Polar Align without polar scope?

[TidaLpHasE]

Hello all, my question is can you polar align a mount without the polar scope, just by looking through the hole at a dark site?

And then fine tune it maybe with a drift align?

It's just that if i can get a cheap eq5 mount with motor drives, but without the polar scope, am i going to be able to set it up close enogh to the scp for imaging?

Thanks for any advice.
Trevor.

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Trevor, those of us without Polar scopes do it by sight.

How I do it is: I just get the mount roughly on the SCP area, then check the view in the EP (wide angle at first) to make sure I am pretty close, then I tweak the mount until I can get the SCP in a higher power. Then I do a drift align.

Works for me.

Others may have differing methods.

As far as using the hole for the Polar Scope, I imagine it would be fairly good as long as the hole is long. At least it will get you in the right area for drift aligning.

[JohnG (John)]

I wouldn't worry to much about looking throught the bore, it would be highly unlikely that you would be able to see much anyway, just roughly align and then do a drift alignment, you can't get anymore accurate than that.

My humble opinion.

JohnG

[TidaLpHasE]

Thanks Ken, i am now leaning towards a HEQ5 for an extra $100 or so on the price for the standard E5 with drives??

I am really looking for a cheap portable mount that i can drive to my dark sites, and set up for widefield imaging without the scope on the mount at all, which will make drift align a prob

Anyways i am deciding if the $879 is a good deal for the HEQ5, which comes with it's own s/h polar scope.

Or maybe sve some $$ and just take the ed80 out with me and do a drift align.

Why is it so hard to decide on anything astro it does my head in all the time.

[ving (David)]

sounds like a good deal to me

[xelasnave]

I would not be concerned if there is a polar scope or not. I offer my system which works very well for me.
Make sure your mount is level small but major point. Some mounts have a bubble (my eq5 has one) but if not get a spirit level for the kit.
The rational is if its level and you get the elevation right next time you errect the mount and level it it should be close for the elevation, point it South as best you can figure. I then point the scope at the pole (with the motors off) and take a time exposue so as to show little star trailed circles in the photo.. from there move correct the mount to get the circles in the centre of your frame. Doing this way often means I dont do a drift and if I do it is very close so there is little drift mucking about. I did it with the 150 ar and a 3x barlow and that was spot on...
Hope this is useful to you
alex

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Trevor, are you able to piggy-back the camera onto the ED80?

That way you will be able to keep an eye on the drift alignment during your photography night. (That's if the camera is lined up perfectly with the ED80)

[seeker372011 (Narayan)]

and a lot of people will tell you that a polar scope really doesnt work all that well anyway and you really need to drift align

I have been following Alex's method for months and I haven't had to drift align ever since. The main advantage is that it is so intuitive..when I was drift aligning I always had to refer to a laminated sheet with instructions given to me by Zane (astroboy)..could never remember which way to move

With alex's method am routinely able to get 10 mins (autoguided) exposures and often 15 to 20 minutes..so its certainly gets you close enough. Still takes me a fair amount of time though to get polar aligned

[xelasnave]

I am happy to hear it has worked so well for you Seeker. I lkie the fact that you feel as though you know whats going on also. Even now I get confussed with drift. The other thing I plan to implement prior to a pier or the observatory completion (if that will ever happen only been 2 years I think) is a fixed laser on the mount. The dot on a tree can be marked so next time out you line the dot up on the tree and in theory you should have the same allignment as the night before.
alex