Quote:
Originally Posted by peter_4059
If the alignment is out the star will appear to either drift north or south (ie in the same orientation as the scope moves in the Dec axis). If you are drift aligning at a star near the meridian and the star is appearing to drift north what is actually happening is the scope is tracking slightly south. To correct this you need to rotate the mount slightly clockwise using the jacking screws. For drift aligning in the east if the star appears to drift north - same issue - the scope is actually tracking slightly south - you therefore need to raise the altitude using the altitude jacking screws so the track of the scope is slightly more north.
Hope this helps but happy to demonstrate if you want (give me a call on the mobile). There is a good set of instructions that explains it well in the resources section of this site.
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Thanks Peter. Ok, so let me get this straight:
I'm facing south. I'm using my illuminated reticle through a diagonal on my refractor, so one mirror[1]. Say the dec axis is almost horizontal, established by using the top and bottom directional keys on keypad and seeing the stars move along that line. South is up, north is down, east is right and west is left? (
Got this from the drift article here) Place a star on the dec axis and it moves up/south. I need to rotate the mount counterclockwise?
Now I'm facing east. The dec axis is tilted low left to high right. I don't understand the definitions of NSEW here any more, because depending on what article I read, they seem to be different. I would think that east is upper left, west is down right, north is lower left and south is top right?
Place a star on the dec axis and it moves up/top left. Uh oh, that's east, not north or south as described in the article linked above. What have I assumed incorrectly?
[1] Does it matter which way the diagonal is rotated? Does it matter if I rotate it at different angles for south and east orientations?