Alignment

[pr0xibus]

I was wondering how can i do an allignment without seeing polaris or anything from north, north west to north, north east as im in the back garden my house blocks north

[John]

What scope do you have ?

With my equatorial mount (for visual use) I generally just point the polar axis towards the north using a compass. It seems to work well enough.

If you have a GOTO mount where you need to actually align on Polaris it might be more awkward ....

[pr0xibus]

Hi i have the skywtcher explorer 150pl with the 3-2 EQ mount.

Cheers for the reply i might just invest ina compass

[John]

Hi i have the skywtcher explorer 150pl with the 3-2 EQ mount.

Cheers for the reply i might just invest ina compass

I use a similar mount - a Celestron CG5. When you find a decent alignment and you are happy with the tracking of the scope, mark the place where the tips of the tripod legs go - then it's dead easy to plonk the scope down in the right place next session

[earth titan]

I use a sighting compass to align while I still have daylight. I get pretty damn close every time and certainly enough for general viewing.

When Polaris is out, tweaking can be done and as a ready check, I learnt a lovely little tip from another forum.

The EQ3 2 mount has a bung which covers up the hole for the polar scope, should you ever buy one. Take the bung out and look through the hole and even without the polar scope, Polaris should be in the middle (ish) of the hole.

Works a treat as a double check.