My deep-sky rig took 4 hours to polar align at Cherry Springs

I spent a whole night last summer trying to get my mount dialed in at Cherry Springs State Park, and it ate up 4 hours before I realized the issue was a loose altitude bolt. The PA scope kept drifting because of that stupid bolt, and I was about to pack it all in. Has anyone else had a mechanical thing waste that much time at a dark site?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_wyatt2d ago

Ngl that loose altitude bolt story hits close to home. I had a similar nightmare at a Bortle 2 site last fall where I spent over 3 hours fighting with my mount because the latitude adjustment knob was stripped from the factory. Every time I thought I had it locked in I would walk back to the scope and see the reticle had shifted by a couple arcminutes. By the time I figured out the stupid thing was cross threaded internally I had already missed the whole first part of the night for Andromeda. These mechanical gremlins are the worst when you finally get to a dark spot and the equipment just fights you the whole time.

daniel4742d ago

Yeah man, I used to think mechanical issues were rare but this totally opened my eyes.