Meade ETX90

[stephenmm]

Need some advice:
I purchased. Meade ETX90 as a travel scope as my Celestron 925 is too big and heavy to carry in our caravan. For the life of me I cannot polar align this unit???
As an example, if you point it towards the south and it skews to the first alignment Star, it is so far off, it is not possible to recover for a second star! I have tried all the suggestions in the manual and no joy. Without any successful alignment it is impossible to use any tracking for observation let alone any Astrophotography?
Stephen

[sharkbite]

Hi Stephen...

Are you sure you need to point it south?

I point my lx90 north and it works every time...

Cheers

[stephenmm]

Where are you? North or South of EQ

[alval]

Have you gone into the audiostar settings and changed the mount settings from alt/az to polar. That would certainly screw up alignment in polar, it is default set to alt/az.
Al

[stephenmm]

I have a feeling I have tried that but will try it anyway when I get home.
I am also uncertain as to whether to commence polar alignment you point it to the north or south. I would assume south but instructions for the Southern Hemisphere are vague. The instructions are designed for the north.

[tempestwizz]

Do you plan to image with this scope, or simply use visually? If the latter, then I’d suggest setting it to Alt/Az mode. The Autostar controller will sort it out from there. As far as I know, the scope should be then set level, and pointed North prior to the auto align procedure for best results.
Also need to set current time and location in the hand controller. Some have managed to mix up east and west longitude notation which would cause grief.
But for polar alignment, from memory, the scope is pointed at the Celestial Pole for initial position prior to auto align. (Depending on location, north or Southern Hemispheres)
HTH

[stephenmm]

I am still uncertain as to whether you point the scope to the SSP in the Southern Hemisphere and Obviously to Polaris if in the Northern Hemisphere? Or must you always point it to the NCP to begin alignment?:rofl:

[redbeard]

First of all you need to ensure that your tripod is setup for equatorial. Adjust the tilt mechanism on the mount to the correct angle for your location. In Adelaide I set to 35 degrees.
Next ensure the telescope is set to polar align in the hand box.

Next, point your scope south, (if you are in the southern hemisphere), with the correct offset for your location. In Adelaide I set mine to 138 degrees on the compass I think from memory. Check your location. This will give you rough alignment.

https://www.myastroshop.com.au/guides/polar-align-basic.pdf

You will then need to do a drift align or some other method to get close to good alignment.

I setup my ETX 125 once for polar alignment, (not really designed for polar but possible), which is very similar to your setup. I used the solar noon method and some string when I did mine and I used a laser pointer mounted to the scope to scan up and down the string to get good alignment by small adjustments in the day time.

Unless you are doing all the above or slightly different versions of above then I doubt you will be able to polar align your scope.

This is all done before you even think about doing any star alignment.

Cheers and good luck.

Damien.