malc-c

Try the search function or just browse through the forum and read previous threads of the same nature.   It would help if you could advise us what your budget is, what you are hoping to see, what interests you and your daughter and if you want to learn the night sky or have a computerised mount find the targets for you.  

You will never get one scope that suites planetary and deep sky objects, and don't expect to see the same images in books or magazines when looking through a small table top scope.  Like I said, this is probably one of the most regularly asked questions on the forum, so there is plenty to research, so sit down with a cuppa and start browsing 

I might be wrong, but the term "computerised" may be referring to the Arm based processor used on the new generation of control boards.  Older synscan mounts used PIC microcontrollers which (splitting hairs) technically isn't a processor.  There are subtle differences between the "R" versions of some mounts as described above, and with the new generation of control boards have USB connectivity making them easier to hook up to a PC without the need to purchase an EQDIR cable

@TrevaP I've dropped you a couple of PMs regarding close up pictures of U7, hopefully you can oblige.   In the mean time any news on the repair, did the replacement FET work?

If anyone else has one of these new MC020 board and could take a close up image I would welcome a PM from you.

I think Brexit has mudded things... From what a friend has told me it seems that UK government now want overseas companies to charge VAT at UK rate at the time of purchase, and then basically pay HM Customs the VAT when there is a VAT return and its declared as "export", which is why a lot of companies now won't ship to the UK as there is so much paperwork that its too much hassle as it means more VAT returns as HM Customs will naturally not wait for payment when a company does a normal year end accounts... How true that is I have no idea, but it would seem logical based on Stu's comments above

From my limited knowledge I was always under the impression that as the supplier is exporting the item it is supplied VAT free.  Then the VAT and duty is paid to the customs department at the point of entry as the rates may differ from the exporting country.   If you are paying the 19% VAT that Germany applies, then the UK government are not going to benefit from the importation of the item, and if they do have a system where they recover that you would still need to pay the difference between the 19% German rate and 20% UK rate... hence why goods are exported tax and duty free.   But I could be wrong as Brexit has caused a lot of confusion.

I did find this which may help explain how to reclaim the duplication of VAT payment should you have no choice but to pay VAT at the point of sale and upon the goods landing in the UK - Hope that helps?

1 hour ago, sagittariancat said:

The Skywatcher Explorer 200P EQ5 is a great telescope for both viewing and astrophotography. It offers a large aperture of 8 inches, which is more than enough to reveal distant galaxies, planets and nebulae in great detail. The equatorial mount also makes it easy to track objects across the night sky. Additionally, it is also great for astrophotography due to its large aperture and the fact that it is already equipped with a motorised tracking system. The £1,000 price tag is also quite reasonable for what you get. All in all, the Skywatcher Explorer 200P EQ5 is a great choice for both viewing and astrophotography and should be a good investment for the long term.

Can you elaborate on this...  was this from personal experience or a copy and paste form some sales literature 🙂

Yes the 200P is a great scope, and yes you can get excellent image.... but the mount will be at, if not over its limits which can make the task frustrating (and that is from personal experience as I started with that combo before converting the scope to a PDS using a larger secondary and then buying an HEQ5 as the EQ5 just didn't hold the scope still enough for imaging on anything other than a windless night) 

Thanks guys for giving examples of what the OP could expect to get under ideal seeing conditions.  What I was trying to get across was that the OP should not be expecting the scope to give images like this which uses a 14" scope with a 7.5m focal length at f20.

(example taken via google)

To me (and no expert) that seems to be related to those who are developing and writing drivers rather than the "end user".  I was not able to locate a driver for the serial to USB cable in the support / download page, however chances are it uses either FTDI or more probably the Prolific 2303 driver which was dropped from Windows when MS developed windows 10 (Prolific didn't want to sign up to the licencing agreement)

Chances are you get a warning under device manager against the COM port assigned to the adapter / cable.  Right click on it and select properties. Click the details tab and then select Hardware ID from the "property" drop down list.  Copy the first line that appears in the value box, and then past that into google.  It should then bring up links to the driver for that chipset.   Download and install the driver which hopefully go smoothly and resolve the issue

Elp has a good suggestion, but I think both Justin and myself have the same opinion that it's reflection between the camera lens and the eyepiece....   If you want to take images then maybe invest in a astro camera that replaces the eyepiece and plugs into a laptop or  tablet.  An example is this one that gives you full 1080P HD for under £60.  You'll get better results and can use software to stack frames of the video, which can also remove the trailing of the stars (to a degree)

6 hours ago, Justin richens said:

I brought a celestron 8-24mm zoom and I find myself not using anything else as its so easy to work with

Rich, Justin has made a good suggestion.  There are some excellent tools on the internet that can give you some idea of the field of view for any telescope aperture, and focal length when used with various objects  Here's one for example  Now you may not see the detail in the image it uses, but you will get some idea of how much an object might fill the view.

