How interpret RA/Dec coordinates to find stars with eq mount?

[mbaddah]

Hi all

I've recently purchased an heq5 pro mount, and was wondering how one goes about interpreting ra/dec coordinates to find stars at anytime during the night?

Your help would be greatly appreciated thankyou.:thumbsup:

[bmitchell82]

Well im not exactly sure of how to do it but i know one thing is cirtain. that is your polar alignment has to be dead eye d1ck! and i mean spot on, because if it isn't then its a pointless affair.

From my understanding you have to calibrate your scope or do a bit of math to be able to calibrate it. There is a whole heap of things that make it not easy for a drag and drop setup a Permanent mount makes life easy.

good luck (start saving for the goto :D)

[kinetic]

Go no further than right here on IIS:

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/projects.html
A heap of great tutorials by very knowledgeable people.

Maybe a start here on Polar aligning:
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/63-498-0-0-1-0.html

And here for a few tips on RA and DEC setups on a similar
mount, a CG5 (lots of helpfuls pics)
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/63-487-0-0-1-0.html

Steve

[Geoff45]

Are you using the goto or do you want to use the setting circles manually?

[mbaddah]

For the moment just wanted to use the circles manually, once used to it then use the goto feature (on my Heq5 Pro).

Cheers for the help :)

[NCRAW]

I printed out the polar alignment one and had a read yesterday. Wow!! thank you very much to the author and poster for the info. This is the kind of write up us beginners need.

Though this is enough to set you up for observing, I believe I can use the info to polar align using the alignment scope, is this correct? (by setting up the tripod to south and all that, it is pretty much then finding Octans on the scope, correct?)

[Geoff45]

As pointed out above, you must first have good polar alignment. Once you have done this, you can move onto the circles.

Pick a star that you know (Sirius, Canopus etc) and look up its RA and Dec values in a star atlas or sky software. Center the star in the eyepiece. Adjust the dec circle so that it reads the same as the star's dec. This may be correct anyway and is a one-off adjustment. Next move the RA circle so that it reads the same as the star's RA. This has to be reset from night to night, or even during the same night if you are planning a really long session. (The reason for this is that stars transit every 23hr56min and we use 24 hour solar time, so the 4min/day needs to be taken care of). Once you have set your circles for the night, just look up the coordinates of whatever object you want, then move the scope so that the circles are set to these coordinates. I suggest you practice finding some easy (naked eye) objects first so that you get a feel for how close you can get.
Geoff