Standard Wedge???

[Ron]

Well Guys, I think I have the wedge working a lot smoother now, thanks to all of your help.  At least the Az adjuster is not quite as hard to turn now and the tripod is not quite as shaky.

But I must say I'm having a little trouble doing the Polar alignment.  The scope makes the one star alignment ok but it can't find Polaris again when I ask it to.

I don't know if it is in my initial set up or something else is going wrong.  I thought I knew what I was doing but I guess I don't

Ron

[Grizz]

Polar alignment was confusing when I first started using it, not long ago as a matter of fact!  

I forget where I read this but this is  what I do. When I'm in the polar home position I adjust the wedge so that I'm pointing at polaris. Then I plop in the lowest power, widest FOV eyepiece I have. I unlock the RA lock and rock the scope back and forth in RA while looking thru the eyepiece at polaris. If it swings in an arc outside the FOV I re-center the scope then use the DEC slowmotion control to raise polaris to the top of the FOV, then adjust the alt knob on the wedge to bring polaris back to center. I again unlock the RA lock rock the scope again back and forth in RA and see what happens to polaris.

You may have to lower polaris and adjust the wedge in the other direction depending on which way the OTA is misaligned with the forks.

I keep repeating this until polaris stays in the center of the EP, well close to center. What ends up happening is polaris makes a small cirlcle in the ep as I rock back and forth and stays in the FOV. What this does is makes sure the forks are parallel with the OTA. Then I do the one star alignment with the Autostar.

I found when I do this my initail polar alignment is pretty good. Then if I'm going to try and image I do the Interative polar alignment to refine it as much as I can.

[Ron]

Thanks Craig,

I'll try that and see what happens!?

Would you mind explaing the Iterative Process again?

My try last night for polar alignment was better than my first, but I still can't figure out why the scope can not go back to Polaris?

During last night's try the scope did mannage to get the alignment star in the FOV of the finder.  I didn't try for any other goto's except going back to Polaris.

Thanks,

Ron

[Grizz]

The best way I can explain it is:

After the initial alignment (one star polar) you toggle back and forth between Polaris and the alignment star, which I believe should be on the southern horizon not too high but not too low either. A little west or east  is also fine.

You slew back to Polaris, bring it back 1/2 way to center in the ep by adjusting the Wedge only. Slew back to the alignment star center it with the Autostar hand box SYNC on it. Then repeat the process again by going back to Polaris bringing it halfway to center using the wedge adjustments, then back to the star centering with the hand box, syncing. Repeat as many times as you need to till both appear in the center of the EP without further adjustments. I use  9mm reticle for this.

http://www.astroplanner.com Has a little routine in it that will pick the alignment stars for you and do all the slewing all you have to do is click the buttons after all centering is done, its certainly not necessary but it does make it a little easier.

[dsnay]

Great description Grizz. That's exactly the way I do it too.
Ron, if you stick with Grizz for explanations,  you'll go a long way. I always take too long to describe things.

Dave

[Ron]

Thanks Craig,

I'm going to have a lot of things to practice while on vacation.

Great description Grizz. That's exactly the way I do it too.
Ron, if you stick with Grizz for explanations,  you'll go a long way. I always take too long to describe things.

Dave

Dave,

Your not alone, I do it all the time.

I'm sure glad we have Guy's  like you all who don't mind sticking with the slow learner's like me.

I'll get there but it might take a while.

 

Ron