Horrible nights

Saturday night, whilst supposedly clear, and yes I could see a few stars, like Sirius, was murky overhead to the point that Sirius looked like a faded out spot, not the brightest star in the night sky... Well actually, I suppose it was still the brightest star in the night sky, after all it was about the only one I could see.

Tonight, after starting out the same way, finally cleared properly around 2230. I grabbed the HEQ5 and setup. I have a new ambubble level, so used that to level the mount off. Set the date/time circle on the polar scope and polar aligned. I used Saturn to focus on, when the rings are a lovely flat line at 10x on liveview, it's there. Balanced the mount. Then set off to find M67. Well I found M44 ok, using the clutches to point to the right patch of sky, then used the control to slew to M67, a few minutes and a couple of test shots later and no sign... Then it twigs, I went the wrong way... Ok. I came back in and grabbed the 25mm celestron ep. Popped it in the Konus diagonal and used that as a finder. Still nothing. This is silly. Anyway, I thought to myself, enough is enough.

So I headed off to look for the Leo Triplet. After a little time alinging on the right point in the sky, I took a test shot. 90 Seconds and the stars are trailing. What's going on ? This is the first time I've had trailing below 2.5 minutes. I checked and re polar aligned. Then as I was looking in that direction anyway, went looking for M81 and M82. Couldn't find them. I went back to the triplet, and I think this time I got the right place, but I'm still getting trailing at 90s. The mount is pretty level, given that the last time I got out, I didn't even bother to level and got 2.5 minutes I don't get this. Anyway by this point, I'd been outside over an hour, I'm feeling frozen, I've achieved nothing but frustration and some clouds were lurking around the North. I gave up, cleared up and came in.

Whether this is because of my little cable test with the USB TTL cable for guiding or not I just don't know. I completed the cable and tested it yesterday. All seemed to work ok, the mount responded as I was expecting, and I could control it happily from my PC. I plugged the handset back in and could slew happily too.

I did notice an odd vibration noise from the scope whilst the mount was tracking, I think the tube must have been amplifying it, and slewing at speed seemed noisier tonight. I don't know what's going on.