Konus 1793 help!

Hello everyone, I'm new to this forum, and new to astronomy. My wife and I recently purchased a Konusky 200 (or 1793) 8" reflector a few weeks ago from Digitec Optical. First of all, I have to say that Digitec Optical have given me top-notch service. They are great people to deal with!

Here is my problem(s) though. My RA tracking is very slow. I do not know much about astronomy, or astrophotography but I have to say that my RA motors don't keep up with anything I'm tracking. My DEC motors are also incredibly slow in adjusting (even at 8X rate), and usuallly take around 5 to 8 seconds to start moving my target to FOV. Also, my focuser has alot of play in it. If I try to collimate with my Orion laser collimater, and I move the focuser just a little bit -- the beam jumps around alot, and I cannot get an accurate collimation.

Is there anything I can do to improve the tracking with this mount? It appears to be a typical CG-5 or Synta EQ-4 mount, except it utilizes the tubular steel tripod instead of its aluminum counterparts. Also, what should I do with the focuser? It's a 2" collimatble focuser, but no matter what I do, there is still a lot of vertical play present, and it throws off my collimation.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! I am thinking of replacing the focuser, and perhaps replacing my EQ-5 with an EQ-6 mount. Would I get a noticeable difference? I eventually hope to graduate to astrophotagraphy soon, and am worried about my current mount's tracking ability. Is this the right way to go?

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If the telescope starts off moving slowly and then speeds up when you push the buttons on the controller, that's probably backlash compensation. With regards to the tracking problem, are you sure your batteries are OK? Correctly polar aligned? Telescope's properly balanced?

I don't know what you can do about the focuser except replace it with a better one as you suggested. You might try cleaning and relubricating it and/or shimming it in some way. With regards to the EQ-6 mount, from everything I've heard it should be a world better than the EQ-5, but you may discover that it's unnecessary if you can track down the problem with your EQ-5.

Hi James -

I own the exact same scope, and haven't experienced the tracking problems you describe - my 1793 tracks very smoothly at 500x power. As others have suggested, your culprit may either be low batteries, or an out of balance scope. I think that if you have some play in the worm gears, it won't affect the tracking rate of the RA motor - it just means it will take longer to engage. If rebalancing and fresh batteries doesn't fix the problem, you probably have faulty motors and should get them exchanged.

As for the focuser, mine doesn't have any play in it either, but it was very stiff from the factory grease. There are a couple (2 if I remember correctly) screws on the underside of the focuser that can be tightened or loosened to adjust the focuser tension. You might want to try tightening those first and see if that fixes the problem. If it does not, you could try putting 3 small pieces of velcro inside the focuser at the friction points (look at the inside of the focuser - put the velcro where the white plastic sliders are). That should tighten it up, but still allow it to focus smoothly. I took my focuser apart and replaced the sticky grease with some lithium grease, and now it focuses very smoothly.

Also, the mount can work for astrophotography if you do an accurate polar alignment. I have used mine to take 1 minute unguided shots and have had no real problems. The mount is the newer CG-5/EQ-4 (with the ball bearings), and has PE that is typical of the newer EQ-4 mounts (around 10-15 arcsecs).


-Jake