[g__day (Matthew)]

My mount sits about three feet below the rim of my dome - as I reused my old back door when I build my astrolab - and didn't want to be ducking under anything. So I might just be able to view SCP -I will have to test it and see.

The remove Dec backlash idea if one is using Tpoint seems great advice - when I first tuned my mount I address about half the Dec slop - but using the wrong methodology - I actually loosened the motor and connector gear and pushed this assembly toward the worm and locked it in place - because I was inepxerienced and there was no documentation from Vixen on how to actually adjust this! It wasn't until many years later chating to folk at Bintel describing this that Don said - no there should be bolts on the worm drive assembly itself that you turn minimally to move the worm block either towards or away from the motors! So my bad again - will look at stripping teh mount right down and finally tuning that this year too!

The SkyX and Tpoint I use for all basic telescope control and dome alignment. In the past I loved TSX's Closed Loop Slew (CLS) ability to really land me on target. Nowadays I used APT's goto++ telling it to land me within 15 pixels of my target - which it does within 2-3 of its allocated 6 tries refinement moves, then I just let PHD start guiding and I am set until APT does and automated Meridan flip and so on. It is only when I can't find and object in APTs database that I use TSX CLS to get me to the target - then when I know it is correct I simply solve it, define it and add it to APT's custom target database.

Will be keen to see if all modern software agrees with how it wants me to tune the mounts position - given I am starting about a quarter of a degree from true hopefully that should be enough to get it locked wihin say 10 arc seconds of true refracted SCP this time!

The Dome itself per se doesn't make drift alignment more difficult - but the instructions for adding the rails that turn the Dome where a bit wrong so in the next month or so I will replace them all again - with new stainless steel rails and new brackets (from Sirus Observatories). The new brackets extend a few mm further from the dome walls and lower the rails a mm or two closer to the ground - and this should mean the dome is much better positioned for the Motor assembly and means never sticks again! But the height of the mount below the dome ring limits me to targets above 30 degree elevation - which is fine for astro imaging but gives a slight challenge for drift alignment I suppose - aiming lower to the horizon would likely give correct altitude adjustments faster.

Quite looking forward to attempting all these projects this year now that I am retired!