Alignmaster

[teifistar]

Hi,

Question from a newbie.

Took delivery yesterday of an EQ6 pro mount. Spent last night reading the manual and I am now very confused.

The part I am confused about is polar alignment. Anyway I was trawling through YouTube lookin for help and I came across this video

Its says Alignmaster can polar align the scope very accurately, so I have downloaded and installed ASCOM and also Alignmaster.

I like the idea of polar aligning the scope using Alignmaster it appears to be a much more convenient method than using a polar scope.

What I am uncertain about at this stage is what position the scope should be in before I start to use Alignmaster. Do I have to carry out one star alignment first.

Any advice and help appreciated.

Peter

[Dr_Ju_ju]

You just do a rough setup with the mount pointing North etc, but don't both doing alignment, just go to Alignmaster which uses pairs of stars, pertinent to your location, and follow the application\u-tube video, but do it for at least 2-3 pairs of stars. After that you should be good to go. 

Julian

[Bizibilder]

For Alignmaster to work you have to be reasonably polar aligned to start with.  if you are not then when you have aligned with the first star of a pair and you slew to the second star of the pair it may be outside the field of view and you cannot see it in the eyepiece.  Secondly, it is essential that the mount is level - use a decent spirit level to get the top of the tripod level before you put the mount on it - an error here will prevent alignmaster from giving an accurate result.