An ingenious solution

I have a small roll-off roof observatory with a pier at the bottom of my garden, and although I get a good view of the ecliptic and the southern sky from it, my neighbour’s trees obscure Polaris. Not being able to align my NEQ6 mount with its polarscope, I planned to use a compass to find true north and a digital spirit level to adjust the altitude. This is where my plan fell apart, as I got different readings depending on where I placed the compass. Although I’ve been careful not to introduce ferrous materials where possible, a fair number of nails went into the observatory’s construction; it’s Clyde built, like a battleship, and many of my other DIY jobs!

I mentioned my problem to a friend with an interest in meteorology and he mentioned the sundial in his garden. I have often used the Sun’s shadow to align a telescope when observing sunspots. But it never crossed my mind to wind the observatory roof back in daylight to create a True North Solar Compass – letting the midday Sun (or 1pm BST) cast a north-south meridian shadow of the pier on the floor.

Ingenious problem solving, Archie: the simple solutions are often the most satisfying. Here’s to many evenings of well-aligned observing as the nights lengthen! – Ed

(90 frames stacked in RegiStax 6 from a 20-inch video). I am very new to all of this but would like to receive any helpful feedback. I think the crater on the closer Moon surface shot is Copernicus.

Well done with those images, Stuart, they’re well focused. There’s advice on creating realistic colour in astrophotos in our feature on page 36, which may be useful. – Ed