Vixen GPD2 poor PE

[gazza]

Hi,

i have recxently purchased a Vixen GPD2 mount new. I have fitted it with a Skywatcher Synscan drive. The mount has been tested over two nights and is given very poor tracking results compared to others I have read about. I am getting PE of around 40 arc secs total. After the first nights testing I adjusted the worms as they appeared to be tilted. This did not alter the PE results. I had anticipated PE of 20 arc secs or better and am feeling extremely flat about the results of my tests. This was meant to be a quality mount to replace a poor example of EQ6 that I struggled with for 3 years. I have a mount that is marketed as being accurate, but which is unsatisfactory. I am unable to spot any untoward movement in the worm holders. It seems that the only possibility is to swap the ra and dec worms. Does anybody have any other suggestions? Feel a bit like chucking the whle astronomy thing in...

Unfortunatelu here in Australia, we don't have much recourse with performance issues in Telescope equipment....

Gary

[ollypenrice]

Okay, just a thought but is your power supply stable? This can be very important. A decent battery is probably as good a way as any to make sure you get one.

Secondly, could you not use the drives made for the Vixen? It seems strange to mix and match, though you may have your reasons and I know nothing about this. I have seen GPDX mounts track well, though, so I'd hang on in there.

Olly

[gazza]

Hi,

the power supply is a mains unit capable of delivering 5 amps, so I'm sure there is no problem there. The drives work perfectly and are a straight bolt on to the GPD2. The problem is that the PE is poor - I had previously had a Super Polaris that had less than half the PE of this new mount!

Gary

[moocher]

PE is all in the worms. I`d suggest adjusting the worms. TBH you shouldn`t really need to do that with a new mount but even my new EQ6 needed a bit of tinkering. I had an old GPDX with SS2K that had a PE of around 15 but that took some time to achieve. I don`t think that the new Vixen stuff is up to the standard of the old stuff....just my opinion you understand.

Hang in there though i`m sure you`ll get there!!!!

Alan:)