ASNNE

Scratch notes for Jim H. Don’t try to make sense of them for now. I am putting info here so I won’t have to dig into notes when not at home, and can pick them up from a wifi spot.

–

Meade Job Jar:

Steps to take after adjustment and lubrication of RA. Involves dismounting the scope. Checking adjusting various play and preloads of the large RA gear in the base. Proper lubrication is needed as it is several years old, is noisy, and we use it in cold weather. Looking into suitable lube, and have some leads.

Previous to MI, it was easy to work on the scope when putting it on some deck chair cushions.

DEC assy can be serviced before the dismount, but after the Sept star party.

Can mount be made less susceptible to vibration. It gets really bad near zenith. Need to see if it is scope or mount. Mount is substantial piece of work, is unlikely. Getting rid of drive play, and applying balance preload to mount should help.

–

Handbox PCB cleaned 9-16-09, found evidence of dew, and some electrolysis around the crystal pads, cleaned up.

Installed a white coilcord.

Would be interesting to try the Meade MySky on the 16″ or my 8″ this weekend.

–

Cables need to be dressed to allow scope to slew freely. Also some cable clips or other method for the extra SBIG cables when in use.

Bungies for SBIG need to be put in its case.

–

Although this will be redone after the dismount, most is being done now:

1. Find if way to get checksum of 4.2G install.
2.Do some anti-backlash BEFORE training drives.
Go into menu tree and find backlash percentage entries. Note do not change backlash RATIO from factory settings. They should be recorded just in case: RA Ratio:__________      DEC Ratio:________
Set BL to 15% to start with. This will stick until another master RESET.
3. Train Drives: Need to find best sequence from notes, although I think the scope does it in correct order. No backtracking, of course. Last done roughly 9-17-09 at night, plan to do it during daylight asap.

Investigating Home Sensors function. It is usual to have the Home Sensors function turned off when on a permanent polar mount. It is said that this function can have a use with a polar mount for: If scope is remote access, and a power failure or other incident occurs, or Park Position is lost, this may get the scope reasonably back in cal. This may also be good for a quick recovery in the middle of a public session if somehow the scope is turned off to try a MySky, computer hookup,  or has some incident. Need to investigate is if the homes can be set, the home sensors turned off until needed. If unsupervised, the scope may cause damage to itself or mounted equipment, so it should not be able to be clicked on too easily.

–

Vermin

Be sure optics, eyepieces, are put in their cases and do a walk around before locking up to be sure eyepiece plugs are in place. It only took a couple days for the Mouse Incident.

The observatory is a time share for other creatures, closet or cover delicate items from bird/bat/mouse residue.

Mud daubing wasps love the ground pin of the ac outlets, maybe leave things plugged in but turned off, or some tape on exposed outlets.