Dave EK DSC what stars give best alignment?

[gd253]

I've made Dave's DSCs coupled to an ASUS eee notebook and use Cartes du Ciel as my skychart software.

System works really well and I'm very happy with it but was wondering how to improve the pointing accuracy? I'd like to ask other users of Ek DSCs what your favourite alignment stars for this time of year are and how far apart and what orientation (north/south, east/west) should they be if they don't happen to be visible from my location owing to trees and buildings getting in the way? I've had good success with Altair and Antares so far.

I'm in Brunswick, a Melb suburb.

--geoff

[gd253]

Don't all yell at once:P

[Barrykgerdes]

1. Stars that can easily be identified. Too many false alignments can be attributed to incorrectly identified stars.

2. Select stars that are around 45 degrees in elevation and as far apart as possible.

Barry

[kustard]

As Barry has said, try to pick stars that are as wide apart as possible and if you can, select ones that when joined with an imaginary line, the line passes as close to your zenith point as possible.

Just as a note, I have been asked to add in the Dave EK alignment stars into Alt Az Align iPhone app. I will be doing this when I get a block of free time (so maybe around Christmas).

Cheers,
Simon