Cosmic Geoff

It's worth tracking down a comparative analysis of various diagonal types. IIRC, With mirror diagonals, the coating has a bearing on the % relflectivity and the coating life. Prism diagonals do not deteriorate, but are not suited for short focal ratio telecopes. Somewhat surprisingly, the optical accuracy of the diagonal is rarely an issue, whether cheap or expensive.

You do not have to stick with the Windows XP, which is quite hard to maintain now. You could make the PC dual boot with Linux if you do not want to scrap the XP altogether. I am not 100% sure, but I think you can get Stellarium for Linux. I did discover that the newer versions of Stellarium will not work on XP. If you feel like an upgrade, the nation is awash with ex-business PCs and laptops which can be had from dealers at reasonable prices and already loaded with fresh installations of Windows 7 or Windows 10.

It may not be worth as much as you think - SCTs seem not to hold their price well. I bought a like-new SCT and mount plus a box of valuable accessories all inc. for half the price of a new one. And yours is some years old. I would suggest selling the focal reducer separately. Somebody who already has a SCT is likely to want it.

It's April and it seems this is known as the galaxy season. In previous years I have taken my C8 down to darkest Devon for a view of some galaxies. However in 2020 I was ill and there were COVID travel restrictions. This year, still COVID travel restrictions. However all is not lost - with a sensitive planetary camera attached to my 102mm Startravel I can battle the urban light pollution, with results that are almost comparable with using a C8 at a dark skies site. I imaged a number of galaxies from my backyard on 4th and 5th April, with a typical result shown below - M61 and, it appears, one or two fainter galaxies. Equipment: 102mm f5 achro refractor, ASI224MC, SLT mount on wood tripod. Typical exposure 5 secs live stacked to 100 secs total. The field of view is about 0.5 degree (similar to 25mm EP in a C8). This image may not look like much, but is a lot better than I can see visually from here.

I would suggest you plan any future purchases in terms of where you want to be in a couple of years' time. A 70x400 mm scope does not seem like much of an upgrade from your 15x70 binoculars. If you do buy eyepieces, buy decent ones that you can re-use later with a decent scope. A Dob scope would give you a significant increase in aperture for a modest outlay. x3 Barlows are not necessarily very useful except for imaging. If you are looking at refractors, note that small short-focus refractors (like yours) can have significant chromatic and other aberrations, but in small long-focal length refractors the aberrations are much less apparent. Beyond this, refractors become heavy, sometimes very long, sometimes eye-wateringly expensive, and require expensive heavy mounts to support them. An 1000mm focal length telescope with a 25mm eyepiece will give a magnification of x40, which is not a lot, so no worries there.

My jaw drops at the suggestion of buying a CPC1100 as a first scope. I have a CPC800 and this is a heavy beast that takes up to half an hour to haul outside and set up. I suggest getting something that is a step up from binoculars but not big, heavy or expensive. Something like a 90mm refractor or a 130mm Newtonian, and forget the GoTo unless she requests it. If that goes well, you can get her the big scope (and the observatory) later.

A photograph or two might elicit a reply. All mounts have a degree of backlash, and commonly it can be adjusted by moving the bracket holding the worm gear shaft (if accessible). The EQ-2 is a rather wobbly mount anyway, so do not expect too much. I used to have a EQ-2 clone.

Note there are two varieties of right-angle finder - those that leave the image flipped L-R (as with a telescope diagonal) ant those with a prism that completely corrects the image - known as RACI. Somethimes they look the same and the terminology is confusing. If in doubt ask the retailer. I agree that a straight-thru finder is (literally) a pain in the neck.

The starting point is 66% of the price of an equivalent new one. If nobody bids or offers, then you have asked too much and you need to reduce your asking price.

It seems you are trying to do astro-imaging involving remote control of the telescope. That will not be easy, and I think you need more specialised software for the purpose. Even standing beside the setup, I find that I need 'precise GoTo' or plate-solving to get the camera on target.

