My uncle had this same problem with his chili recipe, used a metal spoon to stir the pot and swore the tomatoes got tinny. Turns out he was right, but he blamed the spoon when it was really the acid reacting with the metal. It makes me think we blame the wrong thing all the time, like when people say microwaves ruin leftovers but really it's the steam getting trapped. We grab the first answer that sounds smart and stick with it, even when the real reason is sitting right there. You found the heat thing through failure, and that's the only way most of us actually learn. How many other kitchen tricks are we all following for reasons that don't hold up?

Six months of troubleshooting and it was just the reticle being off a hair? That's brutal, I'd have thrown the whole thing in a lake by week three. I had a similar facepalm with my autoguider, turns out the cables were rubbing against the mount and causing tiny wiggles I blamed on everything else. But honestly, props to you for actually reading that manual, most of us just rage-buy accessories until we stumble on the real fix.