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11/14/07
Polar Alignment Set
Filed under: Astronomy
Posted by: Lloyd @ 7:11 am

I had torn my scope down and upgraded the mount with Scopestuff knobs and saddle plate.  I also added a 80mm refractor as a guide scope.  Having done all this I needed to rebalance and realign the scope.

Well last night I finally got clear skies and more importantly some dedicated time to nail the polar alignment.  After many iterations it got to the point that just a little pressure on the adjustment knobs would move the alignment star one way or another.

I was using WebCamScheinern V1.31 to do the alignment and as long as you read the directions closely and don’t get overconfident that you know what you’re doing the program works great.  The big problem I had was that when doing the declination adjustment you first train your scope on a star in the east (or west if obstructed), do the calibration run and then pick a star to the south and near the zenith.  Once trained on that star then adjust the mount to bring the star into alignment.

Next night out I’m going to perform PEC training and get the scope ready for what I hope will be some great imaging.

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