DS2090 tracking problem

[Ov3rDoSe]

Hey guys, brand new here to the forum but fairly well familiarized with astronomy (been at it for 5 years or so) but anyway, I recently bought my first telescope; a special box deal on the 2090 with 5 eyepieces and its blue instead of grey like the pics on meade's website..but anyway! My model came with the #497 autostar controller (with all 9 number keys) as opposed to the small one with just the arrows.  Now I'm not sure if this is motor related, autostar related, or my alignment method related.  When Easy aligning the telescope, it slewed to around (pretty far off actually..) of vega, and when i got this star in view and the tracking motors were engaged, every time I made an adjustment in either dimension, the telescope would slew upwards and mess up the location of the star in the eyepiece..And it does this EVERY TIME! So basically is that some fault of mine that it decides to move itself arbitrarily after I do, or the machine is whack?  Secondly, after this I set the scope back in home position and decided to look at jupiter manually.  I slewed it there with the controller, centered it, and switching the tracking mode from terrestrial to astronomical. (i followed the steps exactly from the instruction manual that came with it) And the scope started slew up very rapidly and just kept going! I would press the down arrow to stop it and bring it back but every time it just went consistently and quickly upward! far too fast even if it were tracking on the right path..Oh! and lastly, when I set the tracking to lunar, it did the same this as well, just strait upwards..So yea! do I have a defective scope? (I'm really lucky because costco is AMAZING about returns so going and grabbing a replacement would be no problemo) Let me know guys, thanks!
-Dave

[bry73]

Sorry for not seeing this sooner.
Before you used it the first night did you set it up during the day time and do a calibrate and training of the drives on a distant terrestrial object?

[MistrBadgr]

I would go over all the drive calibrations, etc, like the other responder stated.

If there is not anything obvious, I would pack it up and take it back to Cosco and get another one.

If you fiddle around too much, you can end up doing all kinds of little things that can put a warranty at risk.

If it was a used scope, I can guide you through all kinds of internal things.

What you are experiencing I have only experienced once and that was with a modified program in the 497 handset.  I had a gentleman make a change in the 1 button for me to allow me to stop and start tracking by pushing that button.  I was using it to figure out which way was west for drawings on the Astronomy League multiple star observation form.  If I forgot and moved the scope and then turned the tracking back on, the scope would head off, generally upward and just keep going. The 1 button was basically programmed to switch to terrestrial and back to sidreal.  Somehow, when the scope was moved with it in terrestrial mode, it lost its memory of where level and North were.

You may be experiencing something like that somehow.  You might review all the steps you take and buttons you punch.  If you cannot figure it out pretty quick.  Hi-tail it to Costco.  It sounds like a defect in the handset somehow, if you are not making a mistake in some way.

I had a 2090 and a 2114 at one time.  The 2090 was a really good scope.  A real "Little Telescope that Could!"  The 2114 has been modifide so extensively that I jokingly call it a DS-3114.  It works very well.

Hope this helps!

Bill Steen