Locating The Celestial Pole; One- And Two-Star Polar Alignment - Meade LXD 75 Instruction Manual

Little Dipper
Polaris
Big Dipper
Cassiopeia
Fig. 42 Locating Polaris.
and also of the object you wish to locate, in a star atlas. Point the object at the bright
star. Then loosen the R.A. setting circle lock knob (32, Fig. 1d) and turn the R.A. set-
ting circle to read the correct R.A. coordinate of the bright star; lock the R.A. setting
circle lock knob onto the object. Next, loosen the R.A. lock (33, Fig. 1d) and turn the
telescope in R.A. to read the correct R.A. coordinate of the object. Tighten the R.A.
lock (33, Fig. 1d). If the procedure has been followed carefully, the desired object
should now be in the telescopic field of a low-power eyepiece.
If you do not immediately see the object you are seeking, try searching the adjacent
sky area. Keep in mind that, with the 26mm eyepiece, the field of view of the
is about 0.5°. Because of its much wider field, the viewfinder may be of signifi-
Series
cant assistance in locating and centering objects, after the setting circles have been
used to locate the approximate position of the object.
See
USING AUTOSTAR TO FIND OBJECTS NOT IN THE LIBRARIES,
mation on how to manually enter coordinates into Autostar.

Locating the Celestial Pole

To get basic bearings at an observing location, take note of where the Sun rises (East)
and sets (West) each day. After the site is dark, face North by pointing your left shoul-
der toward where the Sun set. To precisely point at the pole, find the North Star
(Polaris) by using the Big Dipper as a guide (Fig. 42).
Polar Alignment
Autostar provides several different methods of Polar Alignment: Easy, One-Star, Two-
Star and Three-Star. See
EASY ALIGNMENT
, page 52, for those procedure.
USING AUTOSTAR
One-Star Polar Alignment
Polar One-Star Alignment requires some knowledge of the night sky. Autostar pro-
vides a library of bright stars and one star from this library is chosen by the observer
for alignment. Polaris is chosen by Autostar. The rest of the procedure is almost iden-
tical to the
EASY ALIGNMENT
telescope at Polaris and center it in the telescope's eyepiece.
Two-Star Polar Alignment
Polar Two-Star Alignment requires some knowledge of the night sky. Autostar provides
a library of bright stars and two stars from this library are chosen by the observer for
alignment. Polaris is chosen by Autostar. The rest of the procedure is almost identical
to the , page 21, except that Autostar prompts you to point the tel-
EASY ALIGNMENT
escope at Polaris and center it in the telescope's eyepiece.
, page 21, and
, page 21, except that Autostar prompts you to point the
LXD75-
page 33, for infor-
THREE-STAR ALIGNMENT
5 1