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In the Northern Hemisphere, rough alignment can be done by visually aligning the axis of the telescope mount with Polaris.In the Southern hemisphere or places where Polaris is not visible, a rough alignment can be performed by ensuring the mount is level, adjusting the latitude adjustment pointer to match the observer's latitude, and aligning the axis of the mount with true south or north by ...
Currently, there is no South Pole Star like Polaris, the so-called North Star. Sigma Octantis is the closest near naked-eye star to the south celestial pole, but at apparent magnitude 5.47 it is barely visible on a clear night, making it less useful for casual navigational or astronomy alignment purposes.
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.
In amateur astronomy, setting up a portable telescope equipped with setting circles requires: Polar alignment – The telescope must be aligned with either the north celestial pole or the south celestial pole. Polaris is roughly at the north pole, while Sigma Octantis is roughly at the south pole.
A diagram of a typical nautical sextant, a tool used in celestial navigation to measure the angle between two objects viewed by means of its optical sight. Celestial navigation, also known as astronavigation, is the practice of position fixing using stars and other celestial bodies that enables a navigator to accurately determine their actual current physical position in space or on the ...
Sigma Octantis is a solitary [9] star in the Octans constellation that forms the pole star of the Southern Hemisphere.Its name is also written as σ Octantis, abbreviated as Sigma Oct or σ Oct, and it is officially named Polaris Australis (/ p oʊ ˈ l ɛər ɪ s ɔː ˈ s t r eɪ l ɪ s /). [10]
The north celestial pole currently is within one degree of the bright star Polaris (named from the Latin stella polaris, meaning "pole star"). This makes Polaris, colloquially known as the "North Star", useful for navigation in the Northern Hemisphere: not only is it always above the north point of the horizon, but its altitude angle is always ...
Star trackers have a single motor which drives the right ascension axis. This allows the mount to compensate for the Earth's rotation. Star trackers rely on the user ensuring the mount is polar aligned with high accuracy, as it is unable correct in the secondary declination axis, limiting exposure times.