I’m posting today to say that I think I finally fixed the issue with my mount. It was actually very simple, and you guys were right about one of the issues.
The first issue was a problem with the mount. Simply put, one of the gears was turning, but the telescope was not turning. I was able to fix this using a little bit of adhesive. Now the telescope is turning and moving just fine.
The second issue was with alignment. I took everyone’s advice and got a reticle eyepiece as an experiment. I discovered that when I had my phone adapter on the reticle eyepiece, it was more difficult to align. Every time I aligned it, for example, to the sun with a solar filter, I would test the
Then, I tried using just my eyes with the reticle eyepiece and the solar filter. I aligned it this way to the sun, and did the same thing, as before. I went to Mercury, then Venus, then back to the sun. This time, the sun was very close to the same spot as when I aligned it. I believe I may have fixed the second issue with the reticle eyepiece. However, I need to do a field test at night to make sure.
To sum up, there was a gear slipping, and I needed to align it properly with a reticle eyepiece.
I want to thank you all for helping me, and being patient with me. This reticle eyepiece is really helping me out so far. I’m going to take it for a field test tonight if the sky is clear. If it works, and I truly did fix the issue, I’m going to try to photograph the new Comet Nishimura sometime this week if it is clear.
Regards,
Jared