Can I Use an AZ GTi Indoors?

[David Smith]

Might seem an odd question, I'll explain. My southern horizon is full of trees obscuring the big planets from view from anywhere in my garden. I'm not keen to cart my kit off to some field to do planetary observing / imaging but really miss the big planets. So I thought maybe could just observe from an open bedroom window? We have a south facing bedroom window and Jupiter and Saturn clear the tree line around 10pm now. The only mount I have at the moment is my CG-4 which is not very practical to cart upstairs and setup but I do have a Manfrotto 190XPRO4 which I use for photography and could deploy as an alternative given a suitable head. For visual I could put the Skymax 127 on an AZ5 but would like to try my hand at some imaging which would really necessitate a driven mount. So my plan would be to pick up an AZ GTi, mount it on the Manfrotto, add the Skymax 127 and away we go. The bit I'm unsure of is if I can get a basic alignment from the bedroom window. As I understand it you can do a one star align with this mount but I cannot find a list of available stars to choose from?

Any assistance gratefully received.

Thanks

David

 

[xtreemchaos]

of course you can David, anything is possable if ye put you mind to it, look at it like a challange and it will work honist 😀. charl.

[laudropb]

Hi David. I believe there is a point and track function with the GTi mount. I have not tried it myself but I will have a look later.

[David Smith]

50 minutes ago, xtreemchaos said:

of course you can David, anything is possable if ye put you mind to it, look at it like a challange and it will work honist 😀. charl.

I love your optimism Charl

[robhatherton]

Yes you could do a one star alignment, there’s plenty to choose from and then each time you go to an object the mount prompts you to finally centre the star (or whatever) and then your alignment becomes more accurate. If you can, start the mount from level and pointing north, that helps.