Hi All,
Chris from Kellyville NSW here.
I am brand new to astronomy and telescopes after buying a 50mm Celestron Refractor for my son of Christmas and finding it frustrating to look at the moon and Mars etc as blobs in the sky, so on Tuesday went and bought myself a Skywatcher 130mm SW135 Newtonian Reflector with RA motor drive on a EQ2 mount. I am also referencing the "Natures Companions - Practical Skywatching" book from Fog City Press which is very good to learn from and has great star charts and starhopping guides. When purchasing the scope from York Optical I also got a Astronomy 2008 guide from Quasar publishing and am deciphering this eagerly and hoping for some clear nights now that the rain seems to be Darwin like in intensity and predictability.
The problems I am having are these:
1) I have setup the scope to the instructions and have aligned the polar axis to be in line with one tripod leg and set the Altitude of the mount to 33 degrees. I have aligned as close as I can to the SCP (through the holes in the rain clouds at 12am) by drawing imaginary lines from Crux's main stem and perpendicular from the line between Rigil Kentaurus and Hadar towards the SCP near Sigma Octanis. When I do this and engage the motor for the RA (or even use the RA slow motion control) the star field does not rotate properly about the eyepiece as expected and when "tracking" a star with the motor, the object wanders away from centre. Is there something fundamental I may have missed? The scope is balanced, the tripod level (or very close to it) and everything else "looks" right with my untrained eye.
2) The Slow motion control cable for the DEC axis is EXTREMELY hard to turn and I have checked the spring and the grub bolt that presses against the DEC control screw and found the spring was rusty? and the control is VERY hard to turn and twangs with every turn of the wheel. Is it too tight? When I undo the bolt slightly, the tension in the spring and therefore the effort reduces but the scope doesnt back up when going away from the other direction. In comparison, the RA axis Slow motion control feels like a well oiled machine with gears and doesnt make the scope bounce around like the DEC one does. Am I just being stupid? or is this normal?
Whew,
that will do for starters, no doubt I will have lots more questions as I learn and I am glad to be aboard this great site and have been spending my free time waiting for clear skies by reading as much as I can from the forums and the how-to guides.
Cheers for now,
Chris