PoleMaster - a high precision, easy to use electric polar scope
Achieving a high precision polar alignment is not an easy feat. You may spend tens of minutes, if not hours, to have a good polar alignment. After you get everything ready and begin taking exposure, you bumped the mount, and you have to restart from the beginning. An iOptron’s Center-balanced Equatorial Mount (CEM), such as CEM25 and CEM60, which equipped with an all time accessible polar scope, will allow you to make a quick and precise polar alignment in a few minutes. However, you still need to bend yourself, or knee down on the ground to perform the polar alignment
The most straight forward way for polar alignment is just to find the true north point and match its position with the rotation center of your R.A. axis. The PoleMasterTM electronic polar scope employs this idea. This device can be installed on front of the R.A. axis. It use a highly sensitivity camera to capture the image of northern sky. The sensitivity is much higher than the naked eye, so it can see not only the Polaris but also those faint stars nearby. Based on the locations of these stars, it can calculate the position of the true position of North Pole. With some sophisticated methods the PoleMaster can also detect the rotation center of the R.A. axis. It will mark the two points on the computer screen, one is the R.A. rotation center, the other is the virtual polar point. Adjust the mount and let them overlap then the pole is well aligned.
PoleMasterTM electronic polar scope provides a quick and easy solution. It gives you a direct and simple way to align with the pole. Within two minutes you could obtain a very high polar alignment precision up to 30 arcsec.
This iPolar has a rear USB port and works with the iOptron CEM26, GEM28 and SkyGuider Pro mounts.
Our expert comment:
The iPolar is built in a way that the virtual pole on your screen will move towards the left / right direction, while the adjustment of the Azimuth screws is being done during polar alignment. This does not affect accuracy at all.
(Jan Ströher)
Each iPolar is designed for a specific iOptron mount and only fits that mount. Therefore, please pay attention to the exact application range of the iPolar before buying. A reference to the compatible mount is also included in the product description.
(Jan Ströher)
