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[quote user="selector"] I suppose the technology with optical readers is fairly well developed by now, although I am unsure of their method for this turntable.  In any case, there will necessarily be incremental errors with each use, not from the digital side of things, but from the mechanical side of things.  So, even though your calibration point has not changed in memory, it has slipped a tiny fraction of an inch each time you ask the device to align itself anywhere.  Eventually, the error is sufficient that you can see it, and it is at this point that it must be re-calibrated.  I believe, although I have not actually used one, that the computerized amateur telescopes available in the $3K-$15K range have this very issue.  Your alignment with celestial coordinates might be fine for the first hour or so, but at some point you must recalibrate on bright stars whose coordinate positions are well known.  This is very important because the fields of view in a telescope are very small, typically, and a cumulative error of even 30 arc seconds can put something out of the field of view.  Once that happens, which way do you move the scope to find it?  Up, down, right, left? So, if I were to get one of these TT's, I suppose I would simply recalibrate it every other day or so. [/quote] Probably because you are dealing with the motion of the Earth and also of the stars and other deep space objects in real time. Is there any mechanical peices that are wearing thin on that turntable anywhere?
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