Moved back from the US last year, shipped all my astro equipment with me (1 mount in a pelican case, 2 refractors in their cases and a zwo ASI 1600 pro). Since the skies were clear tonight I tried to set it up. Then I realised how pampered I was at 30 Deg latitude with an easy view of Polaris. So after figuring out north using my phone's compass and some agaration, I maxxed out my mount (Orion EQ-G Atlas)'s latitude to 1 degree. Connected everything up, got ready to calibrate the Goto, clicked to slew the mount to Orion that was high up in the sky, and then.... Loud gnashing noise. Turns out the housing has some protrusion that got stuck against the polar alignment altitude lever (hope I haven't spoiled my precious mount now).
Sorry if this has been asked before, but how do you guys deal with this, other than throw money at the problem and buy a new mount? Make the tripod legs a bit sengeh, and up the inclination? Otherwise I can't get any lower than 4-5 degrees without it scraping past that lever....
p.s. now my mount makes a clicking noise while it's holding position and phd2 just refuses to calibrate
