NGC 4565 - more mount fiddling

So I thought I was totally done with one axis... but not so fast. I will likely have a few more nights of mount tweaking before I can say I am done, and I might only get to the "good enough" point. I am also tempted to open up the fork and work on the DEC gears to see if I can tighten the slop up a bit. At least it feels productive to get some sort of image out of these nights.

Anyway... 7x5minutes here (over a couple of hours). Still have DEC guiding off with this image. I was not familiar with this object, but it looks like it might be worth a return trip.

Charlie


Charlie

Attached Image:

Nice image Charlie. I am glad to see you get productivity out of your fiddling activity. Seems like "frosting on the cake".

I think NGC 4565 is an attractive target. It is particularly fun if you get a good seeing night as there is lots of detail. A visit with the color filters is worthwhile as well.

On the mount, are you concerned that the DEC slop is impacting your tracking in DEC? (so you are not DEC guiding?) I have always wanted to figure out how to do a Dec equivalent to the "East side heavy" approch with RA. Of course that implies a deliberate polar alignment offset which seems counter intuitive. Seems that where I am out now is most of my tweaking is done and I suspect differences I see are related to sky position and slight balance / mount differences in those positions. Further tweaking seems to achieve at best diminishing returns and at worst conflicting results. What is your main tweaking area now - Are you tweaking balance optimums? or gear engagement? or what?

It looks good Charlie! It sure is hard to stop "fiddling". Good luck making those last few adjustments. It seems to be producing excellent results.
Cheers,
Tyler