Skyhawk 1145p motor.

[digger]

Hi,

I've just bought a Skyhawk 1145p with RA motor having read these forums and with advice from a friend. I've set up the scope ok and so far seen enough to get me hooked, just need some more dark cloudless nights. I don't fully understand the RA motor though, it seems to me that when the motor is attached and tightened up I cannot adjust the position of the scope to sight a star. The handwheel for RA adjustment has to be removed to fit the drive. Am I missing something? Any advice welcome please.

[Cornelius Varley]

To readjust the mount in RA you loosen the RA locking screw located on the right hand side of the mount and manually slew the mount to the new direction then retighten the locking screw.

Peter

[digger]

Hi Cornelius,

Tried doing that the other night inside so I could see what I was doing,but the locking screw was underneath and didn't line up with slot on the bar so would have to move position to engage slot and lose sight of star.

[chemtom24]

Hi Cornelius,

Tried doing that the other night inside so I could see what I was doing,but the locking screw was underneath and didn't line up with slot on the bar so would have to move position to engage slot and lose sight of star.

had an eq3/2 mount with a motor before and had the same problem - once the motor is engaged you cannot turn the ra axis manually. uinfortunately i dont think there is any way round this.

as yousay, you can disenagge the ra motor by undoing the locking screw, but then when you come to re-enagage the motor the slot for the screw is in the wrong position.

im afraid i did not find a workaround for this. however i suppose you could try using a hacksaw to make a groove all around the circumference of the axel, in line with the slot? i didnt think of this before but i reckon it could work

[Cornelius Varley]

You don't need to disengage the RA motor to manually slew the EQ1 mount. Read page 12 of this manual EQ1 and EQ2 mounts fig d shows the right hand side of the EQ1 mount and the RA clutch lock knob. Loosen the lock knob and manually slew the mount and then retighten the lock knob. The RA clutch will re-engage and the motor will start tracking again.

Peter

[chemtom24]

cornelius is right but with that method you cannot use the slow-mo hand control to turn the axis. So get your balance right and have light fingers when moving the tube by hand!

[Cornelius Varley]

Unfortunately it is the trade-off you get by having an RA motor on the EQ1 mount. You can have sidereal tracking in RA with the motor installed but no slo-mo control or no motor installed and manual slo-mo control but no RA tracking.

Peter

[digger]

Thanks guys, you have both confirmed what I thought was the problem. Guess I'll have to live without the motor because lining up a star manually without the fine tuning is not in my range of abilities. Thanks again for quick response and good advice.

Digger.

[ponte carlo blue]

We had this problem and to get rid of the motor and to be honest never missed it. In fact it probably made me more proficient at using the mount and thinking in upside down and back to front.

However we have just cheated and put it on an AZ goto mount!

Rich