Ad Astra Observatory

I stacked the 16 frames shot last night into a single GIF animation. There is a very strange “retrograde motion” thing going on during the course of an evening.

I don’t know what’s causing it, although candidates now include:
– balance (been messing with this for 3 days with no perceiveable difference in the problem)

– pointing model (is there something bad built in?)
– motor speed (ie runs too fast/slow)
– tracking speed (ie Sidereal vs King?)
– guide magnification (add barlow)
– tube flexure
– bad spots on the RA gear (am I hitting the same section of the gear every night?)

I’m sure there are others.

Here’s the animation. I didn’t include it inline because it’s 500K and who wants to download a thumbnail that big?

If you have seen this before, please let me know.