Pacman test--mount trouble, need help

[Rodd]

Normally I get a bit of drift when I shoot unguided with the C11Edge at F10.  I typically correct it every 30-40 minutes and it does not hurt my FWHM.  Last night something happened.  It started out just fine on my focus star--less drift than normal.  I was thrilled.  As soon as I slewed to my target (the Fireworks Galaxy), drift became untenable 30 times normal.  The mount slewed manually just fine, wasn't making weird sounds.  PA was as good or better than normal.  I am stumped.  The Moon was at 100% so imaging the Fireworks galaxy became frustrating--The data was questionable and I needed to try an diagnose the problem.  I switched to the Pacman just to see what kind of signal I could get at F10 with 30 sec expsoures.  The first sub was encouraging, so I decided to keep at it.  This image contains 2 hours of 30 sec Ha subs (243 subs).  I had to correct drift every 10 minutes or so.  If anyone has any ideas what happened to my mount, Please let me know...I am really worried that my imaging days will soon be over.  

I binned the data 3x3 due to the limited data.  FWHM of the unbinned raw stack is 1.95 - so not too bad.  I really need to solve this problem becuase putting on the OAG will steal what imaging time I have....and the mount may be impaired and guiding may not work right.  I tried to use the main sensor of the ASI 1600 to guide--just to see if thigs were working.  The focus star remained dead center--so drift was corrected--but the guiding was poor--I wouldn't be able to use data with guiding like that.  But that probably has to do with the sensor being behind the filters and guiding calibration struggled.  I just wanted to see if the command paths worked.  I think they do.  But I want to fix teh issue--the mount absolutely should track better than this.

[Rodd]

Here is a more appropriately processed version for the amount of data present

 

Edited July 25, 2021 by Rodd

[peter shah]

lovely scale Rodd....got to love those Bok's

[david_taurus83]

Is it a permanent setup? Perhaps it wasn't aligned as good as you thought? Balance?

[Rodd]

1 hour ago, david_taurus83 said:

Is it a permanent setup? Perhaps it wasn't aligned as good as you thought? Balance?

Not only did the setup not change from night to night, it didn’t change from the beginning of the session when drift was small to 20 minutes later when drift was noticeable after every 30 sec sub.  pA could not have been THAT far off. Besides, I checked it like 5 times

[Rodd]

18 hours ago, peter shah said:

lovely scale Rodd....got to love those Bok's

Thanks Peter.  I am really liking C11 F10 imaging.  It’s amazing what you get when you stack a few hundred subs that don’t look like they contain anything!