Re: [Utah-astronomy] GEM cone error guru needed
Chuck wrote:
Kurt, the acid test is to try the mount with a much smaller scope. If the problem is gone, then Don's hit it on the head.
Yes, with a lower weight scope (a 5 1/4 refractor) I can get the cone error reduced, but I appear to have a procedural problem. When the cone error is removed using the procedure in the scope instructions, it always fixes on a point in declination north or above the aligned polar axis of the mount. So the scope is inscribing a ring around the NCP (or Polaris when it is used as the alignment target), but can never be oriented directly on the NCP when the aligned polar scope is targeted. That was the other reason for asking for a local cone error guru consult - there must be something that I am doing wrong in the cone error reduction procedure. But I have read and pondered the instructions and feel that I am correctly following them. - Kurt P.S. - On the other hand, I caught one error in the instructions that Orion corrected in a subsequent version after I pointed it out to them, and the polar scope alignment instructions also didn't seem to work. I had to modify the published polar scope instructions slighty to get the polar scope aligned dead-on. _______________________________________________ Sent via CSolutions - http://www.csolutions.net
I'm wondering if the DEC axis is truly perpendicular to the polar axis? On 8/1/07, Kurt Fisher <fisherka@csolutions.net> wrote:
Chuck wrote:
Kurt, the acid test is to try the mount with a much smaller scope. If the problem is gone, then Don's hit it on the head.
Yes, with a lower weight scope (a 5 1/4 refractor) I can get the cone error reduced, but I appear to have a procedural problem. When the cone error is removed using the procedure in the scope instructions, it always fixes on a point in declination north or above the aligned polar axis of the mount. So the scope is inscribing a ring around the NCP (or Polaris when it is used as the alignment target), but can never be oriented directly on the NCP when the aligned polar scope is targeted.
That was the other reason for asking for a local cone error guru consult - there must be something that I am doing wrong in the cone error reduction procedure. But I have read and pondered the instructions and feel that I am correctly following them.
- Kurt
P.S. - On the other hand, I caught one error in the instructions that Orion corrected in a subsequent version after I pointed it out to them, and the polar scope alignment instructions also didn't seem to work. I had to modify the published polar scope instructions slighty to get the polar scope aligned dead-on.
participants (2)
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Chuck Hards -
Kurt Fisher