|
I have not had a HEQ5 but did own an EQ6 and I assume the polar scope is similar. I never had any trouble finding the little asterism for the south pole in the finder even with a full moon. This would be similar to city light pollution. Move the mount til the stars line up to the asterism.
I then oriented the scope to point at the pole by releasing the clutches and whilst looking through the scope rotate it around the RA axis. When the image just rotates it is parallel to the RA axis. There is a little easily seen asterism at the scp that you can print out for a reference. You can then fine tune the orientation of the mount by centering the SCP in the eyepiece from a printout of this asterism. This entire process takes about 2 minutes.
The first time you do it it will take longer until you have the alt correct but the next time is easy as long as you level the mount before you start.
This method isn't perfect because the actual pole isn't exactly where you want the mount to aim due to refraction etc but for a short focal length camera it will be plenty good enough for up to 5 min exposures. I used this method for a long time with my 1800mm fl scope until I made my permanent setup.
To be more accurate you can drift align after doing it and you will find that it requires little correction.
Cheers
Terry
|