Whats up with the VX goto all of a sudden?

[Brian Nordstrom]

Low and Left ,,, it looks like you are not pointing true NCP .

Brian.

[Kirscovitch]

That was the last clear night I had and the issues have been eating at me ever since. I am going to try a bunch of things next night out.

After getting home and re-setting up and making sure I put in the time as daylight savings, I did the alignment and then ASPA but I don't remember if I powered down to realign or I just tried slewing to an object after the PA. I do know that as far as I can tell the PA was good as the handheld read zeros across the board and I don't have a polar scope to confirm. I think that the amount of error in the goto was similar to the amount of correction I made to the PA. So if I didn't power down and realign or unsync as suggested above that may be my problem the second time around.

I was just so frustrated and confused and cold I don't really remember the finer details. 

Hopefully I can get this sorted out this weekend. Supposedly clear skies and a touch warmer so we will see. Thanks again to everyone for the tips and advice and I will keep you posted as to how it goes.

[idigitize]

Good luck with it Matt, hope it does turn out to be a simple fix or obvious mistake, ie time, location etc. and good luck with the weather!

One paragraph I missed in the manual, then re-read, (it's even printed in bold) is to always center the stars when aligning using the up and right arrows only. This is probably obvious to most users but I missed it completely

[Kirscovitch]

Thanks Ben.

I too for the longest time had missed that bit of info but have been diligent in making sure I use the up and right combo. It does make quite a bit of difference.

[idigitize]

I just bought a 2nd hand synguider, expect it won't be here till after the weekend. Looking forward to testing that with the mount. (I know folks have very mixed feelings in them, but decided it was a good way to go). I'm hoping that in these summer months I can really get to grips with the mount, aligning and guiding, tracking, ironing out any niggles when my fingers aren't completely frozen.

How precise does the home alignment need to be? When it says put the mount in home position and line up the lines, I always think there's a bit of scope for roughness there. Does it have a huge impact? If you align, then aspa, then switch off and on and re set it manually to home, and re align.

[Kirscovitch]

When I do my home alignment I not only go by the lines, but it appears to be a slight indent where the paint is. I go by that and not so much the white lines itself. Also you can somewhere in the handheld set the home position. 

So I would think that you could set the adjustment of the lines anywhere you know you could replicate them and go from there.