Ad Astra Observatory

The mount came home under a cloud of controversy.
The folks at Texas Nautical were not exactly pleased with me, but they made good on the charges for the repair, so I was waiting for the mount to arrive so that I could determine that all is, in fact, well.

The outer box was well-sealed and in pretty good shape. The box was marked “Heavy”, “Fragile”, and “High Value”.

The packing between the outer and inner boxes was pretty skimpy; I don’t know if those bubble-wraps ever had air in them, but they were pretty flat when the mount arrived.

The inner box appears to be the same one that the mount was sent in from Japan.

I opened the inner box to find one of the pillows I’d packed with the mount on top, and a bunch of familiar-looking packing paper as well. Under that was a bit of bubble wrap, and several thick pieces of styrofoam. The mount had clearly settled and shifted some during transit, as a few of the inch-thick pieces of styrofoam were dented so badly that there were bulges on the back side of the piece. The styrofoam piece covering the polar scope was dented so badly that it clearly showed the triangle-shaped logo that’s on the polar scope cover. There was a small tear in the bottom and one side of the inner box; the side tear went through.

The mount itself was inside a plastic bag. That kept the little bits of styrofoam off of it.

I unpacked the mount and got it carefully to its pier in the observatory. It felt good to bolt the mount back down; home again.

At a glance, I was a bit surprised to see dark greasy fingerprints all over the mount housing. This is not the sort of handling I would expect from a quality-run shop like Texas Nautical.

When I sent in the mount, I listed 6 problems that I wanted fixed specifically, as well as a request for a “wellness check” on the mount:
1) Polar scope reticle misaligned with the RA axis
2) Dec axis gear housing scrapes the Dec setting circle
3) Mount runs too fast in RA
4) Temma box connectors are wobbly
5) mount is missing upper polar scope cap
6) mount is missing elevation axis knurled lock nut

Of these, I found:
1) New polar scope reticle was installed, as ordered. I will have to check the alignment with the RA axis once it’s dark.
2) Dec motor bracket was replaced (I paid parts and labor), and I was assured that it no longer scrapes the setting circle. This is not fixed. The setting circle is still being scraped by the motor housing cover. I’m not sure what to say about this; I spent almost $200 on this alone.
3) I can’t check the RA speed until I get an autoguider hooked up, although I’m given to understand that Takahashi runs the mounts 0.1% fast in RA on purpose, to help guiding.
4) Temma box connectors are nice and tight now. Very cool.
5) and 6) neither of these parts were replaced, nor were they ever mentioned by Texas Nautical.

I also noticed that the polar scope housing was loose to the touch; I hand-tightened it. As well, the RA main gear cover plate was loose to the touch, and there is a paint scrape on it that leads me to believe that it is rotated from its original position. After some trial and error, I was able to get this so that it’s not loose and also doesn’t bind the axis, although it’s still rotated out of position.

There is a large amount of backlash in the RA worm mesh; it used to move not at all if I grabbed the Dec axis and tried to turn it. Now it wobbles back and forth about 1mm.

There is a new sticker with the serial number on it, taped to the side of the Dec axis. I’m fine with it, it’s just new.

Some of this could be blamed on UPS mishandling the package; stuff rattles loose on a big heavy object like this.

But, frankly, I’m horrified that I paid for 4.5 hours of bench time to receive a mount that has had only 2 out of 6 requested fixes completed properly, one more paid for but not completed, two completely ignored, and several things in worse condition than when I shipped it.

From what I’m seeing, as long as everything internal is OK, I have maybe a weekend’s work ahead of me to put the mount back in proper order. But I am sure wishing that I’d saved my money and fixed the thing myself. Minus the reticle (which would still be useless without this boondoggle), I would have been out for the Dec Motor Bracket (a $100 part), and could have gotten the mount most of the way towards where it sits today.

I’m happy that I have the new reticle. Now the mount is good until 2050. I’m happy that I have the new motor bracket. In theory, I’ll now be able to fix the scraping problem.

To be tested: polar reticle alignment, RA speed.
To be fixed: RA backlash, Dec Motor Bracket, polar scope illuminator (to be fair, I didn’t ask them to look at the illuminator; I have enough electronics skill to fix an LED and Pot)

Onward.