OK. Third daft question for this evening.

[Devil20]

I'm on a roll now. Blame it on it being cloudy and nowt better to do.

Can an equatorial tracking mount end up driving the scope such that either the scope of the counterbalance weight end up fouling the tripod and burning the motors out under excessive loading?

--

Ian

[knobby]

If it has been properly aligned and the time /date/location is correct... Assuming the scope now knows where it is and where its pointing , it should be OK... But I watch mine as I don't trust synta that much with my lovely shiny mount :-)

[Devil20]

Yeah I think I'd be cautious about assuming all would be well. I suppose it applies even more with some of the third party software used to overide the mounts own control software.

[Stu]

I think most goto mounts should prompt to do a flip before anything bad happens, but a simple driven EQ left long enough could potentially end up with contact between scope and tripod. Well worth keeping an eye on them.

[ronin]

Can an equatorial tracking mount end up driving the scope such that either the scope of the counterbalance weight end up fouling the tripod and burning the motors out under excessive loading?

--

Ian

Yes.

Depends to an extent on the scope but I think someone reported that occuring about 4 months back.

[Stephen]

Yes, depending on the make of mount - however I've never heard of one burning out the motors before ... and you've have to be doing something pretty daft (like going to bed with the scope approaching the tripod) for it to be crashing into the tripod and driving against it for a lengthy period of time