Paramount User Guide
113
|
P a g e
Rough Polar Alignment Method
When the base of the Paramount is level, and the Paramount is at the home position, the fixed mechanical
orientation of this position can be used in conjunction with
TheSkyX Professional Edition
to polar align the
mount to within about 5-10 arcminutes of celestial pole (which is a good
starting point
).
When the Paramount is positioned at the home position, the mount’s mechanical orientation is always
identical (to about one arcsecond or so). In the northern hemisphere, this position points very near hour
angle 2.0 and declination 0.0. For a mechanically perfect imaging system, the telescope would be pointing
to a position on the celestial sphere that is exactly two hours west of the meridian on the celestial equator.
Provided the base of the mount is close to level, and the altitude of the polar axis closely matches the
observing site’s latitude,
TheSkyX Professional Edition
(configured with accurate location, date, time and
time zone settings) can be used to slew the mount to the
computed
position of an object (usually a star
or other bright object) on the celestial sphere.
Once the telescope has been slewed to the object, the mount’s
mechanical azimuth axis
(not the
telescope’s position) can be adjusted until the object is centered in the eyepiece. This technique relies on
the home position and the computed equatorial coordinates of an object to approximately align the
mount’s polar axis to the celestial pole.
The rough polar alignment method can be performed during the daylight hours by slewing to a planet,
bright star or even the sun (provided the proper solar filters are used). Another advantage to this
technique is that the celestial pole need not be visible.
Note that while the home position is mechanically fixed, the telescope itself will not necessarily precisely
point to hour angle 2.0 and declination 0.0. This is in part due to slight variations in the position of the
emitter-detector pair in the home sensors, as well as optical and mechanical non-perpendicularities. For
this reason, the rough polar alignment method should be deemed an “initial” and not “precise” polar
alignment technique.
After performing a rough polar alignment, TPoint, or a polar alignment scope, can be used to further refine
polar alignment.
Step-By-Step Rough Polar Alignment
To begin a rough polar alignment, from
TheSkyX Professional Edition,
click the
Rough Polar Alignment
command on the
Tools
menu and follow the step-by-step instructions. Note that the
Rough Polar
Alignment
window can resized larger to make the graphics larger and easier to read.
