Quote:
Originally Posted by Starkler
I have just been playing with the mount again and tonight it is behaving more like I would expect.
My next challenge is polar aligning. In my suburban backyard with the moon out I cant see *any* stars in the polar scope and yes I checked to see that the dec was rotated to the right place first. Are the octans stars normally that hard to see?
This drift aligning caper is going to take some working out.
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Alan Gould and I have had a few discussions re the HEQ5 Pro, centred around the polar scope in this forum Geoff - have you set up the reticle itself in the daytime? That's the process of aligning it with some fixed distant object and adjusting the reticles "alignment" with the allan key to make sure its' position is "stable" relative to scope axis movement: a "must do" before successfully employing the polar scope.
I nearly didn't bother because of the "erratic" adjustment jumps caused by the grub screw "tuning" but persisted: even though I can see Sigma Octans with my naked eyes (but can't read my mobile phone screen!) I must confess that I think it's good for people to familiarize themselves with the Octans area via some reasonable binoculars first, to get a hang of the neighbourhood.
As Alan comments, the LED illumination is over-bright: flicking it on and off is one way of seeing the reticle and synchronizing it with the Octans reticle in the polar scope.
I had thought of a brightness control for the LED (some just don't use it) but I don't generally bother too much with the polar scope - have just checked through it a couple of times after starting to dismantle my gear following an ob session to see what it said!
I align my main scope via a 12.5mm illuminated reticle ep, employing one of those devices that cause so much concern in Victoria; the green laser pointer. I've modified them (one for each scope) so that they have remote (but not wireless yet!) switching and better/more stable and accurate positioning in Lumicon holders - iceman will download my submitted Mk1 article on this soon : I flick 'em on, hit Sigma Octans with the green beam and then look into my scope's ep to get its' x-hairs smack on the SCP - drift aligning is often unnecesarry (not that I'm imaging as yet) because I can hold objects in the cross-hairs of that 12.5 mm ep without any troubles for ages. Obviously I've my laser well-aligned with my scope..... and it helps to have the roomy padded carry box I've made to keep each scope in, that "suspends" and protects things like finders etc from being "knocked" out of wack.
Initial set-up is also expedited because I have an old survey compass with magnifying prism that I can read off one-eigth of one degrees from - it is fixed to a tube "stalk" when in use, that has a round wooden "plug" at its' base that fits snugly into the 60mm deep circular recess atop the tripod.
This isolates the compass from any magnetic interference from the bolt that affixes the tripod top to the EQ head. Naturally, the bolt is screwed right down below the bottom of the "well" for this procedure; necessary also for using a "bullet" bubble level that sits nicely in this recess for initial mount levelling.
Regards.....