Hi guys
I've already PM'd a couple of other 9.25 owners about this issue but I thought I'd throw it out to the wider SCT community for more feedback.
Being new to SCTs, having only owned one for a couple of months, I got bit of a surprise last night when I spent a bit of time refining my collimation.
First of all, I spent a little time getting a nice collimation on Spica which was about 35 degrees above the eastern horizon in the same place Jupiter was going to be about an hour and a half later. Sure enough, once Jupiter reached the same place in the sky the view was very nice and details were very clear, albeit affected by the atmosphere being quite low in latitude.
I then slewed to another star (sorry, don't know which one) not too far from the zenith and perfromed a star test and noticed my collimation was out. The central obstruction was not in the middle of the defocused star image but rather skewed to one side.
I slewed again to another star in the south. A different result again, but likewise revealing a collimation shift.
What's going on here? Is this the dreaded SCT mirror flop I've read so much about? Is it normal for precise collimation to be so localised, and then lost to some degree as you move the scope around the sky? Will I have to get used to making tiny adjustments in collimation if I want to move from one area of the sky to another?
I had heard/read that most SCTs hold their collimation quite nicely?
Obviously, this presents a bit of a problem from an imager's point of view
Your help very much appreciated.