cgem gotos

[ddtwelve12]

Hi all ive had this mount for over a year now and only used it 3 times ive just managed to stop star drift now.

The problem ive got is ive got virtually no western stars for calibration stars and when i use eastern stars i get telescope calibrated on the handset after i do 2 star alignment plus a couple more for good measure but gotos are way off and going back to the last calibration star is off as well, but heres the stinker when i tell the scope to go back to home position after getting bored its back to the marks,

any adavice or anyone who wants to come and show me where im going wrong

cheers and beers

david

[Coco]

David, out of interest have you tried it in another location? just to check the mount?

[E621Keith]

Could it be error in the mount's polar alignment or error on date and time input. While I've never used the CGEM, my Nexstar SE uses the MM/DD/YY date format rather than the usual DD/MM/YY format, it may affect the CGEM as well.

The star drift problem sounded like an polar alignment error. Because a polar aligned equatorial mount, such as a CGEM, should track the sky's rotation without any other alignment. The GOTO alignment only required stars a few tens of degrees apart, so lost of the western star shouldn't be enough to make it wildly wrong.

[ddtwelve12]

i havent had the chance to take it somewhere else as time contraints and the fact ive only had it out 3 times, will try it a couple of times more before i start and throw my rattle out of the pram.