Re: Polar Alignment Routine
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Geoff, For reference, you might find the polar scope description on pages 12-14 of this manual helpful. That's from the Orion company for their Atlas mount series (Synta EQ6 mounts). To answer?your question...on the 24 hour clock that goes in the "wrong" direction... That's called the "hour angle" clock.? As you look at the stars around polaris, you see they rotate counterclockwise across the sky.? Imagine a clock face marked in 24 hours in a counterclockwise direction.? That's the "Hour Angle" ("HA") clock.? If you look at sky chart Stellarium for example it will tell you the HA of Polaris.? That is....where on its circle around the actual NCP north celestial pole that polaris is actually located at that moment.? It's not the same every day at the same hour because the Earth also moves around the sun...at an angle, and the Earth nutates/wobbles like a top, etc. It's why sidereal time differs from the solar 24 hour day.?? On many mounts, like the Atlas, you can rotate RA completely around in a circle.? That's because those mounts use internal motors and have no motor cables.? Because of that capability, you leave the polar scope in one place in the RA tube.? You do not rotate it, as you do in the Losmandy G11 and GM8 case.? So when you are reading general mount instructions that say to rotate the RA axis to rotate the polar scope, that's what they are thinking.?? You have a limited RA rotation on the G11 and GM8 mounts due to the DEC cable. If you take the DEC cable away, perhaps with tucked motors you can get full rotation with your scope DEC moved at near 90 degrees.? (You need to rotate the telescope DEC near 90 degrees to get the porthole of the polar scope open!) Just watch out...and enjoy learning all this stuff.?? ?Best, Michael On Tue, Mar 2, 2021, 2:42 PM <geoffchapman47@...> wrote:
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Michael Herman