Ad
related to: how to align equatorial mount
Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Polar alignment is the act of aligning the rotational axis of a telescope's equatorial mount or a sundial's gnomon with a celestial pole to parallel Earth's axis. Alignment methods [ edit ]
A large German equatorial mount on the Forststernwarte Jena 50cm Cassegrain reflector telescope. An equatorial mount is a mount for instruments that compensates for Earth's rotation by having one rotational axis, called polar axis, parallel to the Earth's axis of rotation. [1] [2] This type of mount is used for astronomical telescopes and cameras.
For an equatorial GoTo telescope mount, the user must align the mount by hand with either the north celestial pole or the south celestial pole. Assuming the user is accurate in the alignment, the mount points the telescope to a bright star, asking the user to center it in the eyepiece.
A polar mount is a movable mount for satellite dishes that allows the dish to be pointed at many geostationary satellites by slewing around one axis. [1] It works by having its slewing axis parallel, or almost parallel, to the Earth's polar axis so that the attached dish can follow, approximately, the geostationary orbit, which lies in the plane of the Earth's equator.
In the southern hemisphere the east is on the left when an equatorial mount is aligned on the south pole. Many Right Ascension setting circles therefore carry two sets of numbers, one showing the value if the telescope is aligned in the northern hemisphere, the other for the southern.
Alt-alt mounts, or altitude-altitude mounts, are designs similar to horizontal equatorial yoke mounts or Cardan suspension gimbals. This mount is an alternative to the altazimuth mount that has the advantage of not having a blind spot near the zenith, and for objects near the celestial equator the field rotation is minimized. [7]
Clock drive mechanism in the pier of the German equatorial mount for the 8-inch refracting telescope at Aldershot Observatory.. In astronomy, a clock drive (also known as a sidereal drive or field rotator) is a motor-controlled mechanism used to move an equatorial mounted telescope along one axis to keep the aim in exact sync with the apparent motion of the fixed stars on the celestial sphere.
The equatorial describes the sky as seen from the Solar System, and modern star maps almost exclusively use equatorial coordinates. The equatorial system is the normal coordinate system for most professional and many amateur astronomers having an equatorial mount that follows the movement of the sky during the night. Celestial objects are found ...