One thing that often disappoints newcomers is that they see a picture of a distant galaxy in a magazine or book that has all the dust lanes in and lots of colour, and then when they look through a scope at the same galaxy all they see is a faint, slightly smudged thing with a slightly brighter centre, and sometimes have to use averted vision (looking to the left or right, top or bottom of the view) so the eye can pick out some detail....  Again a lot depends on your location.  In a dark site away from light pollution, and with good seeing conditions you'll see more than from a garden in a town.   

What was the target you were trying to photograph ?

Ruling out M27 I would say it's reflection between the camera lens and the eyepiece  

You might be expecting too much.  To view planets in great detail you need a long focal length scope, short focal length eyepiece and aperture.  Magnification is a product of  the scopes focal length divided by the eyepiece focal length.  Assuming you had a decent 4mm eyepiece the max magnification for your scope would be 225x... but at that magnification the image will be very dark and grainy as the aperture of the 130 is small at around 5".  Using barlow lenses does effectively double the magnification, but also dims the image further.

It's for these reasons that people opt for large, long focal length scopes like Cassergrain Schmitt telescopes, or similar, where you have 8" or more aperture and a 2000mm + focal length. 

You're scope is more suited for some of the brighter DSO's, where a wider field of view with the low magnification eyepiece (the 25mm for example) could show a nice defined smudge of say the Andromeda galaxy, or the Orion Nebula.  Under really dark skies and with good seeing you should be able to see quite a lot of the globular clusters and open clusters.

Hope that helps 

I took the cheap option -- as described - Both do the same job of allowing the OTA to be rotated in the rings, just that yours looks like it came form the factory with the ring fitted 🙂

7 hours ago, Ratlet said:

I use a 130pds newt on an alt az mount and attempted to use it on my GEM28 eq mount.  The eyepiece ends up all over the place.  It's not much fun. 

A strip of trunking capping and clamp banding overcomes this by allowing the OTA to be rotated in the rings.... making observation a lot more comfortable..

Personally, having struggled with trying to collimate my 200p using just a cheshire or DIY pin hole method I purchased a second hand Hotech laser collimator and that made things a hole lot easier.  Since then there have been other brands of laser collimator even own branded for less then £50 (link to suggestions)

Where some fail in the process is getting the collimation sorted is setting up the focuser  and optical axis all square to each other, and a laser helps with that no end.

3 hours ago, chubster1302 said:

Damn, you did indeed amd I remember reading it....then I must have started fiddling, ran into a problem and promptly forgot everything you had said.  Gives myself a slap. Cheers Malcom 

No worries.... just wondered why there were two threads running for the same question...

I should have also added that if you feel that you may be tempted to do imaging, then look at getting the PDS version of the scopes.  

If you drop a little in aperture you could get the Skywatcher 150 PDS and place that on the Goto equipped EQ5, and still have a little change from your £1000 budget.  Link

You will always get people suggesting a dobsonian as you get more aperture for your money, no issues with being 7' tall to see the eyepiece (which can be resolved using a simple tube ring to allow rotation of the tube) etc.  But they are impractical for doing imaging of faint DSOs that require long exposures.  If you are looking for a scope that should end up being something that will cover both visual and imaging without the need to sell it and replace it with something larger (unless you really get bitten by the aperture bug) then the 150PDS on and EQ5.  If you did want a 200P then it needs to be on an HEQ5 (or EQ6 if your have some more cash in reserve). 

One other thing to remember though, is there is no one scope fits all option.  Whilst the 150PDS (or even the 200P for that matter) is excellent for imaging faint nebula and galaxies, you won't get detailed and large images of planets.  Both the 150P and 200P  (and there DS variants) are f5, meaning quite fast low magnification, where as planets require high magnification and ideally large aperture to get a bright and detailed image.

1 hour ago, chubster1302 said:

 

Perfect, thanks Stuart, that seems to have got me up and running, but why am i seeing 115200 as the baud rate on lots of youtube vids ? 

I covered this in your other thread earlier.... I'll elaborate 

Basically the handset when used communicates with the synscan unit  using TTL serial (ie 5volts) at 9600 baud rate.  On synscan units (external such as the EQ3 or EQ5, or mounts such as the HEQ5 and EQ6) that lack a USB port the handset port is connected directly to the microcontrollers (PIC16F886's) serial port pins.  These micro controllers have built in TTL serial ports the speed of which is set in the firmware to 9600.   So when using an EQDIR cable that replaces the handset and thus connects via the handset port it needs to be set to 9600 baud rate in order to communicate.

