Ive had enough of this scope alignment crud!

[bloodhound31]

5 years....5 YEARS!!!!! Thats how long I have been stuffing around with this thing! And now the clouds have magically appeared as usual to piss me off even more......deep breaths.....

I just spent 3 hours in the dome finally trying to permanently align the telescope with the south celestial pole. Being a permanent setup i decided it was now worth the effort.
With the wedge flat and rough orientated south,I did a GPS alignment, then a south polar alignment using 2 guide stars, winding it up to my latitude as part of the procedure. All went well. From there I typed in the RA and DECL for sigma octans. For the first time ever, I positively identified the Chinese hat and the little corona in the finder scope! I was totally elated.

Then looking through the eyepiece (40mm), I got the miniature Chinese hat right smack bang in the middle! All was looking good.

Then came the problem of fine adjustments to the north/south alignment of the wedge, and the angle of the wedge. You would think this would be a simple thing....it is if the Tube is PERFECTLY PARALLEL with the fork arms.

Of course, unlike a lot of scopes, there is no alignment marks on the outside of the telescope. No setting circles. I will attach a drawing to try to explain.

So, then I thought, If i try to put it parallel, line up an object in the center field of view, and release the clutch on the azimuth drive, I could rotate the scope and see if the object remained in the center. If it moves, one would think that all you have to do is adjust the altitude clutch and counter the curve accordingly, until you can give the azimuth a full rotation and the object stays in the center.

I stuffed around with this for 2 hours!!!!!!! By the time the clouds rolled in and stopped me form going any further I was ready to swim the Pacific to the U.S. of A and personally slap every Celestron designer again.

This is one of the reasons why I have started to offer people help in the simple mechanics of scope setup. Websites and tutorials are all that seem to be thrown at people with problems. Nothing compares to a person showing you so you can DO it. Once you do it once, you will never need to be shown again.

Ever since I bought this scope, I asked the shop owner if he was willing to cone out at night and run me through it. a year later when he finally did come out, he didnt know how to do it either.

So I asked some astronomy clubs in sydney. They gave me the brush off and one was actually quite rude about it.

So I have had to settle for GPS aligned alt-az observing and photography.

FIVE YEARS!!!!:m ad2:: mad2: :mad2 :

Baz

[bloodhound31]

Here's the drawing explanation...

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

I know exactly where you are coming from Barry. Been there experienced that. However, somewhere in the waste paper storage I call my study I have a series of pages I printed off the internet that looked just at this issue and how to work around it. I will have a dig during the week and if I can find them I will track down the internet address or somehow send them to you.

[xelasnave]

Baz here is my 2 cents worth it will be one approach of many I expect. But if you are having trouble with polar align try this.

The next time you get a look at the sky try photographing the pole with the scope pointing at the pole. (At least to where you think the pole is)…with the drive motors turned off….so as the show where they move.

Take a time exposure (you may need 10 minutes a little less or more to show the trails clearly) and note that the stars trail to start to form circles, well a very small section of a circle) ...move/adjust the wedge only not the scope so as to get the center of the star trails in the middle of your field of view in the photo you have taken.

Take another shot and see if you have centered the star trail circles.
You will quickly tell if you are getting closer or moving off centre.

This can take many exposures to get circle the stars make it right in the centre... but if your scope is parallel to the RA axis it means that when the scope shows you are pointing at the centre of the star trail circles your RA must be pointing at the pole...and aligned

When you are confident the time exposure shows the star circle centre in the middle of the picture add a Barlow to up the mag and do another exposure to see if the star circle is centered. Again you may need to do a few.

Up the magnification with whatever you have... two Barlows stuck in each other, (I stick two 3x and a 2x Barlow in line to get an 8x greater mag. Depends what you have even EP projection with your smallest workable Ep.

This should get you very close to polar aligned. You can further adjust, hopefully only minor adjustment with the polar align drift method. I suggest my time exposure system because it will at least get you very close..I manage 200 second runs at 750 fl on a poor mount using this system alone.

With a fork mount if you rotate it pointing at an object you should be able to make sure the RA and the scope are pointing at the same thing.. so I feel the suggested method should work for you.

I do it with an eq mount and find it works well and think it would even work better on a fork mount. That’s not the only way but starting out it may get you close faster than drift align.

