Polar alingment

[blinky]

OK, I have been trying to get my head round the Rubbish instructions that I downloaded for my EQ5 mount. I am a bit confused when it comes to the accuracy of polar alingment. Polaris is slap bang behing my house so when the 'scope is on the patio I cannot line it up. Is it OK to just get a compass and align to north that way? I will be doing some webcam photos (That will no dount be subject to another flurry of posts from myself ) of the moon and hopefully the planets. The other thing is the height or angle adjuster of the mount, I think I have done it correctly, I set it to 55degrees for Edinburgh, will that be OK?

If using a compass is not OK, I can move the 'scope further out into the garden and hopefully catch glimse of Polaris that way. I have downloaded a program from http://www.polarfinder.co.uk/ it gives a couple of live diagrams of what you should see through the polar scope. Is all I do look through the polar scope and turn the scope till the picture looks the same? or am I missing something here as well?

I did not realise that setting up polar alingment was so tricky Maybe one of you experts should do a guide to polar alingment post.

[Astroman]

http://www.stargazing.net/astroman/Alignme.html

Already done.

[MartinB]

Astroman's article covers things very well Blinky. However, for rough and ready visual stuff you will be ok lining the mount up using a compass and setting your altitude to match your location. Polar alignment isn't critical for the imaging you are planning since it will all be with short exposures. You will need to make occn corrections when imaging planets at high magnification.

[scotty365]

The problem that I had was seeing anything thro the polar scope! I could only make out a faint star and could not see the alignment diagram atall making it impossible, it may be conditions that night or LP, dose anyone have any tips on this problem?

Scotty

[LITTLE COL]

sounds like poor sky conditions to me or dew on your polar scope

:? :?

[moondog]

Scotty

I presume the polar scope doesn't have red light illumination ?

If so you will have difficulty seeing the diagrams.

Shine a red torch ( as dim as you can get it) into the top of the polar scope this should illuminate the diagrams.

My HEQ5 does have a red light illuminator built in since I upgraded to go-to and it's a great help.

8)

MD

[LITTLE COL]

good idea i might try that myself

col