Quote:
Originally Posted by madwayne
Hi Tony
I think you're getting the two processes confused. Do your drift alignment to ensure that you are accurately aligned. The two or three star alignment is for your mount to know exactly where your telescope is pointing.
Adjustments in your drift alignment are done with the altitude and azimuth knobs on your mount. Corrections on your go to alignment are done with your hand controller so the mount knows how far off it is pointing.
With my EQ6 with good polar alignment my first star would be in the field of the finder. The second alignment star would be in the field of view of the eyepiece.
hope that helps.
Wayne
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Hi Wayne thanks for the reply. Hmmm I knew I was confused before; now I am more confused.
I understand that the 2- or 3-star alignment procedure is for telling the mount where it’s pointing. The Synscan software has a routine where, after the basic 2- or 3-star alignment, I can get it to improve the pointing accuracy – it goes to a star, then slews away a tiny bit and tells me to adjust the star back to the centre using the adjustment bolts, not the hand controller.
But after doing both of these procedures [and, of course, previously polar aligning the tripod and mount with a compass and clinometer app], I still found that the scope didn’t find stars particularly accurately and it didn’t keep track of them well – they started drifting across the field of view quite soon.
I read several articles on drift alignment and I think I interpreted the word “drift’ as implying that if I follow this procedure, I will be able to identify then eliminate drift in stars that I find and want to track. But this, too involves using the adjustment bolts. I didn’t think that this procedure is only for polar aligning, as it involves pointing the scope at stars in the east/west or even north!
So if I understand you, are you saying that the drift alignment procedure is only for aligning the mount and tripod with the celestial pole?
And that after I have done this, I still need to do the 2- or 3-star alignment to tell the mount where it’s pointing?
If that’s true, what should I do about the routine to improve the pointing accuracy [which means using the adjustment bolts again]?
Cheers
Tony