin]

Well the handset is correct, you cannot have 62 Mins for a location, there is only 60 minutes in a degree so 62 min is not possible.

So whatever is saying your satnav or whatever is up the creek.

[lardy]

Nope Ronin the satnav is good ... it just gives the GPS co-ordinates as a digital reading, the handset takes degrees mins and seconds.

whatsmygps.com  does the same ... a digital reading which can be covered into a handset friendly reading on a conversion  website. I always knew that you could not have more than 60 mins just to lazy to chase it down 

[Singlin]

This is a handy converter:

It has a flexible input which makes life easier.

http://www.gpscoordinates.eu/convert-gps-coordinates.php

[D4N]

Multiply the decimal part by 60 to convert to minutes, multiply the decimal part of the minutes by 60 to get seconds. Do the reverse to go back

Scientific calculators normally have this built in.

On a related note you can multiply the degrees part of the RA by 15 to convert that to hour angle.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[jambouk]

The correct GPS coordinates will help with star alignment and GOTO accuracy, but won't help with your tracking, which is all down to how well polar aligned [or not] you are.

Good luck with the imaging.

James