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?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_wyatt1mo 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.

mary_foster921mo ago

Used to be the type who blamed bad luck or user error whenever someone posted about stripped bolts or weird mount problems. Thought people were just being rough with their gear or not being patient enough. But after reading through this whole thread and hearing stories like yours, I'm starting to realize these manufacturing defects are way more common than I ever assumed. Three hours fighting a cross threaded altitude knob at a Bortle 2 site is brutal, the frustration of knowing you are missing perfect skies while troubleshooting something that should never have left the factory is a special kind of heartbreak. Definitely shifted my view on how much I need to double check every little thing on a new mount before I even think about taking it out to a dark spot.

daniel4741mo ago

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