Quote:
Originally Posted by DarkKnight
Too simplistic huh ?
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not at all, but you are missing something.
It's one thing to know your GPS coordinates but that won't tell you which direction north/south is, in order to set your mount to the correct azimuth.
I suppose you could note the telescope position then talk a walk for say 50 metres and watching a map app, walk until you are due south or north of the mount according to the map, place a marker and align the azimuth to that. You'd be able to position yourself roughly that way but it won't be very accurate.
Secondly the compasses in smartphones are not all that accurate - take a star map app such as Sky Safari, and you'll see how far off it can be.
The bright stars themselves are easy beacons if you know their declination from an atlas. simplest way to get the mounts azimuth aligned is to use a known star east or west as the azimuth reference, and to use the dec circle on your mount as I described.
Drift aligning has always struck me as a fiddly and slow way to do it, the way I describe will get you well aligned in 5 minutes without trial and error.