AstroNebulee

Hopefully the milk carton washer will help your dec axis too. That washer does look wrll mangled up. Yes I would be interested in the findings of your mod on Dec axis 👍

Hi Ray What is your set up? I have 2 1kg star adventurer counterweights on my 72ed AzGti eq mode zwo asi 294mc pro setup and is plenty. Like I say my RA axis was stiff but the regreasing and adjustment of the RA grub screws sorted mine.

I'm my experience the RA (az) axis is a little stiffer than the Dec (alt) axis. With mine I stripped it down regreased it and adjusted the grub screws in the RA threaded locking washer bit or the milk carton washer mod may help you. This thread should be of assistance but if you open it up you may or will void your warranty.

Think I've sorted it now. Just undone the screws as I mentioned and tightened the tension screw a touch now I've no slippage on the focuser with my FF, spacers and 294mc pro attached. Before the focuser was stiff in a few places and now it's smooth. Also before when nipping up the focus lock thumbscrew the focus tube would move. Now when tightening the focus thumbscrew the tube stays in position. Here's a flat I've taken with the adjustment made and now central in the image and not off to one side as before.

You are correct Ray it would be 38 degrees for you. 👍

You did well with the sale of the 102. I am see why the 102 refractor got more use being more Widefield. The 127 mak and az gti are a perfect pairing 😁

I'm sure the 102 was quite rock solid mounted straight to the mount. The 127 had a bit of wobble on my az gti mount but settled in a few seconds, maybe even better with a adm saddle and skywatcher 3/8 " steel tripod though. I was tempted by your 102 at the time. 😉

Brilliant setups you have had there and lots of use. The 102 mak set up got me drooling haha. The 127 mak is a beautiful addition to the az gti. 👍

Ultimately@banjaxedI'm going to try tonight to adjust my focuser. I think it's worked loose because the length of my FF, spacers and 294mc pro and before when tightening the focus lock screw the would moved the focus tube back a bit. Now my understanding of it is to loosen the counters screw and paralleling screws left and right of the tension screw. Then tighten the tension screw a bit, then re tighten the left and right paralleling screws. This should then grip my focuser better and stop the wobble and play plus no movement when engaging the focus lock screw. I may have to take the focuser off to check that the Teflon bearing is parallel according to this image in the instructions.

Thank you @Elp. That's a good clear workflow for anyone to follow. Hopefully this has helped your issues you were having. 👍

Thank you, glad you like the thread. You have a nice AzGti set up there. I agree with using an older model phone when using synscan app, there were bugs with android 11 and above too.

Very strange goings on indeed Ags.

Seems strange indeed, be interested to see what happens when you reattach your zwo camera.

Thank you that's very kind of you. I have found this link to a few sheers on the focuser issues so will print off and have a look. If not I'll be glad if your help 👍 It seems as though it was one of the paralising screws that was loose, hopefully tightening it has stopped the loppy looseness of the focus tube now but I shall take it apart this weekend and give it a good look. https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/22870696/adjusting-the-skywatcher-110-refractor-crayford-focuser-teleskop

Hi. I was out imaging tonight and noticed eggy stars in the top right and left corner of my images. I checked everything in the imaging train with my 294MC pro, spacers and field flattener where all screwed in perfectly into the focus draw tube but there seemed to be a little play in the tube and when rotating the focuser there was a slight wobble (is this flexiture?) on the left hand focus knob as it was turned and wasn't going round in a perfect circle. And also when taking my flats the white flat circle was more over to one side and not central. The right hand knob with the fine focus knob was turning beautifully. I took the scope in and in the attached image this screw arrowed was quite loose, so I've tightened it up and just checked all the others and now seems to be rotating better and no play in the tube. I'm just wondering has anyone else come across this before and do I need to tighten the grub screws in the focus knobs? Or anything else to look out for, or worth taking apart and greasing it.

I control my az gti with an asiair pro and never had this issue before. 1.How are you powering the mount? Is it through the asiair or separate power supply, I run a mains socket to my asiair pro and power my mount and 294mc pro via the asiair pro. 2. Did your PA go well with it and completed. 3.Another thought which cable are you using to connect your asiair pro to your mount? 4. Is your firmware of the asiair pro compatible with the asiair app you are using. As I found that an old app version may have compatibilty issues with a updated firmware asiair pro version. As when I updated the firmware via an app update on my phone to control AAP an older version on my tablet came up with 'this app version may not be compatible with your app'

Great job on the PA there with your sw wedge 👍

Beautiful set up Stu, pleased to hear the mount work perfectly 👌

As @StevieDvdsays all done via the eq mod cable now. I have an asiair pro with my set up and really simplifies astrophotography I found, you can be all running, PA focus and plate solved onto your target and guiding in around 15 mins in my experience, but I am a baffoon. Good luck with your set up, keep us up to date 👍

Nice image indeed. I used to do deep sky imaging with my 600D and never bothered with darks. Just lights, dark flats, flats and bias. All very quick to do.

Brilliant Ray, I hope the az gti performs well for you. Let us know how you get on here with it, be very interested to hear 👍

True enough I think Laurence, if it was I'd put a mak on instead of my 72ed as this really isn't good enough for lunar or planetary imaging really, just could do without the hassle of taking the 72ed off and all wires to it as I know it's set up, balanced, wired ready to go for deep sky astrophotography which is my passion and what I do mostly apart from the full disc lunar images. I'm going to save the pennies to get another az gti set up eventually with a 127 mak, don't think my sw wedge would appreciate a 127mak on it haha. Hope that makes sense. But I could be completely wrong too. And I just want another AzGti to add to the family, I think I've got a case of AzGti-itis 😁

With my az gti eq set up I leave my scope on the tripod when I bring it in, keep the caps off to let air dry it, cover with a thin cotton sheet until morning then replace the dust covers and caps. But as my refractor usually dries out pretty quickly, with keeping my dew heaters on a little while longer when indoors. It's light enough and we'll balanced to leave on the tripod as all the weight should be traveling down the centre of the tripod. When I had my 127 mak in az mode I did take it off the mount and left caps off as they are dew magnets . If you've a counterweight attached with the Mak in az mode just level it and leave on tripod. The weight should be distributed through the centre of the tripod. This is just my opinion though.

I have considered the same to Laurence. Eventually I will buy another az gti setup with a 102 or 127 mak to use in az mode as for me I don't want to take my set up apart with all the wiring where I want it now. Then I can hopefully have 2 set ups my 72ed for eq astrophotography and my az mak for nice lunar and planetary imaging (when funds allow haha)

It is great and I was just thinking so myself when I saw the pages, views and posts building up. Hopefully it's providing a one stop place where all us owners can get together to share advice, ask for help and share images. Great to see it gaining momentum. Thank you to everyone so far who have posted here so far 👋