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Hi Martin,
I was out again tonight, trying to get things working. I managed to get out and set everything up before dusk - had a compass to get the mount aligned to within 1 degree of south, and levelled as well.
But could I get the thing aligned? Nope. I have visibility of Octans on a clear night, so that should be the go. Right? Tried the polar scope, but couldn't see a single star through it. (Yes, I did turn the Dec by 90 degrees, and shining a light down the hole showed I had a clear line of sight.) The light pollution was worse tonight, so that probably stopped me seeing anything.
Tried 2-star alignments via the SynScan controller, tried a couple of 3-star alignments, and consistently had errors in the arc-minutes, and even degrees at one stage. Eventually I got something that appeared to be reasonable. I had those stars dead-set in the centre of the field of view.
I tried imaging NGC3532 (The Wishing Well Cluster) but the stars were egg-shaped and walked off the edge of the camera sensor.
For fun, I tried slewing to various random 'Named Stars' via the controller. Some were exactly in the middle of the camera, some weren't within my field of view, and some were sort-of there.
I thought this thing was supposed to work out where it was pointed and track accordingly?
I have a PoleMaster, but need to get my hands on a laptop to run it.
Right now I'm just frustrated and annoyed. (I tried channeling Alex and seeing it as a learning experience, but it didn't go so well...)
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