When you have finished this turn it all on and take a photo of something like Orion with the motors running so as to see if it was worth the effort. I think you can see the idea I don’t know of any one who uses it ..Seeker has or at least his Son has who said “it rocks”
I hope I have not missed the point and this may help.
Alex

[mick pinner]

with a polar mounted wedge l would forget finding the SCP visually and drift align the scope from the beginning. it really is easy, it does take time but you can see the improvement you are making as you go along so you can see you are heading in the right direction.

[xelasnave]

I missed your drawings but if parrallel and if pointed at the pole the first is correct. Maybe what you think is parrallel is not? To establish parrallel rotate the scope pointing at something mmm that may be hard as it points at the sky ..maybe a very quick rotate whilst pointing a a star..it should stay centred if parrallel I would think.
alex

[bloodhound31]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

I missed your drawings but if parrallel and if pointed at the pole the first is correct. Maybe what you think is parrallel is not? To establish parrallel rotate the scope pointing at something mmm that may be hard as it points at the sky ..maybe a very quick rotate whilst pointing a a star..it should stay centred if parrallel I would think.
alex

Alex, I appreciate your effort mate.

This is EXACTLY what I have been doing. Like I said, I have been stuffing around with this for hours. I KNOW where the SCP is and what it looks like. I have located it and put it in the FOV. No problems there. I understand drift alignment and all that stuff.

The problem is that there is NO REFERENCE on the scope to confirm that the TUBE IS IN FACT CONFIRMED PARALLEL WITH THE FORK ARMS. If this is not the case, then no amount of wedge adjustments will mean a thing when it comes to tracking.

Because of the curved ergonomics of Celestron housing, there are no straight mechanical parts to check square, level, parallel of perpendicular.

Someone out there MUST know how to fix this. I still have not met even ONE Nexstar 11 GPS owner in person or online. Am I the only fool who bought one?

I'm sorry if I am sounding a bit rude guys. I'm not having a go at any of you and I appreciate your help. You probably understand all too well how frustrated I have become over this.....5YEARS!!!!

Baz.

Gonna go dry my eyes princess and have a big can of HARDEN UP POOPSIE!!!!

Call the WAAAmbulance...

Give me $5.00....I'm gonna have to call international to find someone who cares...

Failing that, maybe I'll have to go to SETI..someone out there might.

[xelasnave]

OK Baz its been five years ..think of a pregnancy all the pain comes where its near finished .
As I said before I was not sure exactly the problem but it must be that the forks are not parrallel so lets address how to fix that.

Get the thing as parrallel as possible fix on a close star and rotate the scope on RA all thru 360 degrees whilst looking at the star ..if the scope and the RA axis is parrallel it will stay centred .

You are a can do guy does this makes sence to you it makes sence to me ..maybe the forks are such that where you think it is parrallel it not if you see what I mean.

Anyways you and I both know the positive thinking will win negative thinking will only make it worse .

But heck irrespective of the breed of scope mount etc all I say /you say it must work its simple mechanics ..er I hope its simple .

Take it easy relax and look at everything you have done not remains undone and hide the axe .
Maybe drift is the only way but I cant see what we could be missing.
This time next year you will look back and laugh when you see the photos you have taken during the year .
alex

[rogerg (Roger)]

Originally Posted by mick pinner

with a polar mounted wedge l would forget finding the SCP visually and drift align the scope from the beginning. it really is easy, it does take time but you can see the improvement you are making as you go along so you can see you are heading in the right direction.

Agreed.

Life wouldn't be the same if it was easy.

[netwolf]

I have not yet had the pleasure or pain of attempting polar alignment. However I think I understand your problem from you drawings. It seems your trying to find a way to confirm that your tube is parallel to the fork arms.

My attempt at a week suggestion here is to resolve the problem you have at hand.
Perhaps this might work. in Alt/Az mode point the tube straight down as you would when your packing it up. Then use a buble level on both the back of the Ota and on the fork arm base and when they are both level you know they are parallel. You could lock the tube then and mark the ota along the fork arm. I apologizes in advance for talking with no experience.


Another way might be to mount one of those buble level on the OTA and the Fork Arms and when both are in the same position u will know they are parallel.

Best of luck, I often find that the solution completely eludes me until I have defocused from it and am rested or relaxing.

