skippyinspace

Photos of the screw hole underneath the motor box, Any idea what this hole is for. Thanks Ian

Cant get the screw out with WD40 or rubber bands, As the it looks like the RA unit is loose, Can this be tightened with out the cover coming off I notice there are holes on the underside of the cover. Thanks

Thanks all, will find the WD 40 later this week, So I can have a go at getting the cover off this weekend

HI All, My top RA gear isnt engaging the bottom one In the past its been an hex key to tighten the top gear What It noticed this time around is that the whole motor seems to be loose, Pulling up and down on the shaft opposite the gear applies movement to the gear. (Should there be a screw on this side to stop that play. I would attempt to remove the cover but the screw holding that in has rusted and seems to have been threaded. Any ideas on how to fix, this issue Photos below Ian 20201122_104306[1].mp4

A cautionary tale here. Im a 50 year old who was born in Australia, In my teen years I naked eye observed and moved onto to some 10x80 Binoculars, Life moved on and 25 years ago Moved to Scotland, Had to relearn the sky and to be honest Im still struggling (Though Phone Apps are good I never seem to get them aligned right) So 20 years ago I purchased a Celeston 8" Newtonian, I lived down a hole and litterly only had Sky straight up, Needless to say the scope got put away, Also had never heard of polar alignment and needless to say read that bit in the instruction manual and put it away into the too hard basket. 10 years ago move into the Countryside with a little bit of land and Nice skies so mount gets upgraded to a moterised Ioptron SmartSky Pr and as its rural Aberdeenshire I buy a test version of the Pulsar Observatories Dome on a shed Observatory and a pier, (Under the Thread Skippyiinspace Observatory in Stargazers lounge is that story. First night comes and Scope rotates and faces the floor, Try the manual, Same things happen, Contact local Astro Club (40 miles away) and a member comes out and in a minute fixs the issue that the motor had be aligned the other way, he is helpfull and Polar Aligns and balances the scope etc and I get a year or so of good observing then it goes out of alignment, The motor gears have a tendency o slacken off. Can align the scope for the life of me get close but never close enough so any sessions are manual. Fast Forward to yesterday, Ioptron Ipolar arrives and out I go, After 4 hours I get close but not close enough, Thought I should Revise on RA and Dec as I just could get the fine adjustments needed and what d I find is that I spent the night adjusting the scope using the RA Clutch and not the Ra bolts . I had also got Position 1 and 2 the wrong way around So looking forward to tonight when I can have another go, BTW have you seen the forecast for the next week Ian

Postman brought me an Ioptron Ipolar, I now might get this scope finally polar aligned

Hi, Im looking for advice an a very cheap budget £100 DSLR that suitable for Astrophotography (non modified ), Had been looking to see if there were any previous lists etc from about 10 years ago, had been thinking of the Eos 1000D as there are a few kicking about at the moment and the reviews I had found were quite positive but are there other options? Thanks Ian

Great idea but I dont have a DSLR, have a Phillips SPC8000 web cam so will have to try that for now. Thanks for the help Ian

Hi, Last week my 7 year old daughter took interest in my telescope so aftee a lot of work (,couldnt get it to polar align) , I managed to get mars in the view finder only to find even with tube rotation, standing on stools, ladders etc she could get to the view finder. I was wondering if there was a cheap simple way that she could see. Ie a webcam and a laptop, Its been a little while since ive used the scope and noticed that you can now get better aids for polar alignment and think now would be a great time to introduce her to astronomy since she seems interested thanks ian