Back to square 1

[Gavin1234]

So I moved my scope the other night to try get a better vantage of horse head. Had to wait for the weather and now Since then I’ve had no end of problems trying to get it dialed in properly. Even though I’ve now moved it back and I’m using the same old markings on the ground for my tripod feet.

When I’m aligning my mount I pick a star and it points a long way away from it. Prior to moving the scope the star would usually be close to center (at least within the fov of my finder scope or camera).

The large stars I have been using for alignment are disappearing over the horizon and I can’t find any other suitable ones. I pick a star on my mount and just get a whole screen full screens. No idea which one is my alignment star.

Normally I use Acrux, Gacrux, Alpha Centauri, Peacock, Nunki, kaus Australis but most of these aren’t available anymore. Feels like I’m back to where I was the day I got the scope. What alignment stars do you guys use this time of year.

[ChrisV (Chris)]

That must be an obstructed spot, Nunki is straight up right now!
My mount now is coming up with Hadar/Antares/Nunki in the west, then formalhault, peacock, alnair/altair in the east.

[Gavin1234]

Thanks Chris. Yeah I realise now that I couldn’t recognise any stars because it was pointing no where near where it was supposed to.

After about 12 hours of troubleshooting over this week I’ve just restored the factory settings on the mount. I’ve reset it back up and I’ve now finally just started taking frames again..... once I restored it, I just picked an alignment star and it went straight into the crosshairs like it used to.

That was the most frustrating week of this hobby I’ve had so far. But it looks like it’s all sorted and getting some good lights now.

Thanks again Chris.

[ChrisV (Chris)]

I know the feeling Gavin ... Nothing like a factory reset.