Quote:
Originally Posted by telemarker
Dave, I tried this method tonight and my mount was way off when using the crosshairs on the finder (on both the Alt and Az settings). What I did do though was to adjust one star with alt, move to the other and adjust the azimuth. By moving between the stars and adjusting only one setting at each of the stars, I had them passing through the crosshairs on a RA traverse in a couple of minutes. I'll try this again soon to see if I can replicate it.
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This is a correct way to do it.
However, the method will converge faster if you do polar axis elevation correction on whichever star is lower or higher in the sky.
The azimuth of the polar axis is then done on the other (whichever is more to the east or west).
Ideally, the stars should have RA difference of ~6 hours... and at the time the alignment is done they are positioned in the sky such that one is exactly above or under the SCP and another one to the left or right.
BTW, this method of polar alignment is exactly equivalent to the use of polar scope, except the above mentioned stars are much brighter than Octans stars and the accuracy could be better if higher magnification eyepieces were used. However, to achieve the maximum accuracy, the DEC difference between the two stars (01'40" or ~1/20 of Moon diameter) should also be considered and eventually corrected.