Setting Up a German Equatorial Mount
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- Опубликовано: 3 авг 2024
- Setting Up a German Equatorial Mount
Need help finding Polaris (the pole star) then jump to 6:15 by clicking this time-code.
Presented by Robert J Dalby
Produced by DB Video Services for Astronomy and Nature TV 
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I deal only in Dobsonians, but I get a lot of inquiries from interested folks who've bought equatorial mounted telescopes. This video was very helpful. Now I can help them. Thank you!
This is the best video in my opinion! I finally understood it completely. Thank you, great video!
I looked everywhere for a no nonsence way to do this. Thank you so much for making this vid.
These videos are quite old but still accurate and useful!
Thanks so much for these videos!! This channel has been so helpful in getting started and understanding the basics!
He gave the Big Dipper about 5 different names I've never heard in my life, and no Ursa Major ("Big Bear").
Yes, big thanks !!!! Very clear and well presented
Ok I'm starting to understand this a little more now. This video has been the biggest help so far. Thanks.
An excellent video that clearly explains the steps to be followed. Thanks for the efforts.
This was super useful. I just bought a celestron with the GEM and was having trouble setting it up. Thanks for putting this video together.
got my first scope last night... this is the first bit of instruction that has made sense to me. :) thanks.
Excellent explanation! I can't wait to try my new telescope!
Great video and very helpful!!!
very well done tutorial, clear and concise. Thank you!
very clear, thanks very much, what was totally confusing after reading the instructions, now starts to make sense.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge
Excellent video! Thanks for making it.
Very well explained. Thank you.
I love your video and channel. I live in Western Colorado near the Utah border and I cant wait to get my first telescope and see the stars, they are very bright and easy to see out here. Thank you so much for helping me get interested in astronomy. Cheers!
Thank you so much Sir .
It is very helpful.
Actually, there are some telescopes that come with equatorial mounts that come with an area at the back of the mount where you look through. You have to look through that, and you put the north star in the center of the area your looking through. But those usually come with very expensive computerized telescopes.
Thanks! I had a nice scope donated to my school (I'm a science teacher), and now I can use it properly.
very useful and well explained video !!
@mahadca - Yes, that is exactly right.
Kind Regards,
The Astronomy and Nature Centre
what is the difference between equatorial mount and tablet telescope ?! Which is better or easier?
Thank you! This was really helpful for me :)
hi so once you have polar aligned, what knobs and pullies do you use to aim at planets etc without screwing it up again? i understand the set up but thats about it haha. i seen saturn for the first time last night through a very cheap jessops 800/80 scope and was pretty impressed, looking to upgrade to something more entry level and not something thats almost a toy :)
I have understood now how to set it up, but I wont be looking at the North Star in your case, I'm in Australia so I will have to set it up differently here. But how do I them move it to find other stars.
How do I rotate and tilt without loosing the original settings.
thank you so much you have helped me alot
Very helpful! Thank you :)
jesus christ, i looked everywhere and joined some forumns for this shit. YOU are the man!!!!!!! i love you
very helpful!
Thank you
In Croatia Big Dipper, we call Large Bear (Veliki Medvjed), or Big wheels (Velika Kola)
Some of the high end mounts actually DO have holes bored through the Right Ascension axis, including Losmandy and Astro-Physics. Thanks for the demo.
Thanks for this video. Is there a difference between an Equatorial mount in general and a German Equatorial mount ?
had my scope for over a year but never figured out how to use it till i watched your video perfectly explained and directed, 1 question if i may ask, can a telescope be used from balcony on 2nd floor? cheers again
Great demo and tutorial,
I have a question
When I am done with Polar alignment and now ready to observe Moon, should I keep Mount facing towards Polaris and only rotate slow motion controls
towards Moon
I would really appreciate if you can answer this.
farhan
Very nice video, you're a pleasant host to watch and listen to, very clear explanations, thanks!
