I must have done someting wrong!

[emyliano2000]

Hi guys.

Like I said in the title, something must be wrong.

I have this new SW polar scope on my EQ5 (image below). When I looked through it, the reticle was completely off center. After many attempts I think I finally managed to center it and get the 0 to point straight up. I've done this inside my house with a dot on a piece of paper stuck on the wall. I have put a rubber ring around the reticle hoping that would be enough to center it but it wasn't so I had to fiddle about with the grub screws until I got the dot centered at 180° rotation on the RA axis too. The rubber ring is still around the reticle. After doing that I put the dot at 9 o clock on the circle and when I gave the mount a full rotation on the RA axis the dot didn't move away from it. I think the reticle is now centered.

After doing that I took the mount outside, leveled it again and waited to get dark so I can see Polaris. I'm using the PolarFinder app on my phone to see where Polaris is on the clock at any time of the day. Anyway, it got dark, I found Polaris in the sky and put it where the app was telling me it should be. I think that my polar alignment was quite precise.

After a few hours of looking at the Moon and the planets, just before I was ready to go to bed I had one more look through the polar scope to see if Polaris is still on the circle. It was on the circle but under my surprise it wasn't in the same position as the app was showing me. The app was showing Polaris at 9h10m and through my polar scope it was at 8h20m. 0 on the reticle was still pointing up, Polaris was still on the circle but why wasn't it in the same position as the app was showing?

How did that happen? What have I done wrong?

 

[DeepSkyBagger]

It could be because your reticle (as you show it) is marked for the south celestial pole rather than the north.

[Dave In Vermont]

Oh my!

I don't think I'll ask you where you got it. Nope. But that deserves a prize of some form.....

Dave

[Putaendo Patrick]

Nope - the polar scope is quite normal. Many reticle designs show Octans for use in the Southern Hemisphere. Older designs often  also show the Big Dipper and Cassiopeia, but more recent ones now don't for some reason. The scope will serve for both north and south.

As to the problem..... er.... my brain's packed up for the night!

[emyliano2000]

I didn't get the polar scope separately. It came in the box with the eq5 mount. It's the skywatcher polarscope. 

All I can think of is that it's got something to do with the rubber ring around the reticle or the app on my phone went a bit crazy and it wasn't showing the correct position. I'll install a second app to see if they show the same position of Polaris every time.

[DeepSkyBagger]

6 hours ago, Putaendo Patrick said:

Nope - the polar scope is quite normal. Many reticle designs show Octans for use in the Southern Hemisphere. Older designs often  also show the Big Dipper and Cassiopeia, but more recent ones now don't for some reason. The scope will serve for both north and south.

As to the problem..... er.... my brain's packed up for the night!

If this is normal, how are you supposed to line the stars up with those shown on the reticle? It's not sufficient to put Polaris in the right place, the other stars around it (in Ursa Minor, NOT Octans) must also be lined up.

[Linda]

This thread, https://www.eastmidlandsstargazers.org.uk/topic/11097-heq5-pro-polar-alignment-with-synscan/ , contains a post with the same reticle and a user manual. I'll copy it here.

 

Not that it is very clear (to me)...

[glowjet]

As far as I can see, what you did seems Ok. If after going through the procedures dealing with the mount, placing Polaris on the offset circle in accordance with its position, at the time shown by Polar Finder, you should be somewhere very close to the NCP. As far as the correct time, and this is just a suggestion, did you include for BST in your calculations ?

[Davey-T]

1 hour ago, DeepSkyBagger said:

If this is normal, how are you supposed to line the stars up with those shown on the reticle? It's not sufficient to put Polaris in the right place, the other stars around it (in Ursa Minor, NOT Octans) must also be lined up.

Just ignore any star pictures they've always caused confusion, use the circle with 6 at the bottom then adjust bolts to put Polaris where it shows in the app.

You can then keep an eye on it while viewing just to see if it's tracking round the circle and if necessary give it a little tweak to keep it on the circle.

Dave