[tgdavies (Tom)]

Hi,

I'm a complete beginner and have just bought a second hand Skywatcher 90mm Maksutov-Cassegrain, to get my feet wet (living in Sydney's Inner West, where the light pollution is awful I wanted something I can take away on holiday reasonably easily).

So far I have just set it up for terrestrial viewing to get accustomed to it.

I have found one problem , which is that the fine adjustment for the declination seems to only work in one direction. I'm not sure whether all these adjustments work the same way, but mine has a lead screw which pushes against a tab on the locked part of the Dec axis to turn it, but turning the control the other way can't pull the tab back. There is a cylinder which screws into the other end of the adjustment mechanism, aligned with the lead screw, which looks as though it may have a spring loaded plunger to push against the tab as the lead screw is withdrawn, but if so, the plunger has seized.

Is my guess about this correct? Any advice on freeing it?

(please correct my terminology too!)

Thanks,
Tom