Problems with 2 Star alignment on GOTO mount

[Daniel]

Firstly, sorry about posting here, I don't seem to be able to post on any of the other sections yet.

Anyway, here's my problem :-

Me and my girlfriend recently got hold of a celestron C8N GT and had one really great night where we got everything aligned and all of theGoto's were working fine.

Since that one night I seem unable to lock onto any stars while aligning, Im starting to wonder if our CG5 Mount is failing us as I've been sure to get everything as exact as possible, Polar alignment, Time, Date, Lat/Long etc.

Im finding the motor seems quite sliggish, seeming to judder sometimes when I use the fine tune controls, I've also noticed that the RA motor drive seems a little shaky, is this normal?

I heard something mentioned about power supply being a problem, Im currently using the smaller of the celestron Power tanks, Could this be a contributing factor?

It's really frustrating, because that first night out where everything worked fine was a fantastic night

has anyone here had similar problems?

Thanks

Daniel
:O)

[Carole]

I have an ETX 105EC and find that Alt/AZ alignment and GOTO sometimes works perfectly and sometimes it doesn't, and yet I am doing everything the same each time.  I was talking to telescope house about this today and after much advice most of which I am already doing, they seemed to imply that lots of people have the same problem. 

I can't say that my motor drive make judders though or is shaky.  The boys who are far more technical than me ought to be able to advise on those aspects.

One thing you didn't mention was getting your scope level as that is also an important factor.  I haven't found power supply being a problem when the batteries are getting low, it seems to run fine until they run out and then it just shuts down.

Carole

[mickw]

Check the scope is still balanced correctly and make sure the battery pack is fully charged, either could cause the motors to misbehave.
On your Goto, do you have the facility to "synch" on a known star - Goto a star, when centred on it, press a button to lock/confirm you have centred on the star ?
Have a good read of the instructions for info on tuning or training the drive.
Can't think of anything else.
Mick

[Daniel]

Hi Carole, Mick. I've checked the leveling of the mount when polar aligning, and also checked the balancing of the mount, but to no avail, I've just tightened up the screws that were making the RA wobble about and they were really loose, I could literally unscrew them with my fingers, so maybe this could be a contributing factor. I've also got the power pack on charge again to see how it behaves with a fully charged pack, any luck if the skies are good tommorrow I'll try again then


Thanks guy's

Daniel
:O)

PS, not sure if you use this already but there's a weather / cloud cover updater available for firefox and vista's side bar available from the met office website http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/index.html     I use it on my laptop, really handy for judging when there's no cloud cover especially if you watch the hour by hour updated satelite map!

[Mike]

Sounds like a power problem to me.

If you want to know if it's cloudy or not go to here - www.cloudwatch.net - and click on my camera (it's the only one in the UK)

Daniel why don't you pop along to an imaging or observing session with your kit so we can take a look?

[Daniel]

Hi Mike, I'd love to come along to an imaging session, I'll have to find out if I can get a mate with a car to help get the equipment over, just took delivery of a brand new Canon eos 40D, and a T-ring adapter so dying to see what i can image with that compared with my crappy hand camera i was attaching to the eyepiece as before.

[Ian]

moved to here, where it's more at home.

Daniel, your permissions have been modified to allow you to post...

[Mike]

Daniel,

There is one tomorrow if you're interested.

[JohnP]

Hi Daniel,

Wow 40D - I'm Jealous - I have seen some amazing shots on other forums taken with 40D. Check out the images from this guy:

http://picasaweb.google.com/ciobota/DeepSkyPics

Look at the ones down the bottom & make sure you click & download the full size images - they are great.

I look forward to meeting you at some point,

John

[Daniel]

Wow, nice images, though, i guess with the light polution around here mine will be a distinct shade of orange, escpecially since I still haven't recieved my LP filter from telescope planet, which on a side note I will be avoiding from now on, worst customer services I think I've ever known, seems there's only one guy in the whole company who can help me with a simple ordering issue and he's apparently too busy, oh well, it's the fourth day of trying to get through to him today, im dreading that this problem im having with the scope is hardware related, I doubt I'll ever get a replacement if i need one at this rate!

Anyway enough ranting, I might be able to make it tommorrow, depends how my ride pans out, shall call my mate when he gets home from work

Fingers crossed!

Daniel
:O)