Creaking, shuddering and wondering why


The sky was exceptional tonight. Yesterday I was too exhausted to setup after a call from fellow amateur, Pak Aziz, asking me if I was actually out, up and observing.

After managed to catch a -3 magnitude ISS passing low over the southern horizon, silently gliding over Crux, I setup the mount and Equinox.

Planning just to photograph the moon, I did not bother to hook up with EQMOD (just yet). Then all hell breaks loose!

The 2-star alignment was in progress. Pointing to Procyon... OK. Then slewing to Spica (which was very near the Moon), and that's when I noticed the mount started to creaked! Holding on the mount, I can feel it vibrates and seems to struggle moving the RA axis. No problem with the Dec axis.

I was thinking probably the I did not balance the scope enough. So, shutting down and re-balance the scope, and slew again. And again it creaks, and this time it started to shudder pretty hard!

Bummer! Ok. Troubleshooting time. I removed the counterweight and the Equinox, leaving just the mount empty and bare. Aligned again with the same stars (Procyon and Spica), and this time is gets worst! It refused to move at all on the RA axis!

Yikes!

After making some quick phone calls to CK Lim of Perseid. I gave up and packed everything and hope tomorrow when I go over and meet up CK, we can probably find the exact problem.

Not feeling at all comfortable, I started to Googled and io behold, I found one post in the Cloudy Night forum.

ahh.... the culprit was the RA scale screw! Now I remember yesterday when I was testing the mount with the EQMOD software, my itchy fingers was all over the mount and I remember tightening up the scale's screw. (see photo)

When I loosen it back, tadaaa... the RA axis is back to its normal well-behaved self!

Oh yes, Pak Aziz, there's still a lot of booby trap for this new owner! :-)

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