[xa-coupe (Jeff)]

Tonight I got a long way towards a good alignment. I took my time, I chose stars I knew and I didn't have to assume a Karma Sutra pose to see through the finder scope (angled scope on it's way, I've had enough) and was working my way to a really decent alignment. Then As I tried to close in on it to get the error 30 arc seconds or under (got Az to 17 at one point) it started to open up again, particularly the altitude.


After a while, no matter how many times I adjusted the altitude, it was always off by a significant amount. I'd run a 2 star alignment, get it right, polar align with barely any adjustment ... then run a 2 star alignment again to check and the original error was back.


I tried a couple of test exposures at 30 secs and they weren't too bad (90x900fl refractor) so I took out the handset and plugged in the EQMOD cable.



Given a decent (for me) alignment, I decided to wire up the guide scope, get everything started up to see what happens. Of course, the guiding goes mental but in my defence, the total error is down from 2800+ to around 28. Forcing calibration ended up with an message about it is probably a dodgey calibration due to insufficient steps. Gave up on the guiding at that stage.



The real surprise was the EQMOD software. It kept of dropping sidereal tracking to 'not tracking' from randomly and occasionally locking up.. and parking itself randomly, nowhere near the parking position. I was saved by the camera battery going flat... I had to pack up then.



I do suspect there's something squirly with the mount. I have changed pretty well everything other than the mount and yet I still have strange issues. Is there a way of running it through a test sequence to see what pops out? EQ6 Pro.



Funnily enough, even with the problems and no real images from the night, I feel like I've got somewhere and had a good time. The moon, Jupiter and Saturn in a line, it was cool but not cold and generally a nice evening.