Struggling with Polar alignment

[Davie]

I'm pretty embarrassed about this one but "if you don't ask you don't get" I usually say so...

As the signature says I've a Sky Watcher 130 reflector sitting on a EQ2 mount borrowed from the brother in law. I know the basics of Polar Alignment but just cant seem to get Polaris in my sights. One thing I've noticed is that if you set the angle of the scope to my Latitude of 57 degrees the scope looks to be pointing quite low, also I've been having trouble with my finder scope. As mentioned above it's borrowed so I dont want to wreck it by tightening the 3 screws to much that hold it in place but but it seems to slip while adjusting the focus even with them well "nipped up", the cross hair is also off centre but I've marked up the focus dial so that I stop it in the same place all the time.

Just a bit frustrated that I can't get something that should be simple not to work. I'm still finding things by manually lining up the scope roughly and scanning the area untill I find what I'm after but it would be nice to get it to work as intended.

Any tips welcome

[msinclairinork]

Hi Davie,

As an alternative to using the finder scope, you can use your main scope and to find polaris start with a low power eye peace and work your way up the powers to get better accuracy.

Also finding North by using just polaris alone can be less accurate as you think so I would sudgest using a compass too. I found this out the hard way, I thought I knew where North was by drawing an imaginary line from polaris to the horizon, but when it comes to polar alighning I was way off!

Also yes you do need to set your Lat to your location but this is not accurate on any mount, so when you have your mount pointing north and your scope 'parked' find polaris by only adjusting the latitude screws (remember loosen one as you tighten the other) and the azimuth screws (same goes for them). Also Like i said try this first with a low power EP maybe 20-30mm and work your way up to the most high power you have (maybe 10-5mm?) to achive better accuracy.

Don't worry about getting it perfect as for observing you only need the most basic of PA.

Good luck, let us know how you get on!

HTH

Michael

[jumpclone]

don't think i have ever really polar aligned, i just pont my mount in the general direction, set it to whatever latitude i want, jupiter is real low on the horizon for me, as is saturn when i look, so setting my lat to 52 degrees is just to high, im always farting around with settings..

[Davie]

I'll hopefully get another play about before I head back to work on Thursday

thanks for the replies though