Mastering Polar Alignment

[justgenius12]

Well, I have been at this some time and suddenly, it just clicked. I recently bought an Orion 90mm refractor with German Equatorial Mount. At first I figured, "ah, I'll just point the thing and see what I want". Only to find out that it is uncomfortable and sometimes impossible to use the slow motion cables and this mount this way. SO, I delved into the actual mechanics of how to do this and after about 5 tries and suddenly "getting it" I am enjoying the scope immensely.

It really is not as hard as I thought. I am now beginning to delve into setting circles and so on...

[admin]

rough polar alignment is fairly easyall you really have to do is read the basic instuctions (which 95% people dontLOL) and your well on your waynow precise polar alignment and using the circles is quite a bit more complicatedi believe your mount doesnt have the adjustable DEC, or the polarshaftso youll have to do a drift test after rough alignment and also have your lat scale set correctlywith the DEC the way yours isyoull have have to figure a correct offest for each side of the meridianreally its good to know and well worth the effort to understand itbut youll probably get more fun out just star-hopping

[justgenius12]

I got spoiled by my Dob. I really wanted a refractor of sufficient size, but was really put off by the mount, so I finally decided to just do it and start learning. I am not going as far as photography or lining up using coordinates, but I do get much more enjoyment out of the scope having learned the basics of the alignment, and yes it is rough, but the instrument operates so much easier when it is lined up and you work with the mount and scope as opposed to horsing it around on it's vertical axis, my neck was beginning to think I had made a big mistake.

[skywalker]

Euatorial, Dob, Fork: Equatorial works well on planets (south views), however near pole becomes abit of a hasstle to navigate,.. Dob gets tight in zenith, most have plus or minus in certain postions.... Fork Mount on ETX in auto, is smooth in most positions, except for zenith using finder, 90 degree finder helps...

[justgenius12]

Yes, I have discovered that near polar hassle. While I can line up the scope on the CP, trying to actually view polaris becomes a tight and almost no give situation, I view everything else just fine by swiveling the scope around freely.

[admin]

I have less trouble with Polaris than I do with some other objects. I sent the declination to 90 degrees, and use the azimuth (base) and latitude adjustments to point the scope at Polaris. Since I am not doing astrophotography, I ignore the RA of polaris, and then, with the latitude and azimuth locked, I get on with the night's observing. For visual observing, it isn't a problme to have to tweak the declination adjustment from time to time.