dec backlash?

Okay, I traced the r.a. issues I was having with the scope to the r.a. encoder. It seems to be working better. Goto's are decent.

I am now in imaging mode and it appears I have quite a lot of dec slop. When calibrating the autoguider the r.a. axis would make a nice shift and dec would move very little (or a lot in one direction and little in the other), but would calibrate successfully. I was getting dec. drift of around 0.1 - 1.0 pixel with sudden jumps of around 2 - 4 pixels. This was with a 3 second guide exposure.

BTW, I am using a 8" Newt with 1100mm focal length. The autoguider is the ST237 guider chip in my ST2000.

Your thoughts? Thanks

Please conatact us and speak to Fred and Art.

We can help.

Art Ciampi

Joe,

Have you tried calibrating a second time? I've been getting this DEC backlash/slop behavior myself on occasion, and I'm not 100% sure if it's backlash, slop or plain imbalance in the load. I've noticed that if I get the initial result and calibrate again, I would get good results the second time around.

Of course, I may be fooling myself and may need to talk with Art or Fred anyway.

Best of luck, and please keep us posted.
Eric