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Hey there,
I have one of these, too.
Never had too much trouble getting the thing balanced, oddly enough.
Polar alignment is the hardest thing to get right. I usually end up checking alignment a few times over the course of the night, between targets. Not having goto capabilities means you really need to know your way around the sky and trying to re-centre your target after checking PA is not going to happen.
Yes, the SkyWatcher wedge is rubbish. The backlash in the altitude adjustment is insane.
I've never tried longer than 30 second subs, so can't comment on tracking. I have heard of people getting multiple-minute exposures, but at fairly short focal lengths. Anything past about 200mm is going to be difficult.
There's a guy on YouTube - Kamil Pekala - who has a number of SA videos, including how to setup auto-guiding.
In hind-sight, if I could go back to when I bought it, knowing what I know now, I would have bought a "real" mount like an EQ5 or HEQ5.
However, it's what I have, and it's what I'm going to use and make work.
Cheers,
V
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