Quote:
Originally Posted by syousef
The altitude and azimuth co-ordinates of objects in the sky constantly change as the sky rotates so you need to look these up for the exact time you are aligning the scope. Against the imaginary "celestial sphere" nearby stars do change but only very slowly and this is called proper motion. Google it.
So unless you're picking stars with very high proper motion and your software can't calculate it, entering your GPS coordinates and time accurately into good sky chart or sky simulator software and looking up altitude and azimuth should be fine. (If you were pointing a large professional instrument for photographic or instrument work, you'd need to be much more precise)
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Hi,
I had been to the IISAC astrocamp and got to use a Dob mounted scope and the Argo Navis, and learnt how to do the two star alignment.
But for that, you need to know which star you're aligning with.
On the other hand, is it possible to achieve reasonable accuracy if we calibrate or align on the horizontal and vertical plane, thats 0 deg and 90 deg on the altitude axis say with a digital angle gauge, and use a compass to align the azimuth, so zero on the azimuth scale points to the pole?
just trying to understand, by aligning to the two stars, we're basically setting the offset from zero degrees in each axis? so can't we just align to zero in each axis if we have the right instruments?