EQASCOM Polar Scope Tool

This is really just an update from my post a few days ago about the Atlas Pro AZ/EQ-G mount and the new software we've been trying out to get everything up and running. I did not mention Alignmaster because we simply could not get it to work correctly. I'm still not sure if this is because of user error or not but we have found something else that seems to work great.

This method does require that you have a view of Polaris (for Northern Hemisphere users). When using a polar scope it is very important to place the RA axis of the mount precisely where Cassiopeia and/or the Big Dipper appears in the sky. This can be really difficult to judge sometimes and usually it is just a guess. EQASCOM and Chris Shillito of the EQMOD Project has come up with a simple solution.

I wont go through the routine here, but will say it is very easy and it just works. After going through this simple procedure the guiding graph in PHD2 looked much improved compared to just eyeballing it. It seems to be very precise. Here's a screenshot of the graph after aligning the mount with this method.

Here's another after making a few small adjustments. The mount only required that very small corrections be issued from PHD2.

These were done with the 80mm f/6 apo, the next night out we tried guiding the 8RC at 1600mm focal length and it performed great. Looking forward to getting my camera back from SBIG and putting it all to work.

For complete details on using this method please see Chris' video.

Detailed written instructions can be found here:

http://eq-mod.sourceforge.net/docs/PolarScopeAlignment.pdf