Quote:
Originally Posted by Julian19_71
Hi Renato,
Thank for the tips! Gp2 is the vixen equivalent of eq3 I think. Ive been watching YouTube for some instructions but it seems the more vids I watch the more confusing it gets.
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Hi Julian,
I can understand your confusion, because when I got that mount, despite doing a lot of reading about star drift method and the like, I wasn't getting anywhere.
When I finally did get polar aligning down pat, on two nights I was there reading coordinates and using the setting circles to find objects - and it worked. But then I decided that it was stupid, as I was spending way too much time looking up and reading co-ordinates and setting them exactly with the Verniers on the telescope.
With the scope roughly pointed south, and the latitude set correctly on it, when I looked in the finder, rotating the RA and DEC controls, resulted in roughly going up and down, and left and right across the atlas page I was looking at. Which in turn made star hopping pretty simple, especially as I had a correct image finder, and a Telrad on the telescope.
The Telrad or any other red dot finder takes you to the closest bright star you can see on your atlas, then the 8x50 finder which is now on that star is used to hop across the image corresponding to your atlas to your object. With a little practice, it was much faster than using setting circles. When using a straight-through finder, I just turned my map upside down, and did the same.
Regards,
Renato