Polar Alignment  If you're like most new amateur astronomers,
the first thing you probably do when you get your new telescope
properly assembled is put in an eyepiece and point it up to look
at the moon. Just the excitement of seeing the lunar landscape
up close is enough to keep you entertained for days. But
eventually, as you progress to finding more difficult objects,
such as planets and faint deep-sky objects, you will want to
utilize all the features of your equatorial mount, such as the
setting circles or perhaps even a motor drive. A mount is said
to be "equatorial" if one of its two axes can be made parallel
with the Earth's axis of rotation. Aligning the telescope to the
Earth's axis can be a simple or rather involved procedure
depending on the level of precision needed for what you want to
do. For casual observing, only a rough polar alignment is
needed. Better alignment is needed for tracking objects across
the sky (either manually or with a motor drive) at high
magnifications. Still greater precis