Sirius Update

I posted a question on Cloudy Nights about the polar scope alignment problem and got a fast response telling me how to correct it - thanks Charlie! Now it's good to go as soon as the weather cooperates.

While at Mom's yesterday I picked up the battery power pack so I could give the Sirius a milk run this (Sunday) afternoon. Everything seems to be working, I did the initial settings thing (date, time, lat, lon, UTC offset, daylight savings...), and accepted the first three alignment stars it picked. Then I slewed to a few objects as if it were middle of the winter just to get an idea how the thing works and moves around. Quite nicely and quietly, as it turns out. The hand controller is fairly similar to the Nexstar HC, same basic key layout and feel.

As I type this I'm just letting it track for a while to see how long it will take to run the power pack down; it charged a little more than half way on the LED scale, despite being charged overnight. If it can't run the scope for more than a couple of hours I will have to find another way of powering the mount.

More good news: UPS online tracking shows my Antares scheduled for delivery on Tuesday (Aug 1). Woohoo!!!