Thread: Star Align
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Old 17-01-2021, 11:48 PM
raymo
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raymo is offline
 
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: margaret river, western australia
Posts: 6,070
Hi Geoff, your finderscope problem is probably that the finder is not accurately
aligned with the scope; to do this, during daytime centre something such as
a street sign a couple of hundred metres away in the scope, and then adjust the finder until the sign is centred in the finder. Finders have a field of view of around 7 or 8 degs, which is about 15x the field of view of the scope at prime
focus; you certainly don't need a larger field of view than that.
There is no altitude and azimuth movement on an equatorial mount.
The axis that the counterweights rotate around is called right ascension,
and the axis that rotates the saddle that the scope sits on is called declination.
The left and right buttons operate the R.A. which moves the counterweights, and the top and bottom ones operate the Dec axis which rotates the scope left or right. If the polar alignment is accurate, the R.A. motor rotates the mount against the direction of the Earth's rotation, thus keeping the stars stationary.
raymo
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