PA with no Celestial Pole view

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ZS1RA
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Joined: Wed Jun 30, 2021 5:29 pm

PA with no Celestial Pole view

#1

Post by ZS1RA »

I changed my mount from a SkyWatcher EQ6R Pro to a Mesu e200

The SkyWatcher has a fantastic Polar Alignment routine built into the handset and I could PA anywhere even from my "observatory" meaning my balcony where I have no view of the Celestial Pole due to buildings so my "horizon" is at 40 deg and I live at -26 deg (I live in South Africa). Unfortunately this amazing PA routine is not available on the Mesu so I purchased a to Sharpcap licence to assist with PA.

My question is, can I do PA without a view of the South Celestial Pole using Sharpcap, if so how?

Feedback appreciated

TIA.

Shaun
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Re: PA with no Celestial Pole view

#2

Post by admin »

Hi Shaun,

sorry, but the SharpCap PA routine requires a view of the pole - there are tools that allow PA of the sort that your Skywatcher handset has (based on GOTO stars + measuring the correction). I remember using a Windows application for this back in the mists of time (before SharpCap PA), but I can't recall the name :( Hopefully someone with a better memory than me will be able to supply the name of such a program!

When I was looking into this I realised that the SharpCap Polar Alignment page did not clearly say that you need a view of the pole, and I apologise if this misled you into buying a Pro license that you cannot use - send me a PM if this was the case.

cheers,

Robin
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