Did a first light test on the new belt drive NEQ6 last night and boy what a difference it makes. I had the RC08 setup on the mount along with my heavy cooled DSLR, guidescope etc. Did initial guide calibration on a star near Sculptor at about 40+ degrees in the east and once guiding was surprised at how flat the X/Y graph (in Metaguide) was now. I suspect that my mount previously had alot of slop in the gearing and the graphs used to show overcorrection. The load was balanced exactly the same as previous gear drive sessions. I had not changed any software setup on the mount. Ran a series of 8 minute 25 second test subs on Sculptor (a duration just not possible previously) and the star shapes were great (no tails, trails, etc). So I'm pretty happy with the result, and at this point no further adjustment appears necessary. I need to get the 10" imaging newt on the mount in the next few days to see how that behaves but for now it seems to be money well spent.
