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It works!

exoplanet

By exoplanet
in The Astro Lounge

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exoplanet

exoplanet

Posted
Posted

About 6 months ago I bought a 10 inch skywatcer dob with autotracking. Since day one I have been very frustrated by the tracking on the mount, in short I could never get it to track.

Many cold Winter nights spent frustrated as objects slipped out of view despite having the tracking switched on. At first I put this down to my inability to set the scope up correctly then after many, many failed attempts I began to wonder if in fact there were problems with the tracking (it certainly wouldnt be the first skywatcher to suffer this).

The last few weeks have seen Saturn return to my back garden (not literally of course) and I really wanted to get a good look at it. So last night I went for what i decided was going to be my last attempt at getting the tracking working (or it was going back).

I spent the best part of an hour to level the base, set the local lattitude, get the scope pointing North to the best accuracy I could, set the 'home' position and point it at something.

After centering Merak in the scope I timed how long it took to drift out of view, about 120 seconds. Then I re-centered it and turned the tracking on and walked away.

10 minutes later I came back, almost not daring to look, I took a peek and there it was! still in the EP, just, but it was there. It does work!. So I recentered it and checked periodically oer the next hour, it stayed pretty well central for over an hour. You have no idea how pleased I was with this!

So after all this, Saturn was now high enough to see so I swung the scope round and was treated to a lovely view of Saturn. Despite the extra movement of Saturn itself, it still managed to track for 30 minutes without loosing it.

Why am I writing all this? well I was just so excited to get my first "proper" scope working in the way it was intended I had to share it with someone. And to point out that I have learn the lesson the perseverance is most definately your friend when it comes to astronomy.

Johh

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WayBig

WayBig

Posted
Posted

I enjoy the way mine tracks...drift a bit, pull it back, drift a bit, pull it back....etc

I'm sure you're centering the object from the right direction. The other thing i've found is that the gears seem to need a warm up before tracking works accurately in mine (ie if I turn it on and ask it to track from a cold start it's not too good, but if I slew the scope around for a few seconds then ask it to track it's better)

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Imp_Perfect

Imp_Perfect

Posted
Posted
About 6 months ago I bought a 10 inch skywatcer dob with autotracking. Since day one I have been very frustrated by the tracking on the mount, in short I could never get it to track.

Many cold Winter nights spent frustrated as objects slipped out of view despite having the tracking switched on. At first I put this down to my inability to set the scope up correctly then after many, many failed attempts I began to wonder if in fact there were problems with the tracking (it certainly wouldnt be the first skywatcher to suffer this).

The last few weeks have seen Saturn return to my back garden (not literally of course) and I really wanted to get a good look at it. So last night I went for what i decided was going to be my last attempt at getting the tracking working (or it was going back).

I spent the best part of an hour to level the base, set the local lattitude, get the scope pointing North to the best accuracy I could, set the 'home' position and point it at something.

After centering Merak in the scope I timed how long it took to drift out of view, about 120 seconds. Then I re-centered it and turned the tracking on and walked away.

10 minutes later I came back, almost not daring to look, I took a peek and there it was! still in the EP, just, but it was there. It does work!. So I recentered it and checked periodically oer the next hour, it stayed pretty well central for over an hour. You have no idea how pleased I was with this!

So after all this, Saturn was now high enough to see so I swung the scope round and was treated to a lovely view of Saturn. Despite the extra movement of Saturn itself, it still managed to track for 30 minutes without loosing it.

Why am I writing all this? well I was just so excited to get my first "proper" scope working in the way it was intended I had to share it with someone. And to point out that I have learn the lesson the perseverance is most definately your friend when it comes to astronomy.

Johh

Brilliant story and I share your excitement. Well done for persevering

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Lorne

Lorne

Posted
Posted

My skywatcher EQ6 (bought used few weeks ago) mount seems to have tracking trouble too, it tracks west to east even with Northern Hemisphere selected. I have to select R/A reverse to get it to follow objects (so far only the moon) across the sky. Not a major problem though. Good feeling not having to tweek the slow motion cables on my old scope mount to follow objects :D

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