Had an interesting problem last night redoing the alignment and pointing model on my relatively new GM-8. Normally, the northern sky is obscured by trees in my location -- but seasonal change and recent windy weather has cleared the view.
After redoing my polar alignment, I was adding stars to my model and decided to try for Polaris. Got it into the FOV with no problem, was just a bit off. For this I have the HBX motor set to 'center' -- DEC adjustment seemed fine, but I needed to move a bit in RA and found that there was great reluctance to this. I had to hold the button down for an extended period to see any movement at all. Finally got it centered, did the alignment. But subsequent gotos were off -- as though the scope had slid on the clutches.?No apparent mechanical issues, cables loose, scope was fully balanced. Clutches as tight as seemed reasonable.
So I parked things, shut it off, dug out the level, found that the RA had shifted a bit. Corrected it and restarted. Now the goto's were dead on.
I am sure I am screwing something up... any insight on this or suggestions?
Thanks,
greg latiak
avalon observatory
