Until recently, my AM5 has been working flawlessly. Recently, I've been noticing guiding problems for about 30-40 minutes BEFORE and AFTER the meridian flip. It only occurs at this point (usually near the zenith) and it happens on different nights on perfectly clear conditions with no wind. I've watched the problem happen in the guiding screen of ASIAIR. The guiding appears perfect when, in the middle of an exposure, the DEC error goes hyperbolic. If I hit "stop guiding" and recenter the image and start guiding again, it seems to work ok for a while, but it starts happening a frame or two later and definitely after the meridian flip for 4-5 300 sec frames. After that, guiding is excellent for the rest of the evening. I'm regularly getting <0.5 RMS error and frequently less than 0.4 RMS error, except before and after the meridian flip. The telescope I'm using (Redcat 51) is light, so it shouldn't be a balancing issue, even though I know that AM5 doesn't need to be balanced. Is my AM5 broken? As I said, this never used to be a problem. In the past, my best shots were near the zenith. Now, I'm regularly losing 50 minutes of shots at this same point. It's very aggravating. I don't think there is anything wrong with my guide scope or camera (ASI120). It appears like the AM5 is not responding (or only responding intermittently) to guiding during this interval. Note that this is NOT in the 5 minutes or so right before or after the meridian flip where guiding is supposed to stop.
