[daik (Daniel)]

Hello all,
I've got a new HEQ5 Pro mount and I've found it has really low pointing accuracy. It is to the point I a starting to think that perhaps there is something wrong with my mount.

When I was out last night I did a two star alignment. (Why not 3? I'll get to that). I started with Sirius and the mount whirred away and it pointed roughly at Sirius. I could clearly see it in the finderscope. So I manually make the adjustments to have it centred both in the finderscope and in the eyepiece.

I then selected Archenar as my second star and the mount whirs away and points just roughly at the right part of the sky! Achernar is not to be found in the finderscope even. I labour to find it and the mount goes "yep, ok" once I indicate I have Achernar centred.

If I go 3 star, it is the same operation again, just roughly the right part of the sky.

After that it can't find anything in the sky. I selected M42, but the mount failed to find it. Again it pointed at roughly the right part of the sky but M42 was not to be found. I selected Rigel, but again no bright star even in the finderscope. If I then select Sirius again it finds it and centres it, even in the eyepiece.

I have never had a GEM before, so I do not know if the above indicates that it is just poor (really poor?) alignment or if the mount is in fact faulty?

If someone could give me something I could try to determine if the mount needs repairs (it is under warranty) or if I need to spend more time on alignment that'd be excellent!

Any sort of help to indicate what I should be doing would be most appreciated. I always assumed it was my alignment but I've spent more and more time being more and more careful with my alignment but seen no improvement at all in the pointing accuracy.

So far a 3 start alignment gives me the worst and a 1 star alignment gives me, by far, the best pointing accuracy, which seems odd to me.

-daniel