Ad Astra Observatory

I’ve never been entirely satisfied with the tracking performance of my G-11 Gemini. The “old” G-11 that I had worked flawlessly, which I now attribute to:

– luck,
– tuning by a previous owner, or
– my complete failure to notice anything wrong (:

With extra analysis tools, I now have the ability to look at the performance of my current worm graphically, and it makes me sad.

In a fit of pique, I ordered a new brass worm from Losmandy. It’s apparently better than the steel one that’s in the mount right now.

I’m going to spend some time trying to adjust the steel worm while I wait for the brass one to arrive. One way or the other, it should help; either I’ll find a happy medium with the steel one, or I’ll have an idea of the stuff I need to do with the brass one once it gets here.

There’s a big move online to some $500 worms from France (Ovision), but I have yet to see side-by-side comparisons of the high-precision steel (which I have) vs. the Losmandy brass (on order) vs. the Ovision. Until i can convince myself that I’ve run the gamut of options, I don’t think $500 worms are called for just yet.

I’d like to believe that I can do unguided imaging at ~2”/px, and smoothly guided imaging at 0.6”/px. It’s a tall order, but I feel like it should be within reach.