[montewilson (Monte)]

This question is to anyone who has used the inbuilt Takahashi polar scope. In particular I would be interested hear from Mike Sidonio as I know he uses one regularly on the NJP.

I have an EM-200 which I guess uses a similar polar scope. I tried using it once at Ilford with no luck. Sure I read the instructions but obviously I got something wrong.

My guess is that maybe I got the wrong star for the Simga Octans or I am making a mistake on the time zone offset.

Sigma Octans is a slightly yellow star isn't it? The others in the field are much bluer and fainter.

Ilford is at 149 46' E deg so from what I can tell that places it .25 deg behind the mid point of our time zone. That means I should be offsetting the time zone mius .25 deg. Is that right? Or is is plus .25 deg?

When it works how good is it? I have problems with aligning, in so much as an STL-11000 and FSQ produce a big field and therefore field rotation is a constant issue on long exposures.

If you get it right with the Polar Scope do you have to do any further drift aligning afterwards?

I have tried to train with it in Sydney but the light pollution makes it impossible to see the Sg Oct in the scope so I can only test it in the country and that is not often enough to be proficient with it.

Regards

Monte