[Jasp05 (Aaron)]

I tried out the PHD2 alignment tool last night. Works quite well. Allows for fast basic alignment.

However the one problem I did have was that it would average down to a nice low number, stay there for a while then jump back out again. Is this meant to happen?

I never took any screen shots and can't remember numbers off hand. But closest I got the azimuth to was around 1', where it sat after a 1 min or so.

The altitude though was all over the place. couldn't get it to stay stable. got it with 2-5' and then it would start spiking to 20'+. this is after a min or so. The first 30 sec were all over the place then it settled down to that 2-5' then another 30sec would pass and it would spike again.

I gave up and thought I'd try guiding with the best I could get and it was the best guiding in RA I've had since I got the mount. However the DEC has some big periodic issues. ( I believe they are periodic as they occurred at roughly the same time interval and to the same peak. looked like a pattern repeating). The Dec was making corrections every sec to try and keep it under control.

The Ra was good for most of the night but after an hour or so it started to peak in a bit of a pattern also. (was only making a correction every 5-10 sec though so I thought a small adjustment here and there is an improvement compared to my previous nights).

Is it possible that there are parts of the drive where things are butter smooth and then bits that are rough? As in the worm drive engages nice and smooth on some portion of the drive gear and not others? Or is it generally bad all around if there's a problem?

So I think I need to set aside some time and play with the belt tension and worm drive meshing on both Dec & RA.

But all the same I was taking some 60 sec subs of orion and they came out pretty good still. Pic attached. About 20min worth of 60sec exposures at 800 iso. Few darks taken and stacked. Touched lightly in Lightroom & Cropped (The lens has bad distortion at the edge of the frame. and the stars seem a bit out of focus. Really struggle to have this lens hold focus. It likes to keep a small tail/ flare on the stars)