Hi Chuck

You should not have to re-align your permanently mounted scope every time.
You may indeed have misalignment between the OTA and the fork arms or other
part of the mount. I would recommend that you do one polar alignment to get
close, then do a drift alignment to establish good polar alignment. Secure
the wedge in that position and then don't move it. You should be able to
power off your scope, power back on, point to a known star, and do a synch
and still be polar aligned. The loss of RA tracking suggests that the PEC
may be faulty, or the scope is not balanced well, or the RA worm is not
engaged fully. I would check all of these things since it may be a
combination of problems. Let us know what you discover. Good luck.


Gregg L. Ruppel

Visit my astronomy site at:
http://www.biz1.net/~ruppelgl

----- Original Message -----
Sent: August 21, 2000 10:07 PM
Subject: [M]: Alignment (Yet another one!)


> Since alignment problems seem to be in vogue these days, I'll throw mine
out
> also. My 8" LX200 is on a pier, on a Mettler wedge - all solid, immobile,
> level. When performing the Meade standard PA, I follow all directions (11
mm
> illuminated reticule, etc)- the second star is usually about 1.5 fields
away
> from center. Once centered and synched (per instructions), things seem to
be
> pretty good. I can slew across half the sky, plug in the CCD and get good
> tracking for about 90 seconds - that's about what I expect since I'm not
being
> too particular at this stage.
>
> The first problem is evident at this point - if I go back to Polaris (Star
19),
> the alignment is usually 1.5 to 3 fields off in a 20 mm EP. No matter if I
slew
> around a while or go right back to Polaris right away, it's off. It would
seem
> to me that this indicates a poor initial alignment on the pole star, but
it
> happens all the time, no matter how careful I am. Is this a symptom of the
OTA
> not being aligned properly to the fork arms? Because of this I have to
polar
> align each time I turn the scope on - meaning it requires adjustment of
the
> wedge - and the scope is kept permanently on the pier. The other thing I
notice
> is that the wedge adustment is about the same for each start up, but in
the
> direction opposite to the previous startup.
>
> Lastly, once "aligned" (again loosely because I haven't figured this
problem
> out yet), I can work for an hour or so, taking and stacking multiple short
> exposure photos with the CCD. After about an hour the scope will begin
losing
> whatever RA sync it had fairly quickly. I will see longer trails and need
> shorter exposures to keep the stars from egging out - in just a few
moments I
> can go from no star trails in a 45 second exposure to .5 inch (on my
monitor)
> trails in a 10 second exposure! The only way to cure it is to polar align
> again.
>
> It's certainly possible that my scope is inhabited by "gremlins and
boggles",
> of course. But, if any of you have a suggestion for diagnosing this
(these?)
> problem, I'd really appreciate hearing it.
>
> Chuck
>
>
> --
> 39 deg 30' 59" N Lat
> 76 deg 52' 27" W Lon
>
>
>

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