Hi All

FWIW To ensure the tripod is set up in more or less the same place in my garden I did the following, After setting up the scope using drift to get a star stable in a 12mm eyepiece for 5 mins I marked the patio where the tripod legs met the ground. The following day I cut holes in the paving slabs and inserted a 38mm steel tubes about 150mm long these I set in a stiff concrete mix before the concrete set I placed the tripod legs (suitably Protected) on the steel tubes the weight leaves an indentation in the damp mixture inside the tubes. leave for a few hours and then remove to allow the mixture to go off. Now as long as I leave the wedge alone drift alignment takes no more than 10-20mins if I want to do long exposure photography it seems to be working OK for now. The great thing is she is always ready for visual observing & short exposure (under 1s Photography Moon etc.) set up takes a few minuets sync on a star ready to go just as fast as Alt Az tracking is obviously slightly off but nothing a few presses
on a button can't put right every 5 or so minuets. Hope this Helps.

Clear Skies
Tony Floyde




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Subject: Re: [M]: LX200 and Wedge
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2001 00:23:50 +0000

I also have an 8" LX200 on a wedge. Once the scope is set up and leveled, I can get a pretty good polar alignment in a few minutes. It will help your accuracy if you use a crosshair eyepiece. It will also make alignment easier if you defocus your stars when you try to center them. You can do a real quick polar alignment good enough that when you use the GOTO command to find objects, they will consistently in the field of the field of view and will track well. It has been my experience that a rough polar alignment good enough for visual observing can be done in only a little more time than a two star alt/az alignment.

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