In the southern hemisphere, or in the north if you cannot sight Polaris because of trees or 

buildings, you can use Gemini's Polar Align Assist function for an improved polar 

alignment after achieving rough alignment using a compass. 

Finally, if your mount has a polar alignment scope, follow the instructions that came with 

it for polar aligning.  In general, this will be more accurate that either of the above 

methods. 

After you have completed the remaining steps to get you up and running, you can use 

Gemini' s Polar Axis Correction feature to achieve a very accurate alignment. 

2.4.1.2  Startup Position 

Your next step after positioning the mount is to position 

the telescope.  When Gemini starts up for the first time or 

any time after the mount has been moved, it expects the 

telescope to be in a standard Startup position.  In this 

position the counterweight shaft is pointing down, and 

the Dec. axis is at 90

 (OTA pointing at the celestial 

pole).   Powering on in this position is necessary so that 

(1) Gemini will correctly set its movement safety limits, 

and (2) so that it can initialize to where it is pointing.  

Failure to power up Gemini with the scope in Startup 

position will prevent Gemini from being able to use its 

GoTo capability to find a first alignment star; it could 

also cause the telescope to collide with the tripod or 

mount. 

2.4.2  Power On and Setup 

Now it is finally time to power up the Gemini.  After 

turning on the power switch, you will see a welcome 

message scroll across the display (pressing the MENU 

button terminates the message).  When powering up the 

unit for the first time, or after inserting/changing the 

CR2032 Li battery, you may see the words "CMOS reset" appended to the welcome 

message. This means that during startup, an incorrect checksum was detected and the 

static memory (SRAM) was reset to its initial values. You should not see this "CMOS 

reset" again, unless your battery goes low. 

Next, Gemini tries to read time and location data from a GPS attached to the serial port.  

If you have a GPS that supports the NMEA0183 protocol or the Garmin Textout 

Protocol, you can connect it to Gemini' s serial port.  Gemini looks for a GPS every time 

it starts up.  After attempting to read the GPS data, Gemini briefly displays a GPS status 

message.  If a GPS is not connected, you will have to set the UTC Date/Time and 

geographic coordinates manually. 

Gemini Users Manual 

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