Adjusting the Polar Alignment

To raise and lower the telescope, using the car jacks is very handy. Just place the carjacks under the telescope bars, to stabilise and move the telescope while the bolts are unfastened. To move the telescope left and right requires a strong back and a lot of luck. There are usually a few iterations before the alignment is acceptable.

If Tpoint was used for the first iteration to calculate the mechanical offset, then the two-star method can be used for the following iterations of the polar alignment. We ran quite well with a ${0.7^\circ}$ polar offset at LANL with no noticable ill-effects. The modelling takes the misalignment into account, and the telescope motor is able to track both axes. A permanent installation would probably desire better polar alignment, however.