Відео

I was stuck there too! Rotate the mount, not the polar scope! Rotate the R.A. Axis and match up the constellations to their position in the view through the scope and lock it in place. Then “drive” Polaris into its proper place in the scope. Boom! Use the alt az bolts and latitude bolt to place Polaris!

@@Pouncerman Yes, of course. What else can you do, whilst the objects in the sky rotate around the celestial poles? Using a polar scope always involves rotating your mount around the RA-axis, so as to have the image of the reticle aligned with the current view onto the sky's objects. Polar-aligning your mount in the northern hemisphere is about pointing its RA-axis to the northern celestial pole with the help of Polaris, as it happens to be close to it. A much better alignment is with a different reticle. I like to use the Sky-Watcher HM6 polar scope. Its reticle has a clock-like pattern (not just a simple circle), which supports placing Polaris precisely onto a clock-position that you have to determine by making use of the knowledge of Polaris' transit time. It goes like this: read Polaris' transit time of the day. I read it from the Stellarium app info. For instance, Polaris' transit time is 13:36 h. Now, you know that Polaris went through the 12 o'clock position in the sky at 13:36 h (it will change during the year with almost 4 minutes from day to day). If you do your polar alignment at 21:36 h, Polaris has moved 8 hours since its transit. If you do the polar alignment at 22:00 h, it has moved 8 hours and 24 minutes since then. Whatever the difference is time may be, you now can predict where Polaris is supposed to be in the sky in relation to the northern celestial pole. In order to prepare your mount properly, first you have to align the polar scope itself. Point the mount to the north so that Polaris is probably already in view of the polar scope. Turn the azimuth and the elevation screws so as to get Polaris onto the 12 h-position of the clock-circle on the reticle. Now, turn the elevation screw so as to make Polaris move downwards on the reticle. That may not be along the clock pattern's vertical axis yet. Adjust the mount's RA-orientation so that any screw-movement of the elevation results in a vertical Polaris movement on the reticle. This is an important step. Fixate the RA-axis. Knowing what time it is and Polaris' transit time for today, you know the time difference. Keep in mind that the polar scope shows you an upside-down image, so that the 6 o'clock position on the reticle actually is the 12 o'clock position. In this example, we have 8 hours since Polaris' transit. So, starting at the 6 o'clock position on the reticle, Polaris is now supposed to be at 2 o'clock. Why 2 o'clock? Because a difference of 8 hours is mapped onto the reticle's "clock" that represents 24 hours in a day, distributed over 12 hours of the reticle's pattern. So, 8 hours, being 1/3 of a day, are like 4 hours on the reticle's clock-pattern. This clock spans 12 hours, not 24, so we have to divide every time by 2 to get from actual time to the reticle's geometrical representation of time. Manipulate the azimuth and elevation screws until Polaris is at the 2 o'clock position of the reticle's circle. Keep in mind that all celestial bodies, including Polaris, seem to rotate along the sky in a counterclockwise direction. Starting at the 6 o'clock position (actually 12 o'clock, but everything looks upside-down), Polaris has moved along 5 o'clock to 4 o'clock, 3 o'clock, up to 2 o'clock, and it keeps moving to 1 o'clock, 12 o'clock, and so on, until it will have gone full circle after almost 24 hours (almost, as it will transit 4 minutes earlier the next day). This is a very precise polar alignment method, once you get the hang of it. It is not difficult, but you have to manipulate the screws painstakingly delicately in order to get Polaris onto the designated position on the reticle.

@@Guido_XL Thanks for your help, dark skies!

@@Pouncerman What I forgot to tell you is that the polar scope should be calibrated, once it has been fitted into the equatorial mount for the first time. This means that the reticle's center is to be aligned with the mount's RA-axis. If you turn the mount around the RA-axis and you peek through the polar scope, any object that is indicated by the reticle's center-point should remain on that exact position. This is done best at daylight, targeting a remote object, e.g. the edge of a roof or a chimney. Anything that shows distinctive features is suitable for this purpose. Now, turn the mount around the RA-axis and observe how the target is not coinciding with the reticle's center (if you are very lucky, there is no such error and you're done!). Adjust the small screws that hold the reticle glass in place, so as to mitigate that error. It can be tedious to get this done, but it quickly becomes intuitive as how you have to adjust these small screws. Just be cautious and do not unscrew them too far, as the glass may get too loose, causing it to fall out of its fixture. Take your time and conduct this procedure slowly, making baby steps, observing what each adjustment did to the alignment. Sometimes, you notice that your previous adjustment went the wrong way, as the error increased. Do not get frustrated, but remain calm and repeat the adjustments, until you notice that a rotation around the RA-axis keeps the target fixed on the reticle pattern. Once the reticle's center and the RA-axis have been aligned to one another, the nightly polar alignment can become as good as it theoretically can. The remaining error is the way in which you position Polaris on its designated location on the reticle's clock pattern. I like to choose a "nice" time to do the polar alignment, so that I can position Polaris onto a rounded clock-position, and not on any location in between, where I cannot read the clock-position as accurately as I would like. That means that you sometimes will have to wait until the time since Polaris' transit has become an exact integer number, e.g. 8 hours. In that example, you can position Polaris exactly at the 2 o'clock position. That will render your polar alignment more accurate.

@@Guido_XL Thanks

I totally agree David...FINALLY! Actually Brilliant How-to-Explanation...Before I had no Idea

@@tunascuba1 ,Agreed Fully,Wished I Had Seen This 2 Years Ago..But Will Have To Give High Point Scientific An A+ As Well,When I Got My Eqm35Pro,They Made Me An Hour Long Video Just About The Mount,and My 6se On It,Went Thru PA,But Not This Simplified,But Had Also Made Me An Hour Long Appointment To Go Over The Whole Mount Till I Was Comfortable,Unfortunately Still Had To Buy An Ipolar,Due To Maple Trees In Mine,and About Every Neighbors Yards😂So I Cant Even See Polaris From My Patio,Chain Saw Wouldve Been Cheaper,lol

Personally i dont use the setting circle because no matter how accurate you are, your margin of error will still be off. The setting circle is not to accurate scale. However, if you _really_ want to learn how to use Cloudy Nights . com will have all the information you would need to use it. Cheers, and clear skies! 😁

Also if i might ask what kind of mount do you have?

@@Handles-R-Lame, An equatorial mount. Specifically it is the Orion "AstroView," or something like that, a GEM. I've got a 6" Newtonian reflector on it.

You have to get the other kind -- the kind with the "railroad tracks", and use software.

@@bowrudder899 couldn’t be bothered with the hassle of it and just got a SynScan which uses 3-star Alignment, so I only have to point roughly south.