Tracking question.

[Mr Moff]

Morning guys,I managed to get polar alignment spot on now and used my RA motor properly for the first time last night.

Tracking the moon and Venus was spot on. However once I turned the scope to the south to track mars it seemed to drift.

Do I need to reverse the motor when tracking in the opposite direction?

[Cornelius Varley]

You shouldn't need to set the RA tracking to Southern Hemisphere, this is only needed if you live south of the equator.

Peter

[Mr Moff]

Thanks Peter.

So when I look south I turn the RA axis throught 180 degrees so the weights are on the opposite side,and then swing the scope through 180 degrees also. Making me stand on the opposite side.

Am I doing this correctly?

[Cornelius Varley]

Yes, take a look at this tutorial from Astronomy Boy to see how an eq mount moves around the sky.

Peter

[Mr Moff]

Thanks for that Peter,the link was very usefull.

[spaceboy]

Is the scope correctly balanced?

[Mr Moff]

Is the scope correctly balanced?

Yes mate,balanced,collimated and Polaris is perfectly in the correct spot at the correct time.

All this bad weather has given me lots of time to tweak things correctly.

I think I've spotted why it drifted. When I placed mars in to view,I had to rewind a bit to get it centred.After that it takes a short while before it moves the gear through a little backlash. I've just noticed a little play in the slow motion control,so I've adjusted it and it looks fine now.

Fingers crossed.

[spaceboy]

Is it just an RA/DEC drive? I noticed these do require a reasonably loose mesh on the worms to work correctly otherwise the tension knob has a tendency to undo themselves or slip. They do what they are intended to do but they are far from the most accurate of things. Just my experience and I'm sure some one will come along and say they have done 10 minute unguided subs with similar drives