Hi all,
I would like some advice for other things to try before sending this mount to Meade.
My friend got an LXD 55 and the AR-6 tube. He never (in four months) got it to align properly. He was disgusted. I said let me take it home and work with it. I mounted my small refractor on it, tried for two nights, and finally got a good alignment. Ran through a half a dozen objects with a wide field refractor and it nailed each of them at the reticle crosshairs or off less than a few crosshair widths. Next night, tried again for three hours and got "Alignment Failed."
I have leveled the tripod, balanced the scope, use fresh power supply, am accurately polar aligned, trained the drives, checked my location, use a crosshair reticle eyepiece, and know the stars well. My scope looks like the picture of the scope in the manual when in "German North." SO--it is not any of the usual goofy things, as far as I can tell.
On an Align-Easy, the mount slews to Capella, and is 8 to 10 degrees south in declination, almost right on in RA. I adjust declination north, and press enter, (and a touch in RA), and it goes to Vega (or Deneb, depending on time of night), and is okay in right ascension but 8 to 10 degrees south in declination. I center by moving declination north, and "Alignment Failed."
Any ideas? Is there something about the way the scope itself is attached to the mount? Should the dec motor be at right angle to the scope (it seems canted just about 8-10 degrees off). I can't see any other way for it to be mounted, and it just does not seem like that could be a problem.
Alex
I would like some advice for other things to try before sending this mount to Meade.
My friend got an LXD 55 and the AR-6 tube. He never (in four months) got it to align properly. He was disgusted. I said let me take it home and work with it. I mounted my small refractor on it, tried for two nights, and finally got a good alignment. Ran through a half a dozen objects with a wide field refractor and it nailed each of them at the reticle crosshairs or off less than a few crosshair widths. Next night, tried again for three hours and got "Alignment Failed."
I have leveled the tripod, balanced the scope, use fresh power supply, am accurately polar aligned, trained the drives, checked my location, use a crosshair reticle eyepiece, and know the stars well. My scope looks like the picture of the scope in the manual when in "German North." SO--it is not any of the usual goofy things, as far as I can tell.
On an Align-Easy, the mount slews to Capella, and is 8 to 10 degrees south in declination, almost right on in RA. I adjust declination north, and press enter, (and a touch in RA), and it goes to Vega (or Deneb, depending on time of night), and is okay in right ascension but 8 to 10 degrees south in declination. I center by moving declination north, and "Alignment Failed."
Any ideas? Is there something about the way the scope itself is attached to the mount? Should the dec motor be at right angle to the scope (it seems canted just about 8-10 degrees off). I can't see any other way for it to be mounted, and it just does not seem like that could be a problem.
Alex
