Astrotravelk

Oh that's a nifty device. I may look at that in future but going to try and get a few nights in before I spend any more money. Just bought a new Badaa cable and extension as the HEQ5 Pro only comes with the car power supply lead and the one I bought from Amazon seemed a bit janky ...

Thanks for the insight @Albir phil

It does look like you need good visitiblity of the stars to align @AstroMuni but would that not always be the case, I guess unless you are using more advanced techniques not in my world yet.. like plate solving, which I will try when I am more comfortable with everything ...

On 26/03/2024 at 09:55, woldsman said:

You'll get better results if the mount is level, polar aligned, and in the in the home position to start with (using a spirit level, set RA to 18 then  move to zero; set dec to 90 then move to zero). 

In Stellarium, select plugins, telescope control and then click configure and connect mount.  A dialog box for EQMOD appears.  Un-park and check siderial tracking.  Your mount is now tracking.

There is a basic method of telling the mount where it is. Go to three bright stars in sequence (select the star in Stellarium then use CTRL & 1 to slew to the star). Centre the star in the eye piece (or the camera if using the dslr). 

Move to the 2nd and 3rd stars and repeat. Choose two stars either side of the meridian. Now you ought to be able to slew accurately to targets selected in Stellarium.

 

However,  there are better methods that you can adopt but which require some additional software: NINA (for imaging) and ASTAP (for plate solving). Both are free. 

If you use NINA and download the three point polar alignment plugin, you can do your polar alignment electronically. This will also in the process tell the mount where it is. You can also use plates solve in NINA to 

re-set position by taking an image and solving. And finally you can synch NINA to Stellarium, use its  framing module, and draw in coordinates of any object selected in Stellarium. Then NINA will slew and centre the object using plate solving. The first image you take can then be used as a reference point. Uploading it to the framing module and plate solving will take the mount back to the image. Very helpful if you image the same target over more than one night. There are videos online which explain how to do all this and how to adjust the settings in NINA to reflect the focal length of your imaging scope and pixel size of your imaging camera. 

 

 

Thanks for all the detail @woldsman That's really useful. I think the last piece of the puzzle is polar aligment and think I might try the electronic method using NINA first and see how I get on.

I have the NINA plug in and everything else, there's a few options here like syncing Stellarium and NINA as you say. 

Figers crossed there are some clear skies soon. Maybe even this weekend,

On 26/03/2024 at 09:23, AstroMuni said:

I live in North Hampshire, so a member of the Basingstoke society. We have a few members who also attend the HAG meetings, but I dont think I know anyone from Solent group.

I think I've had a coulpe of interactions with some of the HAG members. Maybe our paths will cross...

On 19/02/2024 at 16:52, AstroMuni said:

Suggest you get familiar with tools such as NINA which can assist with polar alignment, imaging, managing the mount etc. If you are a Mac user try Kstars/Ekos.

Thanks @Astromuni I have downloaded NINA and had a look. I'm familair with BackyardEOS so trying to keep with at least some familiarity for imaging. I'll look at the polr alignment aspects though for sure.
You're in Hampshire near me, do you know the Solent Amateur Astronomy group?
I'm just waiting for the clouds to dissappear down here to make a start ....

Thank you both @Cornelius Varley and @malc-c that is really good to know. 
 

So, it doesn’t matter how it is polar aligned as long as it IS by the time to find an object and start imaging - and Stellarium will track once I’ve selected until I decide to stop. Great, roll on the clear skies! 

Hey,

First post, so hope this is the right place for this.

After some DSLR manual tracking I decided to get some proper gear to get me started.

So, after a bit of time and effort I have set myself up with the HEQ5, SW150PDS and I have connected straight into my laptop using a lynx cable to bypass the synscan (for now)> The aim being to use Stellarium & (ASCOM/EQMod) to control the telescope and do the finding etc..

That seems to be connected ok, however I have 2 questions that maybe someone can help me with.

1) When I have done all the connecting etc. and selected a DSO in Stellarium and unparked my mount in EQMod window and done all the focusing and centering. If I have selected say, a galaxy for instance, and clicked it in Stellarium, slewed to the object... is that it, is it now tracking my object for me to happily plug away with my dslr imaging? I guess I just was expecting to see a 'track' button etc...

2) Polar alignment ....should I polar align usign synscan on my mount if I am then going to bypass with a cable straight into stellarium for imaging? Does how I polar align matter in this case...?

Any advice on these 2 things would be much appreciated.

Also, if anyone can remove the clouds so I can finally use my gear that'd also be great ha!

Thanks<
K