My mount is a Celestron AVX. My brother thought he could open it to lubricate the gears.
It is been screwed up ever since!
Is there anyone that can repair? Or can you refer me to a party which does repairs?
Thank you
Is this your AVX mount that you had at CRO the other night? What is the mount not doing?
Yes, sir.
Once I get the stars triangulated (using the StarSense digital camera) it was then not slewing to objects (like Saturn). I checked everything three times. I had the correct date, time, latitude and longitude. It would function correctly before I let my brother open it up! The mount’s gears needed cleaning and new silicone grease put on. It was very stiff in the Dec and Ra axis’s (sp?)
Does it slew to Stars? When you unlock the clutches does it move freely. They are normally stiff on the AVX. Was it working before getting the StarSense? If you’re coming out on Saturday we could take a look at it then. I didn’t know you were having an issue last Saturday.
Before it was working with the StarSense completely fine. It would triangulate itself. You could then get it to slew to any object with complete accuracy.
And presently, it does rotate just fine in the RA and Dec with clutches off.
The problem I’m having is that the mount is not “driving” itself with any accuracy to objects that you enter it to go to in the hand controller.
Saturday I’d get the mount level. Center Polaris in my eye piece. Turn on the mount and StarSense (the digital camera). I’d get the exact time and lat/long input to the hand controller. Get it started on triangulating the mount. When the process indicated it was ready I’d ask it to drive to view Saturn. The mount would steer that way, but Saturn was many degrees off. Not even close.
Are the Stars off also?
I did not check, sorry: I only assumed that if it was not slewing to a big object like Saturn then other things like Vega or Algol weren’t worth bothering with.
Since mount maintenance was attempted, I recommend repeating the First Time Setup procedure: Calibrate Center. That should align the telescope’s field of view with the StarSense camera, which seems to be successfully aligning.
I had not thought of that! First clear night we get I am going to do what you’ve suggested, I thank you.