I am not sure why accessing the red dot finder should be a particular problem. Would you not have the same issue regardless of what you mount the scope on? I think 'tripod' in this case means 'mount and tripod'. You may find that the scope is connected to the tabletop mount by a standard dovetail, in which case you can take it off and attach it to a mount with the standard dovetail - which means most mounts. (preferred solution) The catch here is that unless you find another bargain on FB, the mount and tripod are likely to cost more than you paid for the Heritage 100p. Turn the base over and see if there is a 3/8" threaded hole on the underside. If there is, asides from photo tripods, you could put it on a substantial tripod with flat top and 3/8" connector sold by FLO for around £100.

You need at minimum a serial cable that plugs into the handset, and (unless you have an old computer with a 9-pin serial port) a USB to serial converter, and a usb-to-serial driver for a FTDI chipset. You may find you can buy the serial to USB combo as one active cable. This is if you have the older Nexstar+ handset. If you have the latest handset wuth a USB socket in the base, you just need a USB cable. Hiwever you still need a USB-to-serial driver! For software, you need an app for Celestron to install the firmware. I used MCupdate, but if you have a newer mount you may need to use CFM instead. I advise reading the instructions at nexstarsite.com: https://nexstarsite.com/OddsNEnds/MCNewFirmwareUpgradeHowTo.htm Remember you want to refresh the mount software, not update the handset. The Celestron app will require you to download some other software to enable it to work. Then you power everything up and use the Celestron app to download and install the necessary firmware. Did I mention hoops?🙂 As a consolation prize, you can use the cable to control your mount via Stellarium once you have got ot working again.

I have had this happen a couple of times with my SLT. On both occasions I fixed it by refreshing the mount firmware. What causes the firmware to get corrupted is unknown. You can fix this yourself if you are prepared to jump through all the necessary hoops. (firmware, cables, apps).

I had a 203mm f5 Newtonian (weighing around 9 to 10kg) on my EQ5, and the mount did not feel overloaded. However this is as much as one would want to put on, even for visual use.

I assume you want to keep the mount and change the TAL100RS for a bigger scope. I dont know what aperture the 100RS is - I assume 100mm? The C8 OTA would be a reasonable choice - it is a good scope, a substantial step up in aperture and not too heavy for the EQ5. However now the Classical Cassegrain is an option worth considering instead of the SCT. Is it for general purpose use, or what? I would not choose a Newtonian - tried that on a EQ5 and hated it.

If you like the idea of adding a helical focuser to your rack & pinion focuser, there is a design available from Svbony or from China that does not rotate the eyepiece/camera and is available in various variants with M42 (T2) outer threaded end, 1.25" eyepice holder, and on the inner end a variety of options - T2, M35, M32.5, and adaptors for female T2, 2" barrel, 1.25" barrel. I have one that I bought a while ago with the M35 x 1mm thread inner end, that fitted into the wider half of a Skywatcher focuser-to-1.25" adapter.

I have a Celestron LiFePo battery, and found that it shuts off if the charge level is too low. That could be consistent with it shutting off under heavy load.

You need to select the sv305 as a camera in Sharpcap, set the size of the capture frame (small unless you want to image the Moon), take a video (preferably in the .ser format), then process the video down to best image and sharpen it in a suitable program e.g. Registax6. More detailed instructions and tutorials for doing these things can be found online. You may find it difficult to focus the camera or get an image on screen without some practice - the chip is lilely to be very small - something like the equivalent of a 6mm eyepiece, and the camera focus may require an inward focus of several mm compared with an eyepiece. An out of focus Mars may not show up on your laptop screen at all. You also need to set the exposure time - typically 2 to 4 milliseconds for a planet. Good luck and clear skies!

There is a version of Starsense for Synscan which uses an extra module. If it didn't work with a HEQ5 I think we would have heard about it by now... Note that the Starsense relies on manual entry of the lat/long (once) and the time/date (every time). I have found that using a GPS module is another way of reducing the fag of GoTo alignment. With an alt-az mount, the only thing left do is a two-star auto align, which is not usually much work. I found with my CPC800 (with built-in GPS) that the two-star align was only a small part of the work of hauling it outside, erecting it, attaching the fragile bits and powering up and aligning.

There are advantages to using a PC connected to the mount/handset (with Nexstar) which are useful for visual observers. For instance, if you want to observe a list of double stars, you can either look up their RA and Dec beforehand and enter them into the handset, or enter the designations into Stellarium which will find the position and you can then GoTo the double. In a similar vein there are apps for compiling oberver lists (one is available free for Nexstar) which one can prepare in advance and then use the app to control the telescope mount directly. Stellarium can find asteroids and other solar system objects if you take the trouble to update the Stellarium databases beforehand. For deep sky objects with Messier, NGC, IC or other catalog numbers it is quicker to just use the database in the handset.

Malc-c : That's interesting. But if I just want to direct the mount from Stellarium I have no need to concern myself with EQMOD. The latter is no doubt of more interest to astro-imagers. With Nexstar one can use the handset and the cable link to Stallarium in parallel. Does that happen with Synscan? (I'd know if I set it up and tried it, but I have put the mount away).

Brainebula- I gave a little more detail in a reply to a post in the Mounts sub-section. Clearly the handset requires a driver for a USB-serial device. I don't know about the mount, as my EQ-5 has no such port, just the one on the handset, but the same remark probably applies. In Windows, if you power and connect everything up in the correct order (power laptop, power mount, then connect), the Control Panel/Device Manager will indicate a USB-serial device and you can delve further to see if it has a driver, an indicated COM port, and into Hardware ID which may give information you can use to try searching for a suitable chipset driver. (If you do not power up and connect in the correct order, the USB will try to power the handset & all you get is a 'No Response from either axis' message). I don't know how essential the ASCOM is, but the SKywatcher driver I installed (which presumably is the one now showing in the Control Panel) would not install without the ASCOM platform. I am not sure how helpful this will be to you, given the differences between Windows and Mac systems. Under Windows, you DO need to specify which COM port you are using, but you don't need to bother with baud rate etc. Since most astronomy software seems to be written for Windows only, your line of least resistance might be to just buy a Windows laptop. A used business laptop need not cost a lot. For reference, the Dell Vostro I am currently using is about ten years old.

I have just updated a post relevant to this topic. If you have a V5 handset with a USB port in its base, you can use it to control the mount from a laptop. My post is the last in the thread. There is a link to a Cloudynights topic, and this is what I just posted: Addendum: I have confirmed that it is possible to control the V5 handset & mount via a USB A-B cable. If you power everything up and then connect the cable, the handset appears in the Control Panel of Windows 7 as a USB-serial device. Initially no driver was indicated. After a struggle I installed the ASCOM platform and the Skywatcher handset driver (and .NET). After turning the laptop off and on, a Prolific driver for a USB-serial device, port COM6, showed up in the Control Panel, and I was then able to start a connection in Stellarium and control the mount.

This is interesting. I was trying to get my EQ5 Synscan with its V5 handset to connect to my laptop via a A-B USB cable rather than the USB to serial cable needed for the older handsets. I thought I needed to install the ASCOM platform and Synscan handset driver, so did that. (It also needed a .NET framework.) Still no joy, and the Win7 Control Panel was showing a USB-serial device for the handset, with no driver. I gave up; and turned it all on again after reading the above thread, and checked the Control Panel to see if the USB-serial device had a Hardware ID I could chase up for a driver. However to my surprise it now had a Prolific driver, for COM6. So I entered this data into Stellarium and, surprise, it connected and did a simulated slew to Mars. I don't know if I needed to install the ASCOM platform. Connecting a Nexstar mount to Stellarium was much less bother. With reference to the previous post, I would comment that not everybody will want to dispense with their handset, and not everybody will want to spend 35 UKP if they have a spare standard USB cable.

The manual is unhelpful on this point, indeed. The user defined objects are numbered, so you can just overwrite them after selecting their number (confirmed). Is setting a user defined object the only way one can make a Synscan go to a RA+Dec position? With a Nexstar one can enter a RA+Dec and goto it more directly. Anothen minus for Synscan.