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Subject: Re: [M]: Meade APO Equatorial Mount question?
From: Bill Arnett
Reply To: mapug@shore.net
Date: Mon Feb 03 02:18:57 1997

At 7:56 AM -0800 2/2/97, M. Gartland wrote:
>...[the LXD mount] must always be (at least rough) polar aligned.
>BTW...for power off viewing , I can polar align in about 3-5 min. for power
>on viewing only tracking it takes about 5-7 min...

Why so long? I used to use an old 2080 (equatorial fork mount with a
wedge). I could align it well enough to visual tracking by simply standing
south of it and rotating the tripod to point more or less at Polaris; this
took about 5 seconds. OK, it wouldn't track for an hour this way but it
was fine for many minutes.

---
Bill Arnett              billa@znet.com           http://www.seds.org/billa/

  "I know that I am mortal and the creature of a day; but when I search
   out the massed wheeling circles of the stars, my feet no longer touch
   the earth, but, side by side with Zeus himself, I take my fill of
   ambrosia, the food of the gods." -- Claudius Ptolemaeus (Ptolemy)