Meade north or south

[rae]

My Meade auto star instructions with alignment is north but should I be south? I have always got a significant distance to move the scope for it be on the star with the compass and two star alignment with first setup. Appreciate advice :help:

[acropolite]

When aligning Alt/Az Start with the OTA pointing True north and level and make sure the time and lat/long are correct.

My LX 90 is the same, the alignment stars are never in the FOV. If your alignment is Ok your goto's should fall near centre with the stock 26mm ep.

[AndrewJ]

Gday Rae

Agree with Phil, Use True north and level for best results.
( Meade use the word North to make it simple, but what you are really doing is pointing the OTA to Alt = Az = 0, so the scope knows roughly where it is pointing when it starts its first slew)
If you have a good idea of true Nth, the first align star should normally end up in the main EP, and certainly be well within the finder.
If you have a relatively constant setup area, do an align as per normal and if the gotos are good, use the hbx to slew to DEC = -90 ( with any RA ). Now turn off the scope.
Release the DEC clutch and manually slew the OTA down to level.
The OTA is now pointing to true South, ie the side of the OTA is parallel to the line of true Nth/Sth. Make a mark of this for future setups and its done.

Andrew

[acropolite]

You can also find true south by the solar noon method.

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=5690