>I don't think that the original poster intended to state that you should not
>align on a star at the zenith. I think it was to say that it's not a good
>idea to align on Polaris because at the celestial pole, the lines of RA are
>so close together, it's difficult for the scope to accurately align. Some
>people agree with this and others think it's hogwash. I, personally, avoid
>Polaris. I like to try to use stars at opposite ends of the sky.
>
>Scott

Remember to look at this from the telescope's point of view, not from a
star chart's point of view....

>From an ALT-AZ mounted scope's point of view, there are no "lines"
converging on Polaris. Regardless of what anyone says (including Meade),
Polaris is a perfectly acceptable alignment star IN ALT-AZ. I do it all
the time and achieve very good alignment.

Again, from an ALT-AZ mounted scope's point of view, there ARE "lines"
converging on the ZENITH. If you think about it a bit, you will realize
that the closer you point to the zenith, the larger the effect on azimuth
from a slightly mis-located star. If the star is exactly on the zenith,
you could set any azimuth you wanted to and have no effect on the star
location in the field of view. BUT, you would only be correct for that
instant in time when the star was on the zenith.

Did that make sense? Did to me, but I wrote it!


Paul Goelz
Rochester Hills, MI
pgoelz at eaglequest dot com
Videoastronomy and music (UnFest) web site:
http://www.eaglequest.com/~pgoelz

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