Anthony's Astrophotography

Hi everyone,

It’s been a while since my last post as the weather has been typical summer weather for the Sub Tropics in Australia (cloudy with a chance of Cyclone). Anyway in my last post back in December 2013 I mentioned I had an issue with my EQ8 mount. So felt it a good time to update on the matter.

What happened I hear you ask??? Well basically the RA Axis got stuck when it was nearing the meridian tracking up from the east; this became evident when I tried to park the mount back to the home position. Remaining calm I backed off the RA axis gears with the controls and reset the mount to home manually and started to track the object but to the west this time. I once again found the same issue after I did a meridian flip so was getting a little worried.

After some stuffing around I managed to get everything back on track and continued imaging for the remainder of the evening without event. 🙂

On my return home I spoke with Tasco support advising of the issue I encountered, we discussed the options of returning the mount to the service office however given the weight and size it was decided that I could adjust the gears myself and I was promptly sent a document on performing the adjustment.

So where is this at now? Well I have made the smallest of adjustments in loosening the RA Axis and have performed dozens of tests in the RA Axis and can now confirm the binding issue has been resolved. Having said that I have not had the opportunity to get the mount under the night sky to do an actual test but think with the adjustment made this issue will be put to bed and I will be back imaging without issues.

All I need now is a clear sky 🙂

Cheers

Anthony