Thread: Finding South.
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Old 05-11-2023, 08:55 AM
xelasnave's Avatar
xelasnave
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xelasnave is offline
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Tabulam
Posts: 17,003
Finding South.

Startreck recent post re finding South is a great thing to know

Now I offer something similar if you have a camera on your scope that not only will find South but even get you very close to establishing the Celestial South Pole...AND will help folk who may not be around in the middle of the day...AND I once used this method to polar align back in the day where drift align was the way it was done which I found a hair pulling exercise.

At some time in the day light but you could do this at night...with your camera on scope point your polar scope at something and make sure you camera is in sync..each centred..

Now set your mount up pointing where you guess South may be ..do not turn on tracking..and elevate to the angle of your latitude...next take a time exposure...you will see that the stars make arcs in your photo...then move your mount via adjustment to get the centre of projected circle of those arcs in the centre of your image..taking another time exposure and hopefully you are closer and just keep at it so you have your star trails centre in the centre of your image.

If you can mount your DLSR on your mount that will also work...just go for the longest F/L in your lens kit.

Get the idea? If not ask and I will explain ...it is simple but often simplecthings explained sound complex...its not.

alex
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