Indeed, if you are in the southern hemisphere, you won’t be able to see Polaris. Computerized tracking and field-derotation are not difficult to implement at the professional level. Well, there is an easy way to find it. our naked eyes can see no less than a few thousands, 5 beautiful solar system objects to photograph, Deep-sky astrophotography with a Fujifilm camera, Photographing comet 46P/Wirtanen (December 2018). The equatorial axis of the mount is often equipped with a motorized "clock drive", that rotates that axis one revolution every 23 hours and 56 minutes in exact sync with the apparent diurnal motion of the sky. Equatorial. Good news: polar alignment is still possible, without using Polaris but another star called Sigma Octantis (or Polaris Australis), that is close enough to the axis of rotation of the Earth. In the first seconds of the video, the mount is off and as expected, the sky is moving. German Equatorial Mounts are equipped with setting circles for R.A. and DEC and slow-motion controls (or motors) that move the telescope in these directions. Set the latitude scale to your latitude and aim the polar axis so it points north. Massive new instruments are most stable when mounted in an alt-azimuth (up down, side-to-side) configuration. The latitude will give you the angle which you need to orient your mount at (as shown on the diagram above). The original English fork design is disadvantaged in that it does not allow the telescope to point too near the north or south celestial pole. [9] It achieves this by having a surface that pivots about a "virtual polar axis". Equatorial mounts can have various designs and names, the most famous one being probably the GEM (German Equatorial Mount), but they all have the same function: compensating the rotation of the Earth. These platforms are often used with altazimuth mounted amateur astronomical telescopes, such as the common Dobsonian telescope type, to overcome that type of mount's inability to track the night sky. View our reviews of mounts to help you find one to suit your needs; Setting up your equatorial mount 1. Well, luckily for us, aligning a mount is pretty straightforward and can be done in 4 steps (provided you are in the Northern hemisphere). More sophisticated mounts are usually motorised. To perform an accurate polar alignment, equatorial mounts have small knobs that allow you to make precise adjustments. The stars don’t trail, of course, but the target you’re observing quickly moves out of your field of view. And as you increase the focal length of your lens or telescope, the exposure time at which star trailing starts to appear becomes smaller. In astrophotography, this process is called the polar alignment. What is an equatorial mount and how does it work? So you need to move your telescope a few inches and recenter your target, which quickly becomes annoying. An equatorial mount has one rotational axis parallel to the Earth’s axis of rotation. The Open Fork mount has a Fork attached to a right ascension axis at its base. This design allows the attached instrument (your camera or telescope) to stay fixed on a celestial object by driving one axis at a constant speed. The effect of the rotation is clearly visible on a camera sensor. At the amateur level, however, equatorial mounts remain popular, particularly for astrophotography. That’s a lot of words … [1][2] This type of mount is used for astronomical telescopes and cameras. It is well known since centuries, and was used extensively by navigators and travellers alike for a very convenient reason: it always points North. The Earth spins around its axis, which, fortunately for Humans, creates the day and the night. To do so the autoguider must be able to issue commands through the telescope's control system. Your email address will not be published. Equatorial telescope mounts come in many designs. Luckily for us, we now have smartphones connected to the Internet. The telescope is usually fitted entirely inside the fork, although there are exceptions such as the Mt. So, which one is Polaris? Aligning the equatorial mount with the axis of the Earth In practice, a mount needs to be aligned with the axis of the Earth to work properly. So to get that shaft to point exactly at that central point in the sky, there is an up and down (Altitude or elevation) and a left and right (Azimuth) adjustment on the mount. A basic equatorial mount is mechanical, and rotates thanks to a set of knobs you need to turn. Polaris, also known as the North Star, is a star located 430 ly above the North Pole. The electronics of modern telescope systems often include a port for autoguiding. First you need to locate a constellation called the Big Dipper (or Ursa Major). In astronomy, an equatorial mount is an extremely helpful invention, that becomes essential when photographing the cosmos. In astronomical telescope mounts, the equatorial axis (the right ascension) is paired with a second perpendicular axis of motion (known as the declination).