[DJ N]

I recently did a complete strip-down, relube and rebuild of my EQ6 mount. I am extremely happy with the result and I am finding that it does run a lot smoother with a lot less backlash.

Last night I did a test imaging run to see how much improvement there is. Prior to the build, the DEC axis was deviating around 4 pixels either side of zero axis guiding with the ED80 piggybacked on the ED120 (sorry I didn’t take a capture of the graph). Attached is a capture of last night’s effort. I feel that it is running much better now; however, I believe that there may be a lot more room for improvement. I have been playing around with the parameters in both PHD Guiding and EQMOD, however just cannot get a smoother run. The polar alignment is pretty much spot on. In terms of drift alignment, the star remains “stationary” on the line for at least 8 minutes (ED120 900mm focal length with 12.5mm reticule). As a side note, I only drift align for azimuth as I set altitude with a Wixey digital inclinometer (to 0.1 degree accuracy).

Really would appreciate any additional suggestions, or am I asking too much from the EQ6.

In case it may help, the imaging setup on the EQ6 Pro is as follows:

ED120 = Moonlite Focuser = Hotech Flattener = T-thread Spacer = TS 9mm OAG (DMK21 guide camera) = QHY8L

I have also attached the test image from last night which is 5x 5minute subs (and I am very happy with the roundness of the stars).

Look forward to any suggestions,

Daniel