My telescope mount crapped out during a Perseids shoot

Last Tuesday right before the peak, my GoTo mount just froze up with the scope pointing at the ground. Had to manually track meteors for 3 hours using a cheap tripod head I keep as backup. Anyone else have a motor controller die at the worst possible time?

2 comments

2 Comments

rowan_roberts491mo ago

So was it just a dead motor controller or did the handset freeze up too? I've had a SkyWatcher mount just lock up mid slew before, turned out the power cable was loose. Not saying that's your issue, but it's worth double checking all your connections before you go swapping parts. What brand mount are we talking about here? My Celestron had a similar problem once and it ended up being a firmware glitch that only showed up under heavy load.

craig.sage1mo ago

Oh man, the power cable thing ALWAYS gets me. How did you even diagnose that firmware glitch without just replacing the whole board? I'm asking because I've got a Celestron too and I'm paranoid now. Did it only happen on particular slew speeds or was it totally random?