[xa-coupe (Jeff)]

It's taken me some years to be comfortable with allowing my ASIAIR to run things whilst I am asleep. To date it is has been 100% reliable, I fire it off and wake up in the morning to collect the data. I don't even do the 0200 check any more, and all was well.

Until it wasn't.

Last weekend I fired it off and went to bed, even got a rare sleep in till 0700. By 0800 I decided I should go check the astro setup and collect the data, only to be greeted by a loud clacking sound and the OTA wedged firmly against the tripod leg. After a panicked shutdown I looked and it seems to be okay, nothing bent other than the external WiFi antenna. I put it away until the next clear night for testing. Looking at the log showed everything went okay until the plan finished and it went to home, clearly going the wrong way.

So, this weekend I set it up and went to polar align it and that was when it all went wrong. The RA initially went okay with the Dec taking some time to get close .. then it just drifted it's merry way ... I adjusted it back towards the pole and it drifted the other way, taking the Dec with it. No matter what I did it wouldn't hold the PA. It is a bit noisier than before but not drastically so.

So, who is the 'goto' person in Melbourne to have it looked at and if it's feasible to repair, have a rowan belt mod done at the time too. I have the belt mod stuff already but was too lazy to do it myself.