So…   I was plagued all evening by weird guiding problems.   Though the skies were very good for imaging, I was getting trailing in anything over 4 minutes on the Tak.   The trailing was nearly vertical like it was moving in a line from 1 PM to 7 PM.   What to do?  I moved the weights so to be more east heavy.   I checked the cables.   I moved the table in case the cables had undo amounts of tension to the computer.   I turned off the mount, turned it back on.   Re-aligned.

At one point in the evening, I moved the scope in the scope rings because the finderscope was off center.  This had no effect.

I decided to shoot the Leo Trio with 4 min sub exposures at 3200 ISO.   Not ideal, but I felt I needed to hedge my bet.   All my 10 min exposures showed lots of trailing.

I tightened all the screws on the tube holder, the finder mount, the RA and Dec locks.

The problem didn't go away.   I kept wondering what had changed.   This evening was the first time I used the nFocus controller and it worked well.   I wondered if it somehow had caused a change to the driver.    It didn't seem likely, but I had to note it since it was the only substantial change to the system.

Earlier in the evening, I did another polar alignment with the "DSLR method."  I got the scope as well aligned (if not better) than the previous night.   So, I was really wondering.

I just tried turning the auto guider camera, the QHY5L-II about 90 deg and it seems I'm getting good stars….    As I write this, I have a 10 min guided test going on…..

Just got back in.   A perfectly fine 10 min exposure of M83.

So, if nothing else, I figured out how to make the Rigel Sys nFocus controller work with BackyardEOS.   AND I learned that the QHY5L Autoguider camera can be quite finicky about its orientation in the finderscope.   I have a mark that says, "UP" on the camera.  I need to remember to keep the UP toward the sides instead.

Next task:  Get Eqmod working so I can control the mount with the laptop.