[ixian (Luke)]

After a few false starts I finally got my first real telescope, an Orion xt8g.

I'm just wondering why the crayford focusers on these scopes are so rough? I had to flatten what is meant to be the flat section on the focusing tube with a sharpening stone to stop it making a screeching metal noise.

Another question, this scope has a synscan v4 controller, which is apparently quite new. When I control the scope via Stellarium (only option I have as a Linux user) and slew the scope Stellarium knows it isn't pointing where I told it too, even though I ask it to try again, it just refuses, it wants to point 3 degrees below where I tell it to point. Anyone know how to fix this? The hand controller is super accurate after a few pointing corrections.

Cheers.