Still hanging around in the Cygnus region and adding one more image in my personal Sharpless collection.
Sharpless2-103 better known as The Cygnus Loop, a beautiful supernova remnant in the constellation Cygnus, The Swan.
I shot the frames over six nights from aug. 23 to aug.31 while working on the tracking problems.
I was very lucky to get ta lot of clear (or at least semi clear) nights over this long periode which made it possible to try out some problem solving measures after work, and test the mount while I was sleeping.
The first night I kept 24 of 60 frames and the last night I kept 98 of 100 frames
The problem:
The dec axis went on some strange and unexpected journeys across the field of view, and the overall tracking was not very good.
What I did:
I found the dec axis to be sluggish, so I took apart the dec axis bearings, gave the ball bearing a drop of high performance motor oil and adjusted the axial tension between the ball bearings.
It was a little too tight, and I also replaced the grease on both worm drives.
The tracking problems seemed at last to be solved, and the dec axis` strange travels around the night sky was gone.
The tracking got a lot better, but still not as good as expected, with guiding error of 1"- 2,5"
Adjusting the guiding aggressivity from 100%, down to 55̭% improved the guiding accuracy even more
So, the lesson for learning is that balance is extremely important to avoid grey hair and sudden and painful hair loss.
Error sources:
- Tight axial adjustment on the dec axis ball bearings made the axis a bit sluggish
- Undetected balance problems due to dec axis sluggishness
- High aggressivity made the problems worse
- Drifting clouds
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