That's pretty smart! At the beginning of the video I thought you were gonna use it as a plumbob and just couldn't figure it out. Then it got worse when you laid the stick on the ground. Finally you put the knots at the ends on the legs and then just simply adjusted the rear legs to place the center knot. I was blown away at just how simple and elegant that is. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for sharing, a simple yet effective way of achieving a north facing tripod that can be tweaked and polar aligned properly once the stars are visible saving time and frustration and allowing more imaging or viewing. Time under the stars is short enough from the uk!
that's a very good and easy way. thanks a lot. i got an equatorial telescope and still having problem to set it up, hope you can also make a video on it too.
There are a good few compass apps for the iPhone/iPad too, with 1 degree resolution (provided of course one has performed a few figures of 8 to calibrate!).
Great idea. Everytime II setup for Mag. North may alignment varies and as you know it can be frustrating. I want to see my alignment stars in my finder!! I’m going to make me a kit like yours.
Cosmoscarl Hi, yes you do. In the Uk it’s close enough to use magnetic north. There’s a conversation below about that, and I did another video to look at the variation around the world, you can find it on my channel. Thanks for watching !
Hello, I think it can be done without the string. We can use East-West orientation for the stick. So we can put two legs next to the stick. The third leg will be pointig directly North. Am I correct?
David, hi, thanks for the comment, yes, I think you’re right, nice one 👍🏼. I found the stick and string easy though, and it doesn’t move the stick, but again, thanks
david's method works too. and you don't have to move the stick at all. set the stick on the ground east-west direction and allign two legs to it. the 3rd leg will point to north
Compass where I live is 7 degrees too far left. so I have to have a movable degree ring. Then I set to that. As soon as it gets dark I adjust my altitude to the North star etched on the glass of my polar scope and lock it down permanently unless I move elsewhere. Don't really need to be that precise with a manual, but why not?
buen dia amigo.. perfecta tu explicacion., muy simple y practica. es una manera de el que no conoce por lo menos donde esta el norte o el sur. con tu metodo se le simplifique ... logicamente esta el polo celeste y magnetico pero eso es aparte. cada uno sabra cuanto correguir despues. en mi caso en argentina son 7 grados. creo que en algunos casos no llega a un grado.. asi que TE FELICITO. por lo simple y practico
Thank you for your positive comment. You are right about magnetic north, although I found away around that: using the iPhone you can choose between magnetic and true North! For me it is less than 1 degree, so not an issue, but especially in the southern hemisphere the difference can be considerable, as you say 7 degrees in Argentina is ALOT. Clear skies! Gracias por tu comentario positivo. Tienes razón sobre el norte magnético, aunque descubrí que: usando el iPhone puedes elegir entre el Norte magnético y el verdadero. Para mí es menos de 1 grado, por lo que no es un problema, pero especialmente en el hemisferio sur la diferencia puede ser considerable, como dices 7 grados en Argentina es MUCHA. ¡Cielos despejados! (Translated with Google)
A clever and logical way of pointing the mount North 👍 What are your thoughts on leveling the tripod? Am I right in thinking it is a completely unnecessary step? I'm thinking once the mount is polar aligned, the RA axis will rotate around the NCP regardless of how level the tripod is levelled.
Thanks AB. Levelled tripod is important for goto alignment as the ‘model’ maps it based on a level and north starting point. Theoretically you can get away by making a 3star alignment without levelling (Celestron do this on some scopes), as that orients the ‘map’, but I would suggest it’s more reliable and faster to level and go with a two star alignment. Now I have a pier, I made sure to level initially,(and not changed it since) and polar align every time I go out and set up. HTH?
@@MikeyJ On forums they are saying levelling is unnecessary. They are saying the goto is referenced from the polar axis. It might be true I dunno but even still, having the tripod level makes everything easier. When making fine adjustments with the azimuth bolts, if the tripod is level the reticle will move exactly left or right from Polaris. If it's unlevel, the reticle will also drift up or down when moving left or right ensuring that you now have to fiddle with the altitude adjustment too. Having the tripod level also gives a better rough measurement when setting the latitude.
sit the compass in the middle of the mount tray find your lvl with the bubble next line up north moving the tripod vellcro the compass to it if you want stability there you have it (no sticks included) :)
Thanks, but this isn't replacing the polar alignment, Cosmocarl, just making sure you have sufficient adjustment on the latitude bolts to view the pole after setting down the tripod and leveling etc., so that you can PA without having to move the tripod again. At 29secs I describe the issue..
Gday Mikey. Great information looks easy as. Just 1 thing though, you say North. Is it true or magnetic North? Being in the southern hemisphere where you cannot or is hard to see our south polaris star, this would be a better solution, I am going to try this out later on to see what happens.
Hi Steve, G'day! Its magnetic north, Polaris is less than 1 degree away from true / geodetic or celestial north, so a good reference. Your Polarscope in the Southern hemisphere shows a group of stars in Octans I think, not so easy as they are fainter. But in any case, you would use compass South to set the middle point of the mount. Let me know how you get on :)
Steve, How did you get on? You got me thinking on this! In the UK we are getting close to converging the MAG and TRUE north (estimated 2050 difference is zero.) But looking at Wiki and also this link on magnetic declination: www.yourhome.gov.au/sites/prod.yourhome.gov.au/files/images/PD-Orientation-TrueNorth-03_fmt.png I see that you have a much bigger variation in Australia to cope with as the South Magnetic Pole is a lot closer! The earth spins on true north, so unless you have an adjustable baseline compass you will need to add or subtract degrees to the compass alignment part. Please excuse my ignorance!
Hey Mike. Yes this is correct, we have a 11 deg difference for true and mag north. Set everything for true north and your way of doing the setup works great. Got within 1 deg of true south as we are upside down here, tried this last night while we had 3 hours of clear skies, was the best pointing accuracy I have e3ver got so far.
i dont get it you dont have a different star to us in the south its the same star in the north the north star the brightest star in the sky so how can you have a round world it is flat work it out have you ever noticed things dont add up on star charts just saying !
actually you cannot see the north star from southern emisphere. i used to live in south africa and there is no north star. beside, the north star visible from northen emisphere is not the brightest star. clear sky.
I find it very funny when the flat earth guy gets slammed in an astronomy forum. Polaris is not the brightest object in my sky here in Illinois. Venus usually is.
Sa sert à rien ton truc ! Juste à perdre du temps. Tu pose ton trépied vers le Nord et le petit décalage de précision tu le compense en tournant l'azimut de ta monture, point final !
Peut-être que c'est la traduction, ce que je dis, c'est que parfois, il suffit de pointer vers le nord (surtout si vous voyagez avec le mont) n'est tout simplement pas assez bon pour éviter de manquer d'ajustement ..
You should read the other comments before accusing me of being deceitful, in U.K. , and much of the northern hemisphere They are less than a degree different, so they are effectively the same thing.
@@MikeyJ The east coast of the US has a 15° adjustment to deal with. Not trivial, and not something to ignore. As a general polar alignment system your method is not accurate enough for most of the northern hemisphere or any serious astronomy.
Brian, you’re right but I think you missed some things:- The alignment with compass is only to avoid running out of adjustment not replacing proper PA. The variation in magnetic north was already discussed in comments and I made another video to discuss the effect of that, you should see it in the list. Hopefully that clears it up, thanks for taking the time to comment. Mike
