I am chasing some star trailing in RA direction on high Dec targets (M51, specifically). I am going down the list of possible culprits (field rotation, flexure, etc) but so far everything looks ok.
One question I had is specific to the mount. I have a new Mach1GTO from this year production run and have noticed that there is a bit of looseness in the RA axis when I attempt to rotate (gently) the counterweight shaft. Is this normal or is it a symptom that I should reset the gearbox backstop?
I understand that the RA axis is always rotating in one direction and that with a slight imbalance to the CW side the looseness should not affect imaging but I thought I'd check with this group.
