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Hi Pete,
Yes, have a look at short exposures for sure because that will pretty much take tracking and guiding off the table.
You mentioned synching before plate solving. Not sure why. If you have a model and you have not touched the mount as far as polar alignment, you ought to get reasonable pointing right after you home the mount. If it is not plate solving you might have too many, or not enough stars. You also might need to increase the number of fields, and of course, you need to have the resolution set exactly, though there is also a setting that allows you to set some latitude in that parameter. I have found that I can plate solve pretty easily with 5 to 30 sec exposure, but that an 8 min sub of exactly the same field will not solve.
One of the very best ways to synch, if you need to, is to take a picture anywhere, plate solve the picture, and then synch to the photo. By synching to the photo you are synching to the middle of the photo, not to a star. To do this, left click on the photo anywhere except on a star or celestial object. The drop down menu should have a synch to photo option. I might be wrong about this, but, I think if you synch every time you start up, and you don't follow the complete instructions on synching back into a model, you will seriously degrade your model and subsequent pointing. I never synch, but then I am permanently set up. Contrary to what is said in the manual, I have successfully removed and replaced the scope without seeming to hurt my model...at least not very much!
Peter
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