Telescope Reviews: Tripod for 3.5" Q

A good solid table is probably a good idea while you get accustomed to the scope and it's handling. A shaky table will be frustrating but you will know quickly if it works or not.

Same for all the other accessories. it's cheaper to order later than to buy everything before you know what you really need. The nice thing about the Q is that everything you *need* is built in. Otherwise it would not be a Questar. Most accessories we buy for general observing is based on obsession, not need

The manual has a seemingly bewildering number of techniques for polar alignment, progressing from simple but a bit crude to increasingly sophisticated methods.

The simplest way to do it is to set the declination to 90 degrees and center Polaris. That gets you to within 3/4 of a degree. That means that if you use the circles you should be within one or two widths of the field of the standard 16mm EP.

If all you want is for the centered object to stay in the field for some time, the above will do it. You only have to go further if you want to make the circles more accurate.

You can improve that by setting dec to 89.25 degrees, more or less, and pointing the eyepiece tube at Alkaid in Ursa Major and the finder points to Epsilon Cassiopeia. This time of year, that puts the EP pointing roughly horizontal and west, and the finder pointing toward the east. If you draw an imaginary line running from Alkaid through E Cass, the EP and finder should lie on the line, with the EP pointing west this time of year just after dark.

You then point to a known star reasonably close to the celestial equator and set the circles to the listed Right Ascension of that star. This time of year Altair (Southernmost star in the "Summer Triangle") is a good choice, at RA 19h51m and DEC 8d 53m.

I use Vega at RA 18h37m DEC 38D 47m because the first thing I like to look at is E Lyrae, which is my favorite summertime object with the Q and is within the finder field at that point. Sometimes I save time by going straight to E Lyrae, getting my double-double fix and then setting RA to 18h44m. Although not "near" the celestial equator it seems to be close enough. You simply MUST observe E Lyrae on your first night of observing

. Otherwise you will be booted from this forum.

When I say "finder pointing" above, I mean the finder cage sticking out of the bottom of the Q. This time of year the EP and finder are almost level around 11pm - both stars are about 31 degrees altitude at my location. Within an hour or so of that, level will get you very close for visual use.

If you get that even close (you don't need surveying tools to do this for visual work), you will find the circles very accurate, usually within a single field of view of the initial setting. this will make more sense after you get the scope. If you have not observed in a while and your skills are rusty (mine get rusty in a couple months

) just point the thing at Polaris with dec at 90 degrees and work with that for awhile.

The method above is Questar's suggestion via the manual. Ron R has a different approach which works well if you have a 32mm EP, but I think Q's way is slightly simpler and works with any EP.

Ron's polar alignment cheat sheet with calibration stars (for RA) is good for all seasons. I don't have the link handy; Ron will probably chime in. Bob Vanderbei over on the yahoo group also has his own cheat sheet with calibration stars and prescription for getting the pole set good enough for photo work. I just point my scope at Alkaid or E Cass and I'm good to go but the calibration star lists are always on my observing clipboard.

Neil