How do you get perfect polar alignment?
How to Accurately Accomplish Polar Alignment
- First, aim the mount’s polar axis roughly at Polaris.
- If the star drifts south in the eyepiece, the polar axis is pointing too far east.
- If the star drifts north, the polar axis is too far west.
- Shift the polar axis left or right accordingly, until there is no more drift.
How does polar alignment work?
Polar alignment is the process of accurately aligning the polar axis of your mount with the north (or south) celestial pole. The polar axis does not move when you move the telescope. Simply put, you need to make sure that your telescope mount is rotating on the exact same angle the sky turns on.
How do you use polar align in the day?
One good way is to use the Sun. Carefully level your mount with a bubble level and set the polar axis to the latitude of your site. Hang a weighted string from the mount (between the tripod legs) and lay a protractor on the ground,centered under the string.
How do you align a telescope with Stellarium?
To tell Stellarium that actually you are perfectly on-target now, press CTRL 3 on Stellarium. This will issue a Sync command that will centre the Scope crosshair in Stellarium over your target, so that what you see through the telescope agrees with Stellarium and at the same time, add an alignment point to EQMod.
What is considered a good polar alignment?
A polar alignment within 1 arc minute of the pole is usually considered to be excellent and good enough for long exposure imaging.
Can you polar align during the day?
This alignment method works any time of day, unless the Sun is very high overhead.
How do you align a telescope during the day?
Do you have to polar align telescope every time?
You do need to be in polar alignment or stars will drift out of your FOV and any astrophotography is going to suffer from field rotation. I think that living so close to the Equator will present some unique and difficult problems in setting up your telescope.