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Originally Posted by Fox
If indeed Chi Octans is closest to the perimeter through the view in your PAS - then something is truely amiss with your PAS!
The only way I could see your PAS view being flipped/reversed/inverted would be if the manufacturers made some wrong patterns at one stage and you ended up with a dud one, or during assembly the recticle was inserted back to front (?). If the latter was true, do the 40' and 60' numbers to align Polaris look reversed as well? Your situation really sounds odd.
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Hey Fox,
Well yes the reticle patterns, including the 40/60' numbers for Polaris alignment against NCP, are readable and the Octantis trapezoid appears to be the correct way around based on the diagram I submitted. I'm leaning towards a barf of the optics at the factory, because the visuals through the PAS are most definitely flipped and mirrored.
I did find that the GOTO functionality was much improved the other night when I tried to do a drift alignment. I don't have a crosshair/grid reticle eyepiece for the OTA, so I was trying to do this with the OTA's finderscope which does. (Something else on the acquisition list, I guess - has anybody tried the
12.5mm Illuminated Reticle Eyepiece from MyAstroShop?)
I'm thinking the real secret to cracking GOTO accuracy is to not just align the alt/az (latitude/azimuth) adjustments to point at the SCP (and have the OTA returned to the Dec "home position"), but to also get the RA axis perfectly oriented so that its rotation matches the position of Octantis around SCP. At the moment all I've been able to do is return the RA axis back to the "home position" marked by the two triangles.
It's looking fairly clear tonight, so I'm going to try heading down to the field again and have another go tonight.
Thanks for your suggestions, guys.
Deimos.