Telescope Reviews: ETX-125PE Headaches

Ok, so I finally got the scope and have had 3 good nights to try it out. Night #1: Just wanted to try out the optics and see if the GOTO worked.........it didn't! You tell it to go to Sirius and it would be way off. So, I go to the mighty ETX site for help.

1- I upload the new firmware onto the scope.
2- I notice the time isn't kept very well in the LNT module so I replace the battery.
3- I do a full RESET.
4- I update Time/Date/Location and put in Daylight Savings.
5- Did the TRAIN DRIVES command.
6- Calibrated the sensors on Polaris.
7- I'm setup for Alt/Az alignment. I try Auto align/2 star/ Easy align to see which would work best.

Night #2: Went out and the GOTO was better but still not great. Say the scope was originally off by the length of the Big Dipper's handle, Night #2's GOTO was off by half the handle's distance. Trying the different types of alignment methods was unnecessary. Each method was consistently off.

Night #3: I do some more training/calibrating and things get a little better but still most of the time the GOTO is off by 2-3 widths of a full moon.

On top of this, one of the tripod leg clamps has cracked so I've had to improvise a fix to make it extend sturdily. Also, when I tried to lock the horizontal lock yesterday it BROKE!! Cheap plastic. So now I have to use a wrench to tighten/loosen the lock. I've also made sure the tube is level when the fork arm's gauge reads 0 degrees. What I don't get is how I can do a 2 star alignment with Arcturus and Rigel, get Alignment Successful, then tell it to GOTO Rigel and it will pull away from the spot in the sky I just told it Rigel was located or I tell it to go back to Arcturus and it will go back but not near the FOV.

So far I'm severely disappointed with the GOTO performance as you can tell. However, I am very pleased with the optics. Saturn is beautiful through this scope! In 3 weeks I'll be traveling to a dark sight for a camping/observing weekend and I'd really like to get the GOTO fixed before then so maybe I would have better luck with Deep Sky objects. Any input from any of you guys would be great! Thanks

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