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Clutches, how tight


Hertford Stargazer

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I have a SW EQ5 PRO Synscan GOTO for which I've never really managed to achieve much GOTO accuracy. It suddenly occurred to me after another lackluster session, "am I tightening the clutches enough or are they slipping with the momentum of a evo 120 in motion".

I must admit, I'm a little paranoid about over tightening bolts and clutches ect. In my younger days I did a fair amount of weight training the consequence of which was that I was forever snapping bolts and stripping threads at work while training as a machine setter, it got me in no end of trouble. Anyways, now I tend to err on the side of caution and under tighten things.

So out of interest how tight should the clutches be?

Neil 

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Greetings

I have a NEQ6 Pro the clutch tension on this mount is enough  so I can manually move the tube to the home position with a little pressure on both Dec and Alt, My tube is a SW 300PDS normally with 5dmk2 in place. I have 4 weights on the extended bar to balance everything.

Andy

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Thanks for the replies. The problem was just a general lack of accuracy when slewing to a target which sometimes wasn't even visible in the finder scope let alone the eyepiece FOV.

After "jambouk's" reply I've just used the "Astronomy Tools" app on my phone to double check the Lat & Long I'd programed into the SW handset, needless to say I found a discrepancy which I'm confident is the issue. According to "Clear Outside" I'm due 3 hours of cloudless skies tonight so I'm hoping for a successful run.

Cheers

Neil   

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Again, one of those things i've thought about testing, but never bothered; i'm not sure how much the latitude and long'de influence goto once you've done a star alignment... I wonder if they are more important in knowing which objects are above or below the horizon and the rough position of them when picking alignment stars from a given location.

Yes, get the handset data as accurate as possible, but i do wonder if you've got cone error which isn't being adequately compensated for by a one or two star alignment. Maybe try a three star alignment and/or looking at your cone error. And investigate your backlash too, and always end with an up and right. You must have a pretty wide field of view with that scope, so for the target not to be in it suggests something is amiss.

Good luck.

James

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Thanks for the replies. The problem was just a general lack of accuracy when slewing to a target which sometimes wasn't even visible in the finder scope let alone the eyepiece FOV.

After "jambouk's" reply I've just used the "Astronomy Tools" app on my phone to double check the Lat & Long I'd programed into the SW handset, needless to say I found a discrepancy which I'm confident is the issue. According to "Clear Outside" I'm due 3 hours of cloudless skies tonight so I'm hoping for a successful run.

Cheers

Neil   

I used to have an EQ5 Pro and GoTo accuracy was never an issue so long as the backlash was under control. I suggest you check this by putting the hand set in show position and use the arrows  to move the mount and compare the values shown with the actual movement of the mount. I also suggest that you always use a 3 Star align,

A.G

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If anyone out there has a Meade LX-series scope that came with their GoTo Alt/Az fork-mount, the declination-clutch is a joke. One has to tighten it down, again & again, so hard that you will eventually strip the poor thing. But there is a kit available to fix what Meade has known about for years - and done ZERO to correct:

http://www.petersonengineering.com/sky/clutch_kit.htm

From what I've read, other companies have done/not done similar. If you are mechanically inclined, you might want to do an analysis of your own.

Clear Skies,

Dave

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The weather wasn't very kind so between clouds I only managed a one & two star align before giving up. The two star align was a disaster, chose Vega for the first star and then selected Deneb at which point the scope slewed round and pointed at the NE horizon  :eek:  Then tried a one star align using Vega, once done I instructed it to find Andromeda which it almost got in the FOV using a 20mm eyepiece on a 102 mm Celestron refractor.

The next clear night I'll try again and see what happens  :tongue:

Neil

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