I have been the very happy owner of a SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro for the past 4 years.
Until now it has served me well, driving my Esprit 100 and RC8 all round the Southern Sky, on typically one night every four. The mount is remain fixed between sessions - bolted onto the pier in my observatory.
Rms guiding has been about 0.5 - 0.6 arcsec rms using an OAG with the ZWO taking care of the guiding at 3-5s integration and binx2.
Over the past month, the guiding errors have started to show a signifciant period of high oscillation [amplitude 4 arcsec] in RA only, with a periodicity of a few secs [around the OAG camera integration integration time].. This oscillation usually lasts for about 30s-60s, but then disappears for periods 1-5 minutes, only to start again. As far as I can tell, there is no pattern to it.
The telescope is well-balanced on the mount (at least in RA). I also check to see if anything had come loose [counterweights] pier/mount connection,OAG assembly, but nothing had loosened off.
My diagnosis is that the RA drive belt may be wearing or slipping, but before I open up the hatches on the mount and start to fiddle with the insides of the mount, I thought I would just ask a) whether anyone else has experienced the same problems b) whether the diagnosis is accurate and c) to what extent it is fixable
Note that the mount has never been "tuned" as I was quite happy with the guiding performance in my typical seeing conditions of 3-4arcsec.
Many thanks
Brian
Until now it has served me well, driving my Esprit 100 and RC8 all round the Southern Sky, on typically one night every four. The mount is remain fixed between sessions - bolted onto the pier in my observatory.
Rms guiding has been about 0.5 - 0.6 arcsec rms using an OAG with the ZWO taking care of the guiding at 3-5s integration and binx2.
Over the past month, the guiding errors have started to show a signifciant period of high oscillation [amplitude 4 arcsec] in RA only, with a periodicity of a few secs [around the OAG camera integration integration time].. This oscillation usually lasts for about 30s-60s, but then disappears for periods 1-5 minutes, only to start again. As far as I can tell, there is no pattern to it.
The telescope is well-balanced on the mount (at least in RA). I also check to see if anything had come loose [counterweights] pier/mount connection,OAG assembly, but nothing had loosened off.
My diagnosis is that the RA drive belt may be wearing or slipping, but before I open up the hatches on the mount and start to fiddle with the insides of the mount, I thought I would just ask a) whether anyone else has experienced the same problems b) whether the diagnosis is accurate and c) to what extent it is fixable
Note that the mount has never been "tuned" as I was quite happy with the guiding performance in my typical seeing conditions of 3-4arcsec.
Many thanks
Brian
