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Hi Nebs
Welcome to Ice In Space and congrats on acquiring your telescope.
As you probably know, there are (mainly) 2 types of mounts:
Alt-Azimuth
Equatorial.
Alt-Az mounts are the simplest design and let you swing the ‘scope in Altitude (up-Down) and in Azimuth (Left-Right) easily and intuitively, a bit like aiming a canon! To follow a star, planet or the Moon as they rise, you move the scope on the mount in a series of small diagonal steps, a bit like a staircase; up a bit, left a bit, etc.
Equatorial mounts are designed to align one axis (Right Ascension or RA) of movement parallel with the Earth’s axis of rotation so you can then move the scope on the mount smoothly in one axis only.
So, to set up your Equatorial mount, you would need to do the following:
Place the tripod so that the RA axis is facing due South (you can use a compass) and set the altitude to the Latitude of your location – 38 degrees as you describe. You’ll have to read your manual for this as I don’t know how your particular mount works.
This will set up the mount so that you can follow any object as it rises just by using the slow motion movement of the mount.
The Declination of the South Celestial Pole is -90 degrees.
Cheers
Dennis
PS - Magnetic South and the SCP are not the same. In Brisbane, the SCP is 11 degrees E of Magnetic South as found using a magnetic compass.
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