Orion Sirius Goto Alignment?

  • Thread starter Thread starter kbilyak04
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kbilyak04

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Hello,

I just got an Orion Sirius Goto tripod and mount, but haven't had a whole lot of time to mess with it yet. Last night I tried to do a one star alignment and I received an error that said "RA offset 45 degrees".

I did a pretty darn good polar alignment, and then I selected Dubhe as my alignment star. Dubhe (as you probably know if you are reading this question) is one of the two stars in Ursa Major which points to Polaris.

My telescope then slewed in the general direction of Dubhe, but much lower on the horizon than it should have been. It should have been pointing up to an altitude of about 50-60 degrees, but instead it pointed almost parallel to the ground.

Then I got the error message saying RA offset 45 degrees. Alignment failed.

I thought I entered everything correctly. What comes to mind when you hear RA offset 45 degrees?

Thanks!
 
I am currently testing the same mount, but have never seen that error message. In fact I have had no problems with the mount. Some suggestions:

1) Have you set the time and date correctly? Be sure to use the 24-hour clock and give the proper time zone offset (without Daylight Saving Time), and indicate that you are currently on Daylight Saving Time.

2) Have you set your longitude and latitude accurately?

3) The 1-star alignment is not accurate -- use the 3-star alignment.

4) Dubhe is not a good choice for a 1-star alignment. Read the suggestions in the manual -- they say to use a star close to the celestial equator.

5) To me the error message suggests something wrong with your time and date information.
 
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