Regards

[Doug]

Yeah Baz, I'd have to second/third(?) Mick's comment. As for the Nextsar11, I had one on order but cancelled when it became the nextmonth`11.
But to get back to your problem; Mate SCP wise all I can see is a &#@!@ pine tree to my south, so I have had to polar align without the benefit/handicap of knowing if the OTA is parallel perpendicular or anything else. Drift align is the way to go Baz, 5 hours at most not 5 years. I wouldn't trust gps align as far as I could kick it either. But Goto, that is
another thing.
You might not need to now, but you could do a 'goto the moon', or a bright object such as Sirius, Jupiter etc. with the correct site and date time details set. Physically move the wedge till you have the moon centered and you will be roughly close to polar aligned because the scope will have moved the OTA (relative to the mount) to where it thinks the object is, based on being already polar aligned. From that point you can just drift align. It sounds like you are ready to just drif align anyway so just forget about the SCP and drift align and get on with enjoying your observing sessions
You can forget all about the SCP altogether unless you want to look at it for some reason or other. When you have drift aligned, and tracking well you can be happy that the OTA is at least roughly parallel even if you can't measure it.
Actually, the OTA being parallel to the polar axis or not affects goto accuracy, not polar alignment. Polar alignment is for the polar axis not the orthogonality of the OTA with the fork. I think that might have been a bit of a red herring that has cost you a significant part of your 5 years.

Just to reiterate, no matter what type of mount you have, no matter how much it costs brand new, no matter how many bells and whistles it has, accurate polar alignment can only be achieved by drift measurement
cheers,
Doug

[xelasnave]

Hi Baz the photo idea was to get you close in under an hour but it is dependant on the scope being parallel with the RA axis .
If getting the RA axis parallel with the scope is going to be a problem in it self causing you more problems than it solves then there is no point to following the method... but if you do the photo method the RA and the scope must be parallel.
So drift may although seemingly difficult in fact will be easier. And drift is easy really ..just time is needed to get it spot on and photo or not you are going to have to do drift sooner or later to get perfection.

If you put the problem in context you may have been waiting five years to do this but in fact given that you have just finished your magnificent observatory you have only just started on the polar alignment using the wedge in the mix.

I have heard of clubs who drift align the clubs new mount by having members adjust the mount in shifts over a much longer period than five hours to achieve perfection.
AND it is worth the effort goto or not. The best scope is worth zip for astro photography if you dont get it spot on.
Just be patient mate and keep at it you are getting there just look at what you have done so far and be proud of your efforts .
Alex

[janoskiss (Steve H)]

Drift alignment will work and it won't matter if your fork is not parallel with the OTA.

But Baz, remember this is meant to be fun, your hobby, leisurely relaxing activity. You do it by choice not because anyone is making you do it. If it's no longer fun, and is making you upset, just leave it be and do something else more enjoyable.

[sheeny (Al)]

Baz,

Mate, I've got to agree with Steve H. I can see how your current alignment approach is compounded by any tube alignment error, but if you drift align, it doesn't matter whether the tube is parallel to the fork mount or not. I suggest drift aligning is the start of the solution to your problem.

My scope isn't a fork mount, but I'm guessing that the alignment procedure for your scope uses similar software to mine, offering options like Auto Align, Last Align, Quick Align, etc on start up.

The procedure I use on start up usually is to choose a Quick Align. i.e. the drive just models the sky with no real alignment on anything. I do this to save time.

Then I drift align.

When I'm happy with my drift alignment, I power down the mount, restart it and do an Auto Align. This then does the magic calcs that correct for cone error (misalignment of the OTA).

When I first started learning to drift align I found I could spend all night drift aligning and miss out on viewing. The key is to start by making big adjustments. Once you go too far, use the binary search method (i.e. halving your previous adjustment each time) till you are aligned.

Once you get your mount aligned, then I'd worry about the misalignment of the OTA... which shouldn't be so much of a problem to solve by itself.

Hang in there Baz. Take a break and settle down, and then have another go, but drift align first and ignore Octans...

Al.

[bloodhound31]

Thanks gents so much for your efforts. There's a lot Iv'e got to try here. Just gotta wait for the clouds to rack off now to have another go.

The anger is not because I'm not enjoying it, it's because I absolutely love it with a passion!

Anyway, I got to take out my anger at work today by hooking in and getting some bread-winning work done to take my mind off it. I knew I would cool down eventually, but I'm betting you all know how we need to vent while we are hot! Thanks for copping it!

Cheers lads,

Baz.