Quote:
Originally Posted by vlazg
All phone apps are affected by proximity to metal, i used a piece of 1x2 wood about a metre long and put it on the mount at one end and the phone at the other which gave enough distance to counteract most of the effect
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I made a stick to do the initial alignment of the tripod for the same reason. Magnetic materials will deflect a magnetic compass.
I added a level to try to keep the tripod level. While the level is not necessary for Polar Alignment of the RA axis, it's necessary to use any software that helps with alignment by providing instructions to move the mount left, right, up or down.
http://www.astrophotosite.com/tiki-i...lignment_Stick
The stick pointing to true south (in my case) and a digital inclinometer to adjust the altitude of mount based on current latitude.
I image so use SharpCap to polar align. Note that SharpCap can use the Polemaster camera to do a polar alignment which is useful if you switch to setup with no guide camera.