AstroNuevo

Thanks for all the helpful replies :). The main point I've taken away is that I have greatly underestimated the importance of a solid tripod in optimising stability! I'm not even going to mention what tripod I've been trying to use. The SW Heritage 150P OTA weighs 3.85kg, so at the upper limit of what the AZ5 could be expected to handle. Yes it does come with a table-top Dobsonian mount which isn't bad (esp for the price), but I wanted to be able to do slo-mo tracking. The issue with the clutch and slo-mo engagement still baffles me. Thanks for the pointer to the previous post by Dexter77 - my issue is more or less as described in that video; unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a subsequent post re whether the issue was resolved or not. It also seems clear that other peoples' AZ5's behave differently. But I guess that I have to concede it does essentially work. I will try the suggestions above and discuss again with the nice people at FLO. Cheers!

Novice stargazer here. I have a SkyWatcher Heritage 150p which I have had fun getting to know, but thought that an Alt-Az mount would be a helpful addition. I bought a SW AZ5 mount from FLO a few months back, but have only starting trying it out recently. It sort of works ok, but the thing is that the two components of the mount work very differently. The Alt mount works as I would expect; it's easy to move if the clutch is off and the slow motion control works fine regardless of whether the clutch is on or off. In contrast, movement of the Azi mount is stiff regardless of how much the clutch is loosened off and and slow motion control *only* works if the clutch is tightened up as much as possible (and I mean *really* tightened up). Also, the grub screw (not mentioned in the pretty inadequate instructions) has no effect on slow motion control. Is this what other AZ5 mount users find? I did take it back to FLO soon after purchase, but was told that it was working fine. Just seems a bit odd to me. Second question is - how much vibration should there be from the AZ5 mount? I find that the s;ightest touch (e.g. using the slo-mo controls) results in 5-10 seconds oscillation of the image - is that normal? Thanks for any info / advice!