Please forgive me if this has already been covered (I've been away from email for a few days). If you want to use a nicely automated procedure for polar aligning a great tool to use is PoleAlignMax. It is freeware and was created by the same great guys that created FocusMax, namely Larry Weber and Steve Brady. You can find it at: http://users.bsdwebsolutions.com/~larryweber/PoleAlignMaxDownload.htm It works very well and also doesn't require visibility of Polaris. Clear skies, Dale. -----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Jim Gibson Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 7:54 PM To: Utah Astronomy Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Spreadsheet for polar alignment For anyone who would like to see an online tutorial on how to use the polar alignment drift method, Andy’s Shot Glass has a short online video stream. http://www.andysshotglass.com/PolarAlignmentScope.html Jim --- On Tue, 2/24/09, Canopus56 <canopus56@yahoo.com> wrote: From: Canopus56 <canopus56@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Spreadsheet for polar alignment To: "Utah Astronomy List Serv" <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Date: Tuesday, February 24, 2009, 7:38 PM It might be a good time to review what software has polar alignment aids built-in. I do not subscribe to the favored SLAS-member software, The Sky, or Maxim DL. Baldwin's technique has the advantage that it only requires leveling the scope but does not require access to Polaris. You only need to be able to see a circumpolar star. I use Rodham's Astroplanner quite a bit. It has a polar alignment helper feature that I have tried but do not use regularly. Unlike Baldwin's technique, you have to have access to Polaris. In Rodham's utility, you slew repeated to a proposed menu of program selected stars, sync the scope and laptop program and then slew back to the pole star. The program computes and displays the amount of the alignment error. Then you use your adjustment locking bolts to recenter Polaris. This is manual process is repeated until the polar alignment error is minimized. The program selected stars are not circumpolar, but are a cocktail of stars between the meridian in the northeastern sky - similar to what a hand-controller alignment program yields. K3CCD Tools has a drift alignment "helper" - i.e. it has a good screen that displays the drift error (labeled the "Drift Explorer") based on a meridian star seen in a video or CCD camera. Of course, all of the above, IMHO is only necessary for hyper-alignment for imaging purposes or where precise target slewing is otherwise desirable, e.g. - heavily attended star parties where target acquisition delays does not match the crowd's attention span or some urban astronomy settings where precise targeting is helpful finding faint fuzzies. Clear Skies - Kurt _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://gallery.utahastronomy.com Visit the Wiki: http://www.utahastronomy.com _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://gallery.utahastronomy.com Visit the Wiki: http://www.utahastronomy.com