Debbie, everyone and their telescope is a little bit different. In my case, I used dead-reckoning initially, then tweaked by star-drift, sometimes four or five repetitions. But there's more to it, really, than just polar alignment, you have to know the "personality" of your own set-up. In my case, I remembered that the drive liked to be 'loaded' in a particular way (sligtly out of balance) in order to get the best response. I could tell about how much I was off the pole by the patterns of my button-pushing while correcting. And of course image scale and length of exposure determine how close you really need to be. But only you can ultimately tell yourself what the best procedure is for you. --- UTAHDEB@aol.com wrote:
I thought I would take Chuck's suggestion and play with my polar alignment scope on my GM-8 mount this weekend. If I use a polar alignment scope is this good enough for CCD imaging or do I need to learn the drift method? Or is software work better to get a good polar alignment?
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