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Originally Posted by sejanus
i thought I'd make a new thread rather than cluttering my old one.
so this is what I do right? 
make tripod dead level with spirit level
1) point mount exactly dead south according to magnetic compass
2) adjust elevation of scope to 34 degrees
3) manually position the south celestial pole or at least position octans in the viewfinder or polar finder of the eq6.
4) turn eq6 on and run the telescope alignment process
missing anything?
cheers |
Not sure...
It depends how accurate you want your alignment to be. If you are just visual observing, then what you are doing may be close enough.
But first, presumably you are correcting for magnetic declination at your location when pointing your scope "dead" south (meaning true south I assume)? Magnetic declination adjustment is what HOughy is referring to. For me in Oberon it's about -12 degrees i.e. when the compass is set to 168 degrees magnetic it is pointing to true south (180 degrees true).
So if you have your magdec right, then what you are doing above is probably OK for most visual observing. If you want to do any real accurate GOTO work or astrometry or imaging (particularly long exposure) then you might need to go the next step and drift align.
There are quite a number of threads in this forum covering drift alignment - try a search if you need more information, and then if you still have questions - don't hesitate to ask! Drift alignment is a skill well worth having, developing and maintaining!
Al.