Polar Scope Reticle Frustrations.

[Earl]

I can get this almost there with very little drift but I cant for the life of me get the final spot on, any tips?

[Digz]

Dont think I can help but Im certainly interested in the responses here. Also what exactly are your frustrations? Im interested incase they are the same as mine lol.

[Earl]

Basically i can get it almost spot on but no closer. with very little movement but its still there.

[Digz]

Are you talkin about actually lining up with polaris? or aligning the reticule with the polar axis of the scope?

[Earl]

ah yeah sorry, Aligning with the polar Axis of the scope.

[Digz]

ah right. I was lucky there, mine was pretty damn spot on. I take it you are slacking two screws and tightening the third? What I did notice was a slight movement in your observing position meant your target moved a fair bit, which was frustrating.

[OzDave]

Yes, I had the same problem with my scope. Its quite tricky to do and you get quite close and then its really tricky to get it dead on.

I think I just persevered and tried to make tiny tiny adjustments after I got close, and eventually I think it got close enough that I found it difficult to see any misalignment, which is probably close enough really.

In fact, aside from just wanting it to be perfect, assuming you did have it perfect, there is probably more error in the actual polar alignment routine because you have to guess where to rotate the mount in RA to locate the circle where Polaris goes. And there's not really a good way to do that with a lot of accuracy.

So if you really care about precise polar alignment, you still have to do a drift alignment anyway.

David

[ollypenrice]

It isn't worth busting a gut over this. Get it close and that will be fine for visual use. For imaging a quick drift adjustment will nail it.

Olly