Polar Alignment Tray for Telescope

prusaprinters

Generally, polar alignment is extremely important in astronomy and astrophotography as it allows you to counteract the natural motion of the earth, which is extremely important for tracking and photography. In some circumstances, for example during the day, it is not possible to polar align to a known star, such as Polaris. This is where apps such as PS Align come in handy, as they allow you to use your phone's GPS and built-in compass to roughly polar align the telescope to a certain degree of accuracy. This tray allows you to attach your phone to your telescope for easy polar alignment. You will need 2x countersunk M3x10 screws and 2x M3 bolts to attach the tray to the dovetail. However, you can just tap the screws directly into the plastic piece, it is strong enough to hold. How to polar align your mount:The tray must be attached to the vixen dovetail of your mount with the telescope removed, and the mount must then be pointed north (the north leg) with a compass, and all the axis levelled with the correct elevation set you your latitude. You can find your latitude here.Then, download the app “PS Align Pro” on your phone. Once the app is open, select the sun icon on the bottom, this is the Daytime / No Polarscope Alignment page. This will display a circular alignment with a crosshair that you will need to bring to the middle, the middle is the celestial pole. You will need to use the adjustment knobs on your mount to adjust the elevation and azimuth of your mount, without moving the legs around. Based on the model by skislalom1, it's slightly larger to accommodate larger phones (with cases), and without the added options so it can take up less space when stored in a case for example. Buy me a coffee :)