Dear IIS’s
When it comes to Polar Alignment with my old Meade LXD75 mount, I have always used the in-built polar scope with success. Whilst it can be a struggle at times, especially when the moon is bright, I’ve generally managed to pick out the four trapezium stars of Octans in the LXD75 reticle to achieve alignment. I'm told I am an oddball in my ability to do this, particularly from suburban Melbourne skies.
By contrast however, I haven’t been able to replicate this alignment success with my recently acquired AZ-EQ6. My reasons are that (i) I find the polar scope illumination control in the AZ-EQ6 quite inferior compared to the LXD75, and (ii) the AZ-EQ6 polar scope FOV reticle does not encompass all 4 Octans “trapezium” stars, making it a lot more difficult to find/identify Octans in the polar scope.
So I decided to take a chance on the iOptron iPolar - it arrived this week, and I tried the iPolar with the AZ-EQ6 last Thursday night, as follows:
The iPolar:- Installation was simple via mounting 2 collars in the polar scope port, followed by the iPolar camera unit.
- Booting up the unit automatically installs the drivers, and you then install the iPolar software from the iOptron website.
- Inputting the longitude/latitude was a tad quirky, but only needs to be done once.
- Follow the on-screen instructions: Press “Connect”, then in “Settings” you take a dark frame which can be updated anytime.
- There’s then only one button to set the exposure time (ms) which determines the number of stars detected - in my case with the moon rising and soon after twilight, I had to use high exposure 250 to 500ms.
- With first time use, you need to do a Confirm Position 1 & 2 with polar axis rotation, then you are ready to go.
- After all this, an initial shock ! - there was no ‘virtual pole’ on the PC screen. I soon discovered this was due to being way off the SCP target, so I needed to make coarse adjustments in azimuth/altitude to get the ‘virtual pole’ on screen.
- From then on it was a breeze, adjusting azimuth/altitude until the virtual pole and crosshair line up, which turns bright green when perfectly aligned.
A few more comments. The iPolar sticks out of the mount in a rather fragile way, and this is risky when trying to move a heavy mount, or packing it away. It’s probably best to remove the unit if you want to minimise risk. The mounting collars do the job but are not heavy duty. The supplied Mini USB cable was also somewhat short and stiff, so I prefer to use my own longer/thinner more flexible cable. But overall, polar alignment is easy and precise, making subsequent SynScan Star Alignment dead-on first go (27mm Panoptic in my NP127is, no finderscope needed). Sure, many of you will see no benefit in an iPolar or PoleMaster, because you might have drift alignment down pat, or use software/PC/camera techniques instead. But for some users who prefer a mount handcontroller only, this is a brilliant little device. No more soggy knees, twisted necks and scratched glasses for me - just wonderful, and worth the money in my book.
The AZ-EQ6:
I’m really impressed with this mount. Ok, it is heavy with the tripod, but first comment off the cuff - it’s a massive improvement over my Meade LXD75. The sturdiness and solidity are major leaps over my old LXD75, you feel the benefits immediately when looking through the eyepiece. Compared with the LXD75, it is virtually silent, has zero slop/backlash, and handles a well loaded Televue NP127is (~10kg and counting) with ease. Also of note, so far I notice very little image shift when I swap heavy eyepieces, so I’m hoping this may be helpful with planetary camera work down the road.
I was initially worried that the SynScan’s alignment star process was going to be a poor cousin compared to Meade AutoStar, but it’s not the case. To my delight, as far as I can tell SynScan makes very sensible choices of alignment stars based on time and location, and when combined with using the iPolar, star alignment is a real breeze. In addition, it’s here where aspects of the AZ-EQ6 shine through; the azimuth adjustment works fine (hint, make sure you don’t have the tripod spreader screw & mount screw knobs overly tightened at any stage) and in particular, the AZ-EQ6 large altitude jack screw bolt makes latitude adjustment with a fully loaded mount joyfully easy.
One concerning gripe, in Alt/Az mode, the AZ-EQ6 will happily strangle & cord wrap itself if you are not careful - there’s no excuse that SkyWatcher MUST sort this bug out with a software fix, I almost destroyed my SynScan power cable because of this.
In conclusion, one happy puppy!
Cheers
Fox
