OAS NOVEMBER 20013 ASTRONOMY EZINE VOL 2 | Page 10

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position using your chosen method. Once you turn on your mount the handset will
greet you with the version of software it is running before asking you to enter your
location, time zone, date, time and daylight saving. Daylight Saving is British
summer time so answer yes in the summer when the clocks have been moved
forward.

Once we have entered all the above we will be
faced with this screen. It tells us the last time
Polaris transited (passed through the 6 o’clock
position in our polar scope). What we do is
loosen the RA clutch and rotate the mount in
RA so that the RA clock shows the time shown
at the top of this screen (00:24 ie 24 minutes
past midnight). Lock the RA clutch and now
look through the polar scope. By using only
the altitude and azimuth bolts move the
mount so Polaris is
dead centre in its little circle. Depending on the Polaris time
the small circle will be in different positions so don’t worry if
it doesn’t look like my illustration.
That’s it. Your mount is now Polar aligned and should track
the night sky with a good degree of accuracy. After you have
exited after this screen the handset will ask you if you want
to begin alignment. If you answer yes it will give you the
option of using 1, 2 or 3 stars. If I am imaging I normally
only align on 1 star, choosing one that is near my target. If I’m just going to visually
browse the sky hoping from one target to the next then I complete a 3 star
alignment. I find that this then brings most objects nicely into the field of view when
using the goto feature.
Words & Images Mike Greenham

OAS EZINE