Polar alignment in a nutshell

[Dave Venne]

A couple of nights ago I did a drift polar alignment of my GEM. Drift aligning used to terrorize me. What always messes me up is trying to remember what particular drift direction indicates which one of four possible alt/az corrections.

So I made a stripped-down, step-by-step, illustrated guide to drift aligning for myself that I can put into my three-ring binder of "Practical things to have on hand that I can never remember." If you want to practice your drift aligning (which I wish I had done when I was new to astronomy) here's the link.

[mtuepker]

Great guide, thanks Dave. I pretty much have the exact binder of "things I should know, but always forget when I need them". This doc now has a home there.

On a similar note, I think I remember from using my old CG5 that the Celestron GOTO scopes had a pretty slick polar alignment procedure via the hand paddle. Does the CGEM still have this?

[Dave Venne]

On a similar note, I think I remember from using my old CG5 that the Celestron GOTO scopes had a pretty slick polar alignment procedure via the hand paddle. Does the CGEM still have this?

It sure does, I think they call it the All Star Polar Alignment. My CG5 only got that when I did a firmware update. My luck with ASPA has been mixed, maybe because half my sky is trees and I don't always get a good go-to alignment. Some people say that they can get a good enough polar alignment with ASPA that unguided exposures of 5+ minutes are possible.

[Bill Bynum]

Being terminally confused on the "drift up adjust...where?", I finally made a placard and taped it to my mount.

[Wayne]

Thank you Dave! This is now in my binder too!