I'm using a Kenko SkyMemo S tracker, Redcat 51, and Sony a7iii as my primary setup. I'm just now building out my setup; portability matters and my budget is limited, but I'm going piece by piece.
With this load, for the last few sessions, tracking seems to be running about 3% slow (or, possibly, fast). I'm getting star trails of about 3-5 pixels on 30 sec subs, forcing me right now to work with 15 sec subs. This is about 0.5-1.0 arcsec/second of drift, too high.
The drift seems to be entirely R.A., nothing north/south, leading me to suspect it's running slow/fast, rather than alignment. Is that correct? I think I'm pretty good at polar alignment, though there seems to be enough play in the system that I have to tweak it a few times through the night. (Possibly it's me jostling stuff when moving targets.) I'm still not very good at handling my mount on high latitude targets, but the drift seemed to be similar there (Heart & Soul v. Orion), so maybe it actually is alignment rather than running slow?
I've played with balance, significantly over/underweighting it in each direction, doesn't seem to change the behavior. My setup allows me to put the lens/camera assembly pretty close to the polar axis, and I don't think it's overweighted in a strict sense.
I suspected power supply current issues, switched from external USB battery pack to internal, fresh disposable batteries, no change.
So:
1. Any suggestions on diagnosing or fixing? It's only a year old, but I'm thinking about disassembling & cleaning. Is that likely to help?
2. I'm planning to make my next purchase an ASIair Pro controller. I assume that with guiding it will be able to compensate?
3. If I'm reading the sellers' websites right, the controller itself is in stock, but the recommended accompanying small guidescope or camera is out of stock with no ETA for when they will be available. Any recommendations for a substitute?
With this load, for the last few sessions, tracking seems to be running about 3% slow (or, possibly, fast). I'm getting star trails of about 3-5 pixels on 30 sec subs, forcing me right now to work with 15 sec subs. This is about 0.5-1.0 arcsec/second of drift, too high.
The drift seems to be entirely R.A., nothing north/south, leading me to suspect it's running slow/fast, rather than alignment. Is that correct? I think I'm pretty good at polar alignment, though there seems to be enough play in the system that I have to tweak it a few times through the night. (Possibly it's me jostling stuff when moving targets.) I'm still not very good at handling my mount on high latitude targets, but the drift seemed to be similar there (Heart & Soul v. Orion), so maybe it actually is alignment rather than running slow?
I've played with balance, significantly over/underweighting it in each direction, doesn't seem to change the behavior. My setup allows me to put the lens/camera assembly pretty close to the polar axis, and I don't think it's overweighted in a strict sense.
I suspected power supply current issues, switched from external USB battery pack to internal, fresh disposable batteries, no change.
So:
1. Any suggestions on diagnosing or fixing? It's only a year old, but I'm thinking about disassembling & cleaning. Is that likely to help?
2. I'm planning to make my next purchase an ASIair Pro controller. I assume that with guiding it will be able to compensate?
3. If I'm reading the sellers' websites right, the controller itself is in stock, but the recommended accompanying small guidescope or camera is out of stock with no ETA for when they will be available. Any recommendations for a substitute?