This is a really helpful video - thank you. The skywatcher EQ2 mount manual is quite confusing on this issue. My only question is that on another less helpful video I watched, they talked about the mount having a marking on the north leg. I can't see this on my mount so can I ignore that with this mount and just follow your instruction instead? Thanks again for sharing your knowledge
Cool... now without having to adjust my azimuth and attitude adjusters, how do I move the scope to look at other things?
Great video, but I'm confused on a point regarding the polar alignment. The accuracy surely all depends on the tube being parallel to the equatorial axis. But this can only be done approximately by eye. How can the tube be aligned exactly? Or am I missing something?
What can be more accurate than the optical alignment of your telescope according to what it actually sees? The only more accurate solution is to use GoTo mounts and auto-alignment software that does the tracking for you. Then, you use a black-and-white USB-camera at the finder-scope and attach that to a laptop, which runs an application that steers the GoTo servo-motors to adjust your mount pixel-perfectly.
But that is only needed for deep-space long exposures of very faint objects. For most other observations, a cheap RA-motor suffices, if you want to make planetary observations.
I have a celestron 127EQ and I just hate this mount. The screw knobs are hard to turn for adjustments and often slip and the legs are wobbly.. But I have a question if you still check your videos, what to do if you near the equator, like in the Philippines and have a hard time finding the polaris in the sky?
Hi my home place show is 4.399493 latitude , so is it this is the right one ? I am from miri Sarawak Malaysia , sorry for asking I am new to this hobby :) thanks
I don't think that you myst find polaris in the telescope, because if you summarize the whole video all you need to do is make the telescope 🔭 face north as long as you say that polaris and the north pole are very near, and then find the latitude and you're done. thanks for the video.
Thank you for your interesting Video. I shall study it many times to gain an understanding og my Scope
Gerry Broad
I live at 13 degrees latitude. When I Venture out to a dark site north it improves to 14 degrees. The problem is, my counterweight is touching the North tripod leg. Would bending the counterweight rod upwards will help solve this problem? There's two more solutions like transferring the stud stopper for azimuth of the mount assembly and fabricating a half pier. But these extensive processes and will make my mount no longer in original condition. Any suggestions Sir?
I am thinking of buying a telescope with an equatorial mount and I might have a similar problem. I live at 23.
Loosen th middle knob of scope...turn tripod til it won’t hit...realign th scope again(polar thingy) tighten th middle knob...and wallah😀
Remember it's Funf, not five when dealing with German Equatorial mounts
I'm having trouble with my astromaster 130 if anyone can help me that would be great. it keeps sagging downward and when ever I have an object in the starpointer it's not showing up in the scope
It's very difficult find information about Southern hemisphere alignment.
The use of the setting circles at the Southern hemisphere is compromised because of the orientation of the scale.
Like a lot of other newbies to astronomy I know how to polar align my telescope and what the purpose of this is for. The thing I don't understand just yet is, what am I meant to use to locate things in the sky. Do I just use my fine controls for RA and declination or do I move the whole telescope with out adjusting the latitude? Please reply as I am so inpatient and want to maximize my telescope knowledge. I also am using an Celestron 130 EQ with MD.
Once the MOUNT is polar aligned, you do not want to move it. Unlock the R.A. axis and the Declination axis and move the TELESCOPE, not the MOUNT to an object you wish to see.
The free program Stellarium is very useful for this. Set to your local position and time, it will give you the R.A. and Dec coordinates. On the mount, you'll find a moveable ring for R.A. When you set the telescope on a known object, you can rotate that ring so that it matches the R.A. coordinates in Stellarium. There are also apps for iPhone and Android that will give you the same information.
When you look at Polaris, you'll want to set your R.A. ring for what Polaris is. For me, right now, it's 2H,50m,13s with a Declination of 89°, 19'41". But, that's where I am, and right now.
