AVX all star polar alignment help

[mwayne]

Hi all,

What is the menu option that is used for polar alignment? I remember using it after first installing the mount, the scope would slew to a star and then you had to use the altitude and azimuth adjustment bolts to center the star. Calibrate mount?

Thanks!

[MarsG76]

Make sure your finder scope and main telescope are well aligned.

Just get your mount roughly pointed at Polaris by physically moving the tripod and adjusting the altitude/latitude adjustment. For good gotos this only has to be done roughly by eye.

Practice your two star plus calibration star alignments. The more you do it the easier it all gets (and the mount also learns a bit about how you're setup which helps get those alignment stars a bit closer each time you do an initial alignment). With a good initial alignment using 2 alignment stars and 3-4 calibration stars you'll get great gotos (pointing accuracy) but you'll probably find the tracking accuracy not very good (objects in the eyepiece will slowly drift over time).

You'll now need to do a polar alignment using the hand controller "Polar Align in the Menu". You'll see references to the All Star polar alignment in the manual, it's also called ASPA. In the hand controller you'll only see this called polar alignment. Follow the instructions (and no you don't need a polar alignment scope) and you'll get a good accurate polar alignment. 

You should now also have good tracking accuracy. This should be fine for doing AP with relatively short focal lengths (say up to 700mm or so). If you intend to use longer focal lengths then you'll have to really learn to tweak your polar alignment, this can be done with something called drift alignment. This is not a function in the hand controller, it's a set of procedures that you follow using your camera. The instructions for this are on various websites and have been discussed many times here in forums. 

[PeterCPC]

I suggest that you do 2 iterations of ASPA to get an accurate PA. Just follow the instructions in the manual to the letter. Works for me.

Peter

[mwayne]

To be more precise about my difficulty, I can't find polar alignment in the menu tree:

[PeterCPC]

Align - Polar Align - Align Mount

Peter

[mwayne]

Align - Polar Align - Align Mount

Peter

Thanks Peter! I found it last night, forgot you had to start with the align button and scroll through its menu. Still couldn't find it anywhere in Celestron's manual however.?