[g__day (Matthew)]

So I spend some time this evening perfecting my polar alignment. I saw no drift in my reticle after an hour - so I'd say its a fair alignment - that source of error removed.

But I still found PHD giving me double stars. Turning the zoom up high of Cartes Du Ciel (CDC) I could see the OTA move slightly back and forth every 5, 10 or 15 seconds.

I suspected it was only the DEC, so I did 3 shots of M17 at 150 secs

1. Guided 3 secs - double stars
2. Unguided - stars slightly elongated (good polar alignment - PEC training on the agenda soon)
3. Guided 3 secs, but only in RA not DEC - very round stars

I ratcheted it up to 300 secs - same again.

So I've narrowed down my tracking / auto-guiding challenges as being in my DEC. Even with the pulse length turned down, jump still happen when I enable DEC corrections.

What are folks thoughts?