So, for instance, say you live in Washington State, in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. As I'm writing this, it's 8:28 local time, and Jupiter is R.A. 9H28M46S, 15° 54' 48". You aren't going to be able to set the seconds, and you probably will have trouble with the minutes as well, although you'll probably get close enough to see Jupiter in your finder scope and eyepiece. Simply set your R.A. (after setting the ring for Polaris) to 9H and 30 minutes should be close enough to get Jupiter in your viewfinder.
Lock the R.A. and Dec locks back into place, and use the Slow Motion controls to center it. Then, once centered, turn on your motor for your R.A. axis and it should keep Jupiter, or whatever else you put there, in place.
Gary C Thank you Gary, This information was helpful
Gary C Thanks for the help Gary! I have Stellarium and was wondering after finding Polaris if you were using RA/DEJ2000, RA/DE(of date), or hour angle/DE
For people who live in southern hemisphere, lets say altitude 37.8 S, which latitude shall i set if i have only 0-90 degrees ? Shall i set it to 90-37.8= 52.2 or shall i use 37.8 directly ?
You'll be pointing to the South celestial pole rather than North so 37.8° on the indicator.
But what if the object you are looking at is not possible to observe without turning the scope? Or is that never a problem?
How do you find polaris during the day?
I can see polaris through the hole I drilled in the centre but now nothing works properly and it won't all stay together
Take heart, the air-force are looking for engineers just like you - to drop on the enemies of the free world. KR RJD
I live in the Southern Hemisphere and I'm unable to view Polaris. What do I do?
Line up Southern Cross 2 stars(top n bottom star) draw a line from top star thru to bottom star keep goin til u hit a bright star. Guess th middle between Cross and bright star on that line.....wallah. South celestial pole....footnote,draw straight line down to horizon and there is South. Howeveeeer, if u no where south is...draw line straight up til u hit that line from Cross and wallah.
do you know the former archbishop of Canterbury N. T. Wright you sound like you are both from the same neighborhood.
Can't i just point an look?? Like ooh something in the sky "point" "Looks" ... cool
Not if you want to track the object, either if you're with friends or are taking pictures.
Yes you may. But then you will lose the object in few mins. remember the earth is rotating on its axis. The equatorial mount basically will rotate your telescope on the same axis and you can follow that object for hours. other thing it is easy to follow star charts.
Some ignorant comments on this video. Yes you can but an AZ mount would be better and you can mimic the EQ motion by using a box or stack on wood or whatever placed under one of the AZ mount legs giving you best of both worlds. EQ mounts have their benefits and drawbacks as do AZ mounts but AZ mounts tend to be more flexible because they are not just easy to use for astronomy but also for daytime viewing. I nearly took a hammer to my EQ mount. At the end of the day, a stable mount is more important than the type of mount.
I done all of this and i still struggle to see a desired object!Here where i live i am the only one interested in astronomy and there is no one who can show me how this works!I am very dissapointed.._
Why can’t we do this in the south?
I'm maybe a bit stupid and wet behind the ears but i spent a long time setting up my telescope I live in Norfolk and you face the telescope north so I did this and the moon past behind me .. I'm laughing while writing this but it's true ....why facing north when moon and planets are behind me
You may already have answered this, but if not...
You aim the telescope North so that the plane of the right ascension, which is perpendicular around the axis follows the ecliptic, which is the path the sun, moon and stars follow. By looking through the scope and seeing Polaris, the North star, centred you know you are pointing at the North Celestial Pole and can be a bit like pressing the "tare" button to reset a set of scales; you know exactly where you are pointing and can align your scope from that accordingly. Hope this helps :D
That is to say, once you are polar aligned, you are now free to swing around to view whatever you choose and track the motion with minimal effort 🔭
@TheKNINE2
Well you could of kept the name of this guy to yourself just to preserve the anonymity of him on the Internet.
Quick link to time code in video description 6:15
(If you get ads, do the guy a favor and just let them play through) 👍