HEQ5PRO mount setup

[Jeffkop]

Hi everyone
The newbie star-gazer is slowly digesting all things polar aligning, etc. To that end I have discovered an anomaly I think. The mounts front ,or pointing leg has a HUGE "N" on it .. North I guessed. So I tried to follow the setup procedure that came with it, not very verbose at all. After many questionable results I sat down and thought about exactly what I was trying to achieve here and got to a point where I think I had the mount pointing to true North and had the latitude set for my area and the longitudinal adjustment right. So then I arced up the synscan and went thru the setup and did a 3 star alignment. Now its pissing down here at the moment but I have Stellarium on my PC, so I judged the mounts rough pointing direction with the stars position in the software. All was reasonably close in my estimation EXCEPT it was all transposed. If the scope was supposed to be pointing say SW and at lets say 50 degrees it was pointing NE at 50 degrees ... IE it would have been perfect if I had the mount pointing South not North. Is this correct ?? It just seems TOO coincidental to me.
Thanks Jeff

[Zuts]

Hi,

If you are in the southern hemisphere the mount should be pointing south, at the SCP (South Celestial Pole). The 'N' on the mount indicates it was made for a Northern Hemisphere audience.

This does not mean it cant be used in the South, just the markings are incorrect for you.

Of course when you are drift aligning in RA, the telescope should be pointing North, intersection of celestial equator and meridian or thereabouts, the mount head pointing South.

Paul

[joshman]

ahhhhhhhhh, you have the skywatcher HEQ5 i take it? i have the same mount (without all teh fancy goto stuff) you, ignore the 'N' the mount is 'made' for the northern hemisphere, all you've gotta do is point the 'N' leg south instead, and she'll work like a dream!

[Kokatha man]

Hi also Jeff - as Zuts and Joshman have already said: N is S for us "downunder" - and being the pedantic b#@** I am I covered my N with an S (but mebbe that's cos I get lost occasionally.....now where am I.....)

Sounds like you could be right about being "transposed" if you set it up pointing North; my heads too fuzzy at the mo to work it through! Hope you remembered to level the tripod assembly first - I use a "bulls-eye" bubble level that fits nicely into the well in the tripod head (before you put the mount on) - when the bubble is concentric in its centre-circle it gives a pretty good indication the tripod's level every whichway. They're the types they use to level fridges etc.

You may like to think about marking the ground where you set your tripod/scope up if you do it in the same place regularly - that's if it is on concrete or a deck or somesuch. It helps with not having to align from scratch each set-up.

Putting some masking tape around the tripod legs (not covering their very bottoms) and once you've got it level and pointing south (don't forget the variation between geo and magnetic south for your area) just spray some marker paint onto the concrete etc around each leg. Mark the S leg "spray-shadow" (ie the one marked N) on the ground too and you can plonk your scope back in that spot next time with half the job done!

This forum has plenty of great threads/article on polar aligning and drift aligning.