Scope is offset from the home position Help !

[Andre27 (Andre)]

Some photos of the mount at place of rest, the scope does not lineup up with weight bar and tripod leg.



The leading tripod leg and weight bar points true south (checked with compass and local deviation)


The location is derived from skywatcher gps.



The marks on the photo (Home position) are where the scope returns to when the home command is received.


The battery is good, 650 amp 12 volt.


I used my 80mm for the demonstration so the weights is not an issue as this the setup for my 200mm reflector.


The offset of the mount/scope is apparent in all of the photos.


I assume that that home position of the mount with the telescope attached would also be the polar aligned position from where it starts up and ends?


Any additional help and advice would be greatly appreciated.


Thank you for your interest.


Regards
Andre

[pluto (Hugh)]

Hi Andre,
Polar aligning is for the mount not the scope so I don't think it matters where the scope is pointing when at the home position, you can just release the clutches for each axis and point the scope wherever you want.
The RA axis is what gets aligned to the south celestial pole, that's the axis that's pointing towards us in your last picture.

[Screwdriverone (Chris)]

Hi Andre,

Yes, you and Hugh have it right. Undo the clutches and line up the scope / mount to the point where the RA and DEC line up to where the SCP would be and along the leg of the tripod, then do up the clutches and power up the scope.

I line up the counterweight shaft by eye so its in line with the N leg (which is pointing south) and have the RA circle set to 0 so the tube is not twisted before it all starts up.

When I then park it later on, it returns to where I started it. The mount won't care where the encoders are initiated, it just assumes that wherever it starts from is the SCP and compensate when it goes through the alignment procedure by applying an internal calculated offset.

Cheers

Chris