+1 for the advice on Pier Engineering. It worked out well, I can kick/pound my pier as hard as I can and at 2800mm FL have no visible vibrations transfer onto the scope. I don't even have that big of

I drilled three 1" holes 15 Inches into the base spaced to match the slots in the flange at the bottom of the 10" diameter steel pier. I epoxied three threaded 1" x 18" steel bars into the holes

Ouch. If you really want to know if it's your pier then you can get a digital inclinometer and periodically measure the pier on two axes to get an idea as to what's going on. I'm going to auger out

Hi, I am doing table-top testing of our Mach2 (before we can put it on a proper tripod). I use TheSky6 in a Windows 7 virtual machine on my Mac. GTOCPS5 is connected to the computer with a short

I was using the most recent release of APCC Pro and the same thing was happening. I updated to .11 today and the same thing remains. Not sure if there is a new ASCOM V2 driver but I'll go

Tom, There are places where the ground swells and shrinks over the year depending on moisture content and/or freezing. Freezing ground with lots of moisture in it causes swelling. I think

I think he might be from Anacortes (if he's the same Tom as from Astromart). If so, Tom, you had an earthquake the day before yesterday: https://pnsn.org/event/61707166#overview

Do you live in an area where the water table is close to the surface, or where the bedrock is far below (e.g. Texas Gulf coast) ?

That's what I was going to ask. If it's off by that much, you should be able to put a level up against the pier (or just look at it) to check if it is still plumb. It seems unlikely that rain could

4-6 degrees of drift? (Not minutes?). Was there an earthquake in your area by chance? We had a few over the last week, and my polar alignment has been all over the place.

Hi I thought I would ask the experts here about my shifting polar alignment. 5 years ago I rented a backhoe, and dug a hole 7 feet deep in my backyard. I then poured a concrete pillar in a form 3'x3'

Really cool information Roland! Would you by chance have any data to share with TEC140FL with the QTCC? I'm early on trying to fine tune my new TEC140FL with a QTCC and ZWO ASI294MC Pro camera to

or, if the primary scope rings are lined with felt or other soft material, the primary scope ITSELF could be moving relative to the guide scope. I replaced the felt in my 130mm APO rings with solid

Because of gravity, there is always flexure. It's just a matter of how much. The bigger the instrument the more flexure there will be. "Piggy-backed" guide scopes, even if they are light, can be

When I use SkyX, I do a “Closed Loop Slew” to a star, which will slew to the star, take a picture, plate solve and center the star. I then “Synch” on the star in SkyX. Is this the same as your

Actually there is a way to see whether your guide scope is flexing w.r.t. the mount with SharpCap (SC): Do the PA routine in SC as usual with the scope starting at Park 3. Adjust Alt and Az to get

Ray, that is an excellent point. I use the SharpCap method through the main camera and there is certainly some flexure after the 90 deg rotation in the procedure. But at any rate, since I'm guiding

Roland/Ray - What you described is perfectly clear to me with the small exception of the distinction between Sync and ReCal for those of us that do everything through APCC or third party programs

My image scale is 1.09"/px. SharpCap works perfectly with my 1600 and 102mm refractor. Since I use an OAG, I have no guide scope. One of these nights I plan on doing several PAs with both SharpCap

Sync and Recal were two commands that we used from the beginning on our very first controllers. Recal: When you send the scope to a star, the planetarium software sends the co-ordinates to the mount