polar and telescope alignment

[Astro Alan]

Hi

I'm new to telescopes so hope this isn't a stupid question.

I have aligned my heq5 mount to Polaris (roughly anyway as I can't see it through the polar scope)

The telescope is now in a strange position. The instructions say to return the telescope to the home position. Doesn't that undo my polar alignment. By home position what does it mean.

Hope someone can help.

[leenewtoastro]

so the ota "tube" looks parallel to the polar axis.

vertically and horizontally

[Astro Alan]

Thanks for the reply. I'll try that. Doesn't changing the ra position knock off the polar scope. I had set this for the date and time.

[Digz]

The polar scope needs to be 'calibrated' so that polaris is positioned in a given place for a given time (polaris transit).

You then use this to polar align.

With my mount, when I have entered all the info I get a Polaris transit time and clock position. I can then rotate my RA axis so I get the Polaris transit time aligned with the marker. When I look through the polar scope Polaris should be roughly in the clock position identified. For example I might be told the transit time is 12:00pm and the clock is 6:00. So when I look through the polar scope, after setting the RA axis to 12:00, Polaris should be positioned in the 6 o'clock position. This obviously only works when the polar scope is calibrated.

You can then align to polaris and thats it. It doesn't matter then what position your RA ends up in as the alignment has been done.

HTH

[RogerTheDodger]

The idea is to align the mount so that in the RA axis you follow the motion of the stars, once done the telescope can be moved again.

[Zakalwe]

Imagine a line drawn from the North Celestial Pole through the RA axis of the mount (where the polarscope is located). As Digz has said, once you have positioned the mount so that Polaris and the polarscope are in the correct orientation, then the RA axis on the mount is pointing towards the North Celestial pole along the imaginary line. As long as you do not knock the tripod, or touch the Alt/Az or latitude bolts, then any rotation in the RA axis of the mount just rotates around NCP.

[Astro_Baby]

And you can only look through the polarscope when the mount is turned through its dec, take the polarscope front cover off and look down the hole, you will see the dec axle blocks the view.....rotate the teleecope through its dec axis and you will eventually see the top of the polarscope and you can then look thru it

[Penfold]

And don't forget to drop the counterweight rod.... Obviously I wouldn't be stupid enough to forget such a thing.

[Astro Alan]

Thanks everyone for all your posts. I understand what I'm doing now.

[Digz]

And don't forget to drop the counterweight rod.... Obviously I wouldn't be stupid enough to forget such a thing.

Hahaha, I remember doing that when i first got my mount. Was getting really angry that I couldn't see anything through the polar scope. Thought I had a duff set up until I realised I needed to drop the counterweight bar (and rotate the Dec axis!!!)