Telescope woes

The news that Jupiter was closer to Earth than it had been in some time got me off the couch to haul my small wide-angle telescope out to look at the sight. That was enjoyable enough that the next night I took out my medium-sized (a 4.5" Newtonian) for another look. That's when I found that the drive motor on the equatorial axis didn't drive the axis at all. Bummer!

When Dee passed through on Monday, she helped with the removal of the motor/drive screw assembly. A piece of the plastic case surrounding the shaft had been broken off by, I think, a lock-down screw on the declination axis and was presumed to be the source of the lack of proper function.

That night's observation was interesting with the total lack of lock down ability on the equatorial axis. The slightest nudge would throw Jupiter off the view space.

Yesterday I began to examine the drive motor assembly. I was able to remove the motor box from the worm screw assembly after several failed attempts to find the proper Allen wrench.

I found that the motor worked normally and the worm screw turned freely. During the reattachment of the worm screw to the telescope's axis housing I found it easy to misposition it relative to the worm gear on the equatorial axis. My first mounting attempt had them non-engaged. (This must have been the original problem.) A little finagling got it properly positioned, engaged, and with the motor reattached, everything worked!

Last night the whole unit tracked Jupiter very nicely in the short term -- some work still needs to be done on getting the equatorial axis properly aligned. But for now, close is good enough.