On synscan units and newer mounts that have the USB-B type socket the USB to TTL serial conversion is done by a Prolific 2303 type chip on the same synscan board, which then connects to the RS232 TTL port pins of the ARM processor.  The firmware running on these new processors uses 115200 baud rate.  Therefore when connecting a new mount via USB you need to change the ports speed via the com port properties.  This may also be required when setting up EQMOD via the EQASCOM toolbox, and possibly in NINA too when pointing its settings to use EQMOD as the driver...  You want all application, driver and device properties singing from the same hymn sheet.

To be honest I doubt it.  The traffic between the PC and mount is not really demanding to make use of the faster transfer rate.  Also using the USB option  still converts the USB data into normal RS232 signals at TTL (5volts) which then get passed on to the ARM processor, just that the convertor chip is built into the synscan unit rather then in the cable.  One drawback is that the chipset they use is the Prolific 2303 which isn't supported natively by Windows due to licencing issues dating back to Windows 7 days.  If your EQDir cable is FTDI based then there should be no issues as the drivers for FTDI are already built into windows so its more or less plug and play.

The stock image shows how the synscan connections are daisy chained...  so yes the cable from the synscan goes to the RA IN port with the other lead from DEC out to DEC in.  And note which side the DEC motor is.

I also note that your synscan unit is one of the newer ones with built in USB, so there was no real need for the EQDir cable. But provided you connect the USB hub to your laptop / computer then yes everything would seem to be plugged into the right ports.  Personally I prefer to have the EQDir cable on its own direct connection to the PC rather than via a hub.

Also, when it comes to doing any alignments, this must be done using the computer and software.  You can't use the handset to do the alignment and then swap the leads over and start driving the mount via NINA / EQMOD or GSS etc. 

If you use the search function you will see peoples opinions on this combo, and like all things you'll get differing opinions - Mine is based on personal experience as I started with this combo and soon realised its limitations

In a nutshell - if you are in a sheltered area the combo makes for a very nice visual scope.  The scope is susceptible to wind given the size of the tube, hence the need for a sheltered area.  Imaging is a different story as the options are so wide, for using the camera on a mobile phone through to a dedicated mono camera with filter wheels.  But basically even with a dSLR and using the finder scope as a guide scope you'll be pushing the load capacity of the EQ5 beyond it's recommended limit.  If you want to do imaging then considering increasing your budget to get an HEQ5, or look for one second hand. An HEQ5 also provides a very sturdy visual mount that performs better in breezy conditions.

33 minutes ago, Sabalias said:

Thanks Malc,

So, to clear up my understanding, I would need to be calibrating with my scope pointing towards the south at a Dec angle of 0 degrees (+/- 30 degrees)? Shame my house is in the way 😂

Stu

That would be "ideal"....  not much you can do about the house.... unless you move 🤔

Provided you have an EQDIR cable, you remove the handset cable from the synscan box and plug the EQDIR cable in its place.  The other end plugs into a USB port on the computer.  Depending on the OS you may or may not need to install a driver.  Under all operating systems the device is registered as a COM port.  By default the speed of the sysnscan serial port is 9600 baud, so it's worth checking in the properties that the speed of the com port has been set to the same.  You may also have to specify that in NINA (i don't sue NINA so have no idea).

If your synscan is one of the new versions with a USB type B socket then you don't need an EQDIR cable.  Use a standard USB A- B cable between the mount and PC.  However the comport it registers runs at 115200 baud so you will need to set the ports properties to match this speed (and possibly in NINA too ?)

Do NOT use a standard USB to SERIAL adaptor as a means to connect the PC to the synscan unit, you will end up damaging the unit.  However these days standard 9 pin serial ports are far and few between on modern PC's

Stu, PHD2 states that you should calibrate within 30 degrees of Dec 0. The ideal spot is the intersection of the meridian and the Celestial Equator, where you will have the most movement of a target star.

With regards to the belts.  Ideally you don't want any stretching or slack in the tension, otherwise you are not going to have any of the benefits a belt conversion offers over the geared system.   When I was developing a belt conversion 12 years ago (my doesn't time fly !)  I didn't use an idler wheel like the Rowan kit, but went direct between motor and worm pulleys, using the adjustment slots built into the mount for the motor fixings. You'll never get perfection as you'll still have backlash in the worm gear, which, given the pricing point of the mount is going to me manufactured to a certain level of tolerance.

Normally if a repair hasn't been done right it either goes open or closed circuit.  In this case I would have suspected that the motor for RA wouldn't work as having a short across the coils or if the coils are open circuit would prevent it from running.  On the new board it's clear to see the four tracks from the driver chip to the connector, so it would be very easy to repair any damaged tracks.  If you could post up a picture of the repair we could then comment further.  

Did you also get my PM ?