Aligning Polarscope setup in daytime

[Aramcheck]

Some youtube video's recommend setting up the alignment of the polar scope reticule using a distant TV aerial or similar instead of viewing a star & fiddling around with allen keys at night. This seemed sensible to me, but when I look through the polar scope on our new "Sky-Watcher AZ-EQ6 GT Pro GEQ & Alt-Az Astronomy Mount" in the daytime, all I can see is the reticule illuminated against the red background (irrespective of the SunScan LED power setting). Is this right for this type of mount, or am I doing something wrong?

So far we've only had chance to use the mount at night once, and though I managed to view & roughly position polaris on the magic circle, it was a literal pain in the neck... (In future I've decided to use a webcam for this task!)

On a related matter - the instructions which came with the scope say to rotate the RA axis until the the 0 o'clock of the reticule is at the highest point in the polarscope FOV. This seems like it's rather subjective, so is there any way of rotating the reticule so that it's automatically in this position when the scope is in the home position? (I've worked around it by doing this in the daytime, with the polarscope at a more ergonomic orientation & then making a note of how much the RA needs to be rotated to achieve this... but it just seems a bit poor considering how well the mount is otherwise engineered.)

Cheers
Ivor

[JamesF]

You may need to try to focus on something further away.  Though actually a lot of the polar scope setup can be done without needing to be in focus, as long as you can make out some detail.

James

[Erling G-P]

Not sure if it's the same for the AZ-EQ6 GT Pro, but for my HEQ5 Pro, I have to:

1. Remove polar scope lens cap

2. Turn saddle 90º

3. Extend counter weight bar

Otherwise the view through the polar scope is blocked.  Apologies if you've already thought about this, but one or the other has fooled me a few times.  When doing the setup in daytime, I would do it with the mount turned off, as the red light isn't needed and could potentially cause problems with the view.

 

With regards to the 0/12 o'clock position, I saw a clever way to set this described here in the forum:

1. Center polaris in the polar scope view, with the center cross

2. using only vertical adjustment, move it up to the circle - this should place it precisely in the 0/12 o'clock position.

This method requires that the mount is absolutely level however, and the one time I tried it, I got a substantiallly less precise polar alignment, than what I have achieved by just 'eyeballing' the 0/12 o'clock position, presumably because my means of leveling the mount aren't precise enough.

 

Cheers,

Erling G-P

[Cornelius Varley]

2 hours ago, Aramcheck said:

Some youtube video's recommend setting up the alignment of the polar scope reticule using a distant TV aerial or similar instead of viewing a star & fiddling around with allen keys at night. This seemed sensible to me, but when I look through the polar scope on our new "Sky-Watcher AZ-EQ6 GT Pro GEQ & Alt-Az Astronomy Mount" in the daytime, all I can see is the reticule illuminated against the red background (irrespective of the SunScan LED power setting). Is this right for this type of mount, or am I doing something wrong?

So far we've only had chance to use the mount at night once, and though I managed to view & roughly position polaris on the magic circle, it was a literal pain in the neck... (In future I've decided to use a webcam for this task!)

On a related matter - the instructions which came with the scope say to rotate the RA axis until the the 0 o'clock of the reticule is at the highest point in the polarscope FOV. This seems like it's rather subjective, so is there any way of rotating the reticule so that it's automatically in this position when the scope is in the home position? (I've worked around it by doing this in the daytime, with the polarscope at a more ergonomic orientation & then making a note of how much the RA needs to be rotated to achieve this... but it just seems a bit poor considering how well the mount is otherwise engineered.)

Cheers
Ivor

If you are just checking the collimation of the polarscope then there is no need to power up the mount.

[Aramcheck]

Thanks everybody for the replies.

I've just checked it again without powering up & the collimation is fine. Erling G-P hit the nail on the head - I had forgotten to extend the counter weight bar!

As a bonus the reticule is already perfectly centred too, which is great news.

Cheers

Ivor