Polarie OAH

[JB80 (Jarrod)]

I have stumbled across a neat accessory for the Polarie on the Teleskop Austria website which basically is an Off Axis holder for the polar scope, which for those who don't know would be quite useful as to polar align with a polar scope you have to do it sans camera and then very carefully reattach the camera once you have alignment.
This little system looks to sort that issue out and it comes at a fraction of the cost of the Polarie PS but I have only seen it on the Austrian shop and another in Budapest.

However I still have questions, it seems that it consists of 3 parts, a...

Lacerta OAH
Vixen GP Polar scope
Lacerta 2D head.

My questions are can you buy the Lacerta OAH and 2D head separately elsewhere and secondly could the actual Polarie polar scope be used instead of the GP one as I already have the Polarie PS?

It kind of looks like a fix up job to make something work and to be honest I'm not familiar with the Lacerta head or OAH and I'm not certain if they work together or you could just use the OAH?

http://www.teleskop-...-oah-la&lng=eng

Anyway, definitely interesting.

[iceman (Mike)]

Good idea if it works. It's a pain that the polar scope can only be used when the camera is not attached.

[Irish stargazer (John)]

That is neat and yes much cheaper. I will see if it is available from Telescope Service.

[JB80 (Jarrod)]

I did have a look on TS and couldn't find anything.

[JB80 (Jarrod)]

Originally Posted by iceman

Good idea if it works. It's a pain that the polar scope can only be used when the camera is not attached.

I agree, this looks a better way to go about.
I was kind of hoping to find some German forum posts somewhere discussing it to see if anyone has tried it but no luck yet.
I don't think they'd be selling it untested though, they're a pretty good little shop, I actually got my Polarie via them.

[JB80 (Jarrod)]

More info.......

The Vixen Polarie is a small and precise tracking accessory, but needs a perfect allignment. A bad allignment results also with wide angle lenses in elongated stars, so for longer exposure times the perfect allignment is the limiting factor.

The small peephole at the Polarie only allows a rough allignment and for the original Vixen Polarscope you have to remove the camera and so you can loose the exact allignment. Because of this the Lacerta Off Axis Polarscope has been developed. This you can also use with the attached camera!

The scope will be screwed at the back of the Polarie and will be still mounted during imaging. The adjustment of the Polarscope will be done by moving the arm 180° and shifting the reticle with the worm screws till the center cross will be steady. (This only must be done at first time). Than you can allign the mount with the "Kochab-Technique".

http://www.apm-telescopes.de/en/prod...k7jp49e2194sa0

Although I don't think the Kochab technique or "Kochabs Clock" is of much use in the southern hemisphere. Is there a southern equivalent?

Here are some threads in German so you will need to use translate.
http://forum.astronomie.de/phpapps/u...ptimiert_591_E

http://www.astronomieforum.at/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=5095