[Barrykgerdes]

Hi

I have a HEQ5 Pro with the polar scope. I have not had a chance to use it in Sydney yet but I used it at Wiruna this month and after eventually identifying Sigma Octans and lining it up with the gratical marking I found it was quite accurate to do a goto with the synscan controller without any further alignment by starting from the home position and syncing the first alignment star.

The FOV of the polarscope is about 6 degrees. I set my mount to -33 00 00 (Wiruna House) with a protractor and spirit level and used a compass to find aproximate south. Sigma Octans was in the FOV but it took me a few minutes to identify it (I forgot the view would be inverted to the view I was looking at on Stellarium). It was then just a matter of adjusting the Azimuth, Altitude and rotating the RA axis until the graticle markings lined up with the stars. Only made difficult by my failing eyesight and bending down to get a look into the polarscope.

In the workshop I tried the Gstar mount with standard web cam, I could not justify the expense of the Gstar. I then made my own bracket (and sold the one from myastroshop). This arrangement was not sensitive enough barefoot but PHD recognises the web cams and when the exposure was increased to 2 secs the stars become visible. I have not tried this method on Sigma Octans yet because I have not had time, but expect it to work like the Gstar.

Barry

I actually only bought the HEQ5 Pro to experiment with and try the polarscope.

The first pic is my modified i8800 web camera
The second is the view on the PHD screen (2secs)
The third is the published picture of Sigma Octans from IIS using the Gstar.