Re: [APML] Drift Alignment

["bert katzung" <katzung1@home.com>]

Hi Ulrich:
I also found the instructions for drift alignment confusing and after 3
years of doing it, I still have to read my notes every time! I can see if
the star has moved up or down, but is up north or is down north? The hand
controller is useless (for me, anyway) because I can't remember on which
side of the mount the "N" button moves the tube north vs south. I assume
you've read Philip's and Chuck's articles (Philip:
http://www.astrocruise.com/polarnew.htm and Chuck:
http://www.aa6g.org/Astronomy/articles.html already.
The tip that turned me around in actually doing it was on someone's page,
forget who, who said that the way to determine if the star "has drifted
north" is to physically move (by hand, not by controller) the tip of the OTA
physically toward Polaris (dec axis only, of course, and just a tiny
bit)---if that recenters the star, the star has drifted north. And you
definitely want to recheck the azimuth alignment after the altitude
alignment.
Hope that helps. If you find a better method, let me know!
Bert

Bert Katzung
katzung1@home.com
www.astronomy-images.com

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ulrich Beinert" <analemma@gmx.de>
To: "APML" <astro-photo@seds.org>
Sent: Tuesday, 21 August, 2001 11:05 AM
Subject: [APML] Drift Alignment


> Hi,
>
> I'm back from a star party, which was quite fun, but the weather wasn't
all
> too good. The clear hours I used to try drift aligning my G11 (the polar
> finder is impossible to use), which seemed to work at times, then the star
> would drift very fast again.
>
> I was looking at a star in the east, relatively low, and a star about 50
> degrees high near the meridian. Who can tell me EXACTLY what I have to do
> when I observe a certain drift (North or South), and especially how MUCH I
> should move my mount by? I have a "cheat sheet" that tells me what's wrong
> with the alignment when a star moves in a certain direction, but sometimes
> it helps slow drift, at other times drift only gets worse....
>
> Ulrich    >>www.analemma.de<<
>
>
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