And I'm discovering, that when doing DSO imaging, it will be the balance point for your scope & equipment on the mount, and the weights to keep your RA & DEC in a reasonable level. It's amazing how much a small difference in where each is mounted can affect your tracking.
Once you HAVE found the sweet spot, don't be hesitant to pull out that ever trusty Sharpie and mark it on your telescope rail (Vixen in my case) and on your weight bar. On my bar, I'm going to go a little further and once I know where it is for the weights for my current ZenithStar 103mm, I'll be using a scribe to draw a line into the finish and mark it with a number, so I know it's specific to the scope I associate it with that number.
I've been thinking I had a mount issue (and I may still have one, but once I got things better balanced, my RA & Dec seem to hold better around .4-1.7.
The secret is, don't get frustrated. This is not an "immediate gratification" hobby, and the nearest I can compare it to long distance rifle shooting. You don't simply pick up the rifle and start hitting the bullseye every time. You have to learn windage, elevation, Coriolis Effect, temperature affects and more, breathing, trigger control and more before you can start putting lead on metal at 1000 yards and more.
Once you HAVE found the sweet spot, don't be hesitant to pull out that ever trusty Sharpie and mark it on your telescope rail (Vixen in my case) and on your weight bar. On my bar, I'm going to go a little further and once I know where it is for the weights for my current ZenithStar 103mm, I'll be using a scribe to draw a line into the finish and mark it with a number, so I know it's specific to the scope I associate it with that number.
I've been thinking I had a mount issue (and I may still have one, but once I got things better balanced, my RA & Dec seem to hold better around .4-1.7.
The secret is, don't get frustrated. This is not an "immediate gratification" hobby, and the nearest I can compare it to long distance rifle shooting. You don't simply pick up the rifle and start hitting the bullseye every time. You have to learn windage, elevation, Coriolis Effect, temperature affects and more, breathing, trigger control and more before you can start putting lead on metal at 1000 yards and more.
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