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Old 07-02-2013, 01:02 AM
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PRejto (Peter)
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Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Rylstone, NSW, Australia
Posts: 1,398
You have not asked about polar alignment, but I had difficuty with the last bit of adjustment in altitude. I picked up a great tip from the forum at Software Bisque. Namely, use the camera to make sure that when you adjust altitude you actually get what you have dialed in. It seems that for very small movements in altitude the mount may or may not move exactly as planned. You end up just chasing it up and down wasting too much time collecting a million points.

Here is how I did it and got it spot on. Align the camera so the X axis is parallel to motion in RA as suggested in the post above. Let's say that T-Point PA says you need to move the mount down by 1 tic, which is also given as "X" arcsec. First slew a location near zero dec and take a photo taking note of exactly where the mount is pointing. Then use the Jog control in TheSkyX to move the mount exactly the amount you need to move the mount, but move it in the opposite direction. In other words, move the scope up by x arc sec if you need to adjust the altitude down. Now go ahead and lower the mount and take another photo. If the altitude control responds exactly as planned the scope should be back pointing exactly where you started from. It probably won't be so just keep adjusting until you are back to the beginning location. I know some people use a video camera to do this but I couldn't be bothered to take off my regular camera, refocus, etc etc. It worked out great and I nailed the final bit of alignment. The tricky bit is knowing what direction you are moving when using the jog controls. Just experiment a bit to work it out.

By the way, it's worth pointing out two other important not so well known things about T-Point. It seems that the polar reports are not very useful if you collect fewer than 40+ points, except perhaps when the mount is very far out. It's also essential to collect points on east and west of the meridian, and finally, the T-Point polar alignment rountine is not iterative. According to Patrick Wallace if enough points are collected it is theoretically possible to align the mount in one go. That would be hard to do in reality, but the point is that each T-Point run has nothing to do with the previous run; the resuts say where to put the scope to be aligned. If you succeed in putting it where it says to put it you are done.

Anyway, that is my take on this. YMMV.

Peter
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