Polar Alignment Stick

To assist in levelling and aligning my tripod to true south, I made a stick with a compass attached. This stick can be quickly screwed to my Sky-Watcher AZEQ6 mount.

Once attached, the tripod is rotated, levelled, and rotated again (ie. fine-tuned) until the tripod is both level, and pointing to the True South Pole (which is directly under the South Celestial Pole).

I made the stick from a light, standard-sized piece of wood, from a local hardware store, but it can be made of any non-magnetic material.

It is approximately 1m long. While it can be any length, it should be at least 1m long to keep the magnetic material in the tripod away from the compass which would defect the compass needle leading to an inaccurate pointing direction.

I also painted it white and added a line in the middle along the length of the wood. The line assists in keeping things straight and ensuring I have attached the stick to the tripod accurately.

Attached to one end of the stick (with brass screws which are non-magnetic) is an old ‘Silver’ (ie. brand) flat, map compass. The compass should be attached to the stick to avoid falling off when rotating the mount.

Attached to the other end of the stick is a spirit level as well as a hole and bolt to secure the stick temporarily to the tripod.

Note: Suunto & Silver brand compasses seem to be readily available in Sydney – You should just ensure if buying a compass from overseas, that it is designed or “balanced” to operate in the southern hemisphere.

I secured the stick to the Sky-Watcher mount using a M10 x 25mm Wing Screw, with an M10 nut used as a spacer, as the wing screw was too long & I didn’t want to cut it shorter or spend too long screwing a long thread into the mount.

To the right of the Wing Screw, is another hole that the square peg, on the south side of the mount fits into. This hole is big enough to fit over the square peg. I chiselled out the wood underneath to allow the wood to fit over the lock nut at the base of that square peg. I also squared off the hole with a chisel so it was a loose fit over the peg. I also thought the square hole would help prevent the plastic plug (from the hot glue) from turning.

To align the stick with the mount, I used a cross line laser level, mounted on an old tripod. This level draws a vertical line, perpendicular to a level floor. (I ignored the horizontal cross line it also draws).

The laser line is aligned with the black peg (or south) side of the mount, and the mount turned so the laser line cuts through the middle of the other hole in the mount (on the north side). This is the line the centre of the stick must follow. (I measured centre points on the mount and put felt-tipped marker lines on the top of the tripod to assist the alignment).

The stick is then screwed to the mount & aligned so the laser precisely follows the centre line of the stick, (as shown in the photos) and aligns with the centre of the square peg.

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