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A large German equatorial mount on the Forststernwarte Jena 50cm Cassegrain reflector telescope. An equatorial mount is a mount for instruments that compensates for Earth's rotation by having one rotational axis, called polar axis, parallel to the Earth's axis of rotation. [1] [2] This type of mount is used for astronomical telescopes and cameras.
A special reticle is used to align the mount with Polaris (or a group of stars near the polar region) in the Southern Hemisphere. While primitive polariscopes originally needed the careful adjustment of the mount to match the time of year and day, this process can be simplified using computer apps that calculate the correct position of the reticle.
For an equatorial GoTo telescope mount, the user must align the mount by hand with either the north celestial pole or the south celestial pole. Assuming the user is accurate in the alignment, the mount points the telescope to a bright star, asking the user to center it in the eyepiece.
An equatorial platform or equatorial table is an equatorial telescope mount in the form of a specially designed platform that allows any device sitting on it to track astronomical objects in the sky on an equatorial axis. [1] They are used to give equatorial tracking to any device sitting on them, from small cameras up to entire observatory ...
Setting circles on an equatorial fork-mounted telescope. Setting circles are used on telescopes equipped with an equatorial mount to find celestial objects by their equatorial coordinates, often used in star charts and ephemerides.
Alt-alt mounts, or altitude-altitude mounts, are designs similar to horizontal equatorial yoke mounts or Cardan suspension gimbals. This mount is an alternative to the altazimuth mount that has the advantage of not having a blind spot near the zenith, and for objects near the celestial equator the field rotation is minimized. [7]
Clock drive mechanism in the pier of the German equatorial mount for the 8-inch refracting telescope at Aldershot Observatory.. In astronomy, a clock drive (also known as a sidereal drive or field rotator) is a motor-controlled mechanism used to move an equatorial mounted telescope along one axis to keep the aim in exact sync with the apparent motion of the fixed stars on the celestial sphere.
The altazimuth mount does have its own limitations. Un-driven altazimuth mounted telescopes need to be "nudged" every few minutes along both axes to compensate for the rotation of the Earth to keep an object in view (as opposed to one axis for un-driven equatorial mounts), an exercise that becomes more difficult with higher magnifications. [11]