A week or two ago it was sorta working in terms of goto accuracy, but last night it was so far off that I am really thinking that I'm doing something so incredibly wrong, or there are problems with the mount.
Any advice would be appreciated. I'm having evil thoughts of getting rid of it and getting a nice cosy fork mount system. I've used a mates C11 with it's sky align feature and it's so easy a kid could use it. While he's using his I'm battling with mine
Got up at 4am.
- mount pointing 11 degrees east of magnetic south
- mount dead level according to spirit level
- C11 balanced perfectly on it
- Laptop next to me to double check alignment stars (though I know them pretty well now!!!)
- Turn eq6 on. Enter 151E 34.18S
- The stars that are most clearly visible are Sirius, Canopus, Rigel, Achernar and Fomalhaut (not sure if thats spelt right)
- Pick a 2 star alignment on Rigel & Achernar. Center both in 12mm illuminated eyepiece. Alignment successful.
- Tell it to go to orion nebula. It is so far off that it's obvious even to the eye without looking through the scope or telrad
- swear a lot.
- park scope. turn mount off.
- Detach C11. Put in garage and look fondly at the big paper weight. Put 80ED on mount and remove 2 counterweights and balance.
- Do a 3 star alignment on Sirius, Achernar, Fomalhaut. Alignment failed.
- Try again. Alignment failed.
- swear
- Check laptop to make sure the stars are the right ones. Yes they are.
- Do a 2 star alignment. Canopus and Fomalhaut. Yep align successful.
- Go to Orion nebula. A bit closer this time but still miles off. Slew there and look at it, and wish I had the celestron back on the mount.
- Tell controller to go to Pleiades. It's miles off.
- Swear
- Park scope & pack up and go to bed.
:he lp:
