Yearofthegoat

Yep, under Utilities IIRC but it's in the manual.

You can turn down the brightness of the red illumination, I found that helped. Also, do your alignment on Polaris in twilight - it's one of the brighter stars so easier to pick out when fewer other stars are showing.

Looks like it will: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-40346410 Makes me wish for immortality so I could see where these abilities eventually take us.

These appear to be for sale on Amazon (marketplace sellers) today. Not available on the Lego shop site, however.

I promised to post back the response from OVL and, well, they haven't yet. I'm not holding my breath.

How quick are we going to have to be to buy one before they all go?! Will ordering from Australia help if their stores open first?

Well reminded! (Runs off to garage)

Nothing, I don't think there is an 'interface box' for your mount, just an 8-way network cable with RJ45 plugs each end. No response from OVL as yet. I did notice that their website (as was mentioned on here earlier) shows what appears to be a V3 handset on the V4 product page. Which is not helpful. Unless they've changed the shape of the V4...!

I'm pretty sure that's not correct. The HEQ5 Pro is, I believe, compatible with both v3 and v4 handsets. Mine has a v4 but it's currently being advertised for sale with v3 and I'm almost certain there are SGLers using v3 sets with it. I've emailed OVL to find out what they ship with their HEQ5s. Will post back their response.

Not sure if the above posts were mistyped re. choice of mounts with v4 handsets but my HEQ5 came with a v4 handset and that was over 2 years ago. It was drop shipped from OVL. Maybe some sort of shortage then?

I'm rapidly learning to set up rapidly! Well maybe not rapidly but more make hay while the sun shines. Wednesday here was sunny most of the day, the kids went charging round the garden with their water pistols like it was July. So I made sure all the gear was outside before 8.00 ready to go. Polar aligned in twilight - i.e. as soon as I could see Polaris through the polarscope - then back in doing other things until it was dark enough (about 9/9.30 onwards). Managed to do some imaging with reasonable results. Glad I did because yesterday it hammered down in the afternoon and evening. Today is overcast but brighter and forecast is gaps in the cloud so may well do the same setup tonight to let me pounce if the clouds go. I envy folks with obsies who must be chilled out in their armchairs with a beer, opening their automated roofs and doing all their imaging with a mouse. I suppose it must be a bit like recording something off the telly?

Yes, even in normal non-astro use I try to stay 800 or below due to noise - usually colour noise. I expect I can lengthen the subs even if not guiding - will see how that goes. The noise really only show itself when stretching the image, so I'll look at that again as well. I can totally see how this AP hobby gets addictive.

Is that mount dithering - i.e. moving the mount small amounts - or dithering in DSS? Thanks

Yes @carastro it did, much appreciated. I know my way round Photoshop levels and curves, but it was good to have a guide as to the order to do things. I still need to play more with DSS settings. For example, that image was stacked with 'Kappa whotsit' rather than 'Average', which is supposed to prevent the out of memory error in DSS.

Thanks @spillage! Not yet but intend to shortly. I got a 70mm Barska scope off the 'bay for £11 so am sorting out a suitable bracket. Then I'll attach a GPCAM mono to it for guiding. If the 70mm is no good (have already had to shim the plastic focuser as it waved about in the breeze so am not expecting much!) I have my eye on an Antares Versascope 60mm, which will also make for a better finder than the 6x30 one that came with my 150PDS. The above is a cropped jpg, the original stacked final has coma in the corners (stars look like tadpoles) but the centre is okay, so am not sure if I'll go to the expense of a coma corrector just yet. The big thing I want to improve is how 'grainy' it looks - it seems to me to be colour noise? I can play more with NR but of course it removes some detail, so better to not have it in the first place. Lower ISO and longer subs maybe? Will certainly try that once guiding is set up.