polar alignment querie

[gel]

my flat is westerly facing, no backyard, about a 4 metre frontage surrounded by larger buildings, i can only see south very very high up, can i Blind cheat my mount(eq6 arriving shortly) with a good guess,ie: aim it at say 45 degrees and a little to the left of octans

[Dennis]

Hi Gel

Have a look at the azimuth and altitude jigs (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=14036)that I made for aligning in the daytime. The altitude “protractor” is on the 2nd page.

Using these jigs, I can get to between 1 and 2 degrees of the SCP.

Cheers

Dennis

[JohnG]

Hi Gel

Not to undermine Dennis's excellent solution, you may want to consider one of these for your elevation adjustment....

http://www.woodworksupplies.com.au/category116_1.htm

I use one of these whenever I move my field mount and have found that if you get your Lat and Long in digital format, you can adjust your elevation fairly accurately, infact accurate enough that you can do guided astrophotography without much of a hint of Field Rotation. Your azimuth still needs to be setup but that is not difficult.

I know of quite a number of people who use one of these in the field.

Cheers

[AlexN]

John, I use one of those, I used to do it with an analogue inclinometer that I bought at bunnings for a whooping great $20.. with that i could get it close... with digital, its spot on... Then perform azimuth drift alignment and start imaging... :)

Alex.

[gel]

thanks for the replies guys its getting to look like a favourable outcome might be achievable

[AlexN]

Shouldnt be too much of a problem mate..