Paramount GT-1100 Robotic Telescope Mount

Paramount User’s Guide page 33
Figure 21 – Remove these four screws to access the azimuth nosepiece. (View of
bottom of the mount.)
Next, remove the four hex screws that hold the nosepiece in place. You'll see the additional
sets of mounting holes beneath this piece. Remount the nosepiece in the holes that give you
the desired azimuth adjustment.
Paramount ME Quick Polar Alignment Method
The Paramount ME contains homing sensors that can be used aid in the first step in polar
alignment. Each time the Paramount ME is homed, it returns to the exact same position (i.e.
to an encoder tic, or a fraction of an arcsecond). This position is very near hour angle 2.0
and declination 0.0. This is a point two hours west of the Meridian on the celestial equator.
Though the mount does home to the exact same position each time, it is not precisely at
hour angle 2.0000 and declination 0.0000. This is in part due to consistency of the position
of the emitter-detector pair in the sensors used. Additionally, if the main optic of the system
is used for star sighting, it will have inherent non-perpendicularity errors. Therefore, the
following procedure can be deemed “very good” as far as estimating polar alignment, but the
full procedure using TPoint will refine the alignment to the desired level of accuracy.
However, if you are consistent in attaching your OTA to the ME, you will find that this
procedure will be very accurate each time the ME is set up. When the star-sync is performed,
it represents a calibration of many of the errors.
Step 1 – Level the mount, and set the altitude and azimuth as close as possible.
A level mount is not required for extremely precise operation, but it is necessary for the
purposes of the following alignment procedure. Using the gradations on the side of the
wedge assembly, estimate the altitude based on the latitude of the observing site.
Step 2 – Home mount with the proper date/time information in TheSky.
By homing the mount from TheSky software with the proper time and date information, the
Local Sidereal Time (LST) will be computed and therefore the position of the telescope, if it
were aligned properly with the pole, is known to within ± 10 arcminutes.