[Deimos]

Originally Posted by [1ponders]

Hi Deimos. Welcome to the forum.

Thank you. Hopefully I'll be able to contribute something useful in the near future.

Originally Posted by [1ponders]

There are a number of ways to polar align your scope. Do you actually use the polar alignment scope to find the SCP? I've known a few people who have had LX75s and have found the polar alignment scope next to useless unless you actually know how to use it Bit of an ask for someone who is new to the mount.

I've tried using the polar scope, yes, but it's seems a very narrow FOV and to make things "interesting" is flipped both vertically and horizontally. The Meade manual speaks very little to its use in the southern hemispere.

One thing I thought of trying this afternoon (although I didn't get home in daylight to try it) was to point the polar scope at a distant object (like top of a Mt Coot-tha TV tower), align the OTA to the same point and draw reference marks on the RA/Dec axes. Then when I go to setup at the field I could lock-off the RA/Dec axes at those marks and then rotate the tripod/latitude adjustments until the stars I need are in the right place in the main scope. I should then be able to finish it off using the polar scope. Getting and keeping visual contact of the Octantis stars seems to be the hardest part for me, though.

Originally Posted by [1ponders]

Also have you trained the drives?

The agent I bought it from did this in-store, but I'm going to do it again.

Originally Posted by [1ponders]

The best suggestion I can give you is to learn to drift align. It isn't difficult to learn and you will need to be able to do it for imaging anyway. There is a great simulator available. Check out this post with the simulator link

I'll try that out as well.

Originally Posted by [1ponders]

Alternatively to the simulator you can join us tomorrow week at Astroron's for our monthly Cambroon (near Kenilworth) get together.

Thanks for your help and the invite. I'll be heading up to Mount Kent Observatory about 30km SSW of Toowoomba for the AAQ field night next Saturday (23-Sep).