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Originally Posted by anthony2302749
Hi Al
I have been reading the manual to nut this problem out and find It is a bit screwy in places.
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Yes.
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Originally Posted by anthony2302749
1. Before starting the alignment procedure the manual ask you to aligned the index marks on both the right ascension and declination axes. I would assume this is done before powering up the mount.
2. The manual then repeats the same set of instruction in Step 2 on page 19. If it was done as per paragraph one, page 19 why repeat the instructions. Step 2 to should real say "If you have not aligned the index marks on the mount the hand controller will prompted you to do so, and then suggest ways to correct the problem.
My suggest would be to align the index marks manually prior to powering up the mount.
3. Entering the time and date is not a problem, but location is, the manual is obviously written for the northern hemisphere in mind and gives no explanation of how to set the coordinates for locations in the southern hemisphere other then go look up appendix list.
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Now that you mention it there was some doubt when I first fired up the mount... but I'm used to it now... well I should say I was... I don't have to do that anymore now that I have the GPS!
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Originally Posted by anthony2302749
4. The other thing I find strange is the alignment procedure. Reading "Auto Align" it states the following:
Once the telescope is finished slewing to your first alignment star, the display will ask you to use the arrow buttons to align the selected star with the crosshairs in the center of the finderscope. Once centered in the finder, press ENTER.
The display will then instruct you to center the star in the field of view of the eyepiece. When the star is centered, press ALIGN to accept this star as your first alignment star.
Why two key strokes, one would be enough no wonder it takes so long to complete a alignment proccess. The commonsence way of doing it would be to instruct the use to sight the alignment star with the finderscope first then center the star in the EP and then press ENTER. This is how you do it with the LXD75 mounts.
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The CG-5 changes slew rate on the drive when you press the Enter key to make it easier to centre the star in the EP, that's all. Once you get the hang of changing slew rates on the hand controller, this wouldn't be an issue at all. When I was new to the drive I didn't mind it doing that... except when I hit the Align button accidentally instead of an arrow button and it aligned on nothing!
But you're right, the procedure is slow and could be simpler! I would really like to understand the maths the drive does... how much does initial misalignment affect the so called cone error that it calculates?
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Originally Posted by anthony2302749
Anyway what I am trying to do is re-write the manual in regards to Alignment process so that it makes sense. Give me a couple of days.
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I used to struggle through the auto align and then do a drift align... and it all becomes a bit tedious. These days, if I'm just doing some quick observing or some planetary imaging where some drift is not critical, I just do a compass alignment, then auto align. If I'm planning to some more accurate imaging and want to accurately drift align, I'll do the compass alignment, a quick align (the CG-5 just models the sky) then drift align. Then I'll power down and up again and do the auto align to calculate the cone error. Sounds messy doesn't it?
I have found that my dec alignment marks are about 1mm inaccurate (checked by looking through the eyepiece while rotating round the RA axis).
Al.