Cosmic Geoff

You are not the first newbie to be baffled by the Synscan GoTo system, and I doubt you'll be the last. It's a complex system. I recently acquired a Synscan upgrade for an EQ-5 and am still trying to make it behave. Here's a run-down: Familiarise yourself with how it is supposed to be assembled (indoors) Set the mount for latitude (around 51-55 degrees in UK) Identify the start position from the manual text and pictures. Apply power, and practice entering the parameters in the correct format (indoors) Select yes (1) and 1-star align (1, or scroll with keys at bottom of handset) Pick a star and press Enter. The mount will move under power, and come to rest hopefully pointing near the star you picked. That's as far as you can go practicing indoors. When you take it outside, do the polar alignment and then all the above again and proceed to finish the star alignment. To escape from the alignment procedure when done, select another menu option. Simple? No, it's not, but with practice you can tame it enough to do some observing. If you have no ambition to do deep-space long exposure imaging, an alt-azimuth GoTo mount would be easier to manage.

The C9.25 OTA would be great for planetary viewing and imaging. Almost the ideal size and design for the task. Just a few cm bigger than my C8. The depth of focus makes it easy to add on various imaging accessories. Or you could look at the new and less well known Classic Cassegrain designs, available in 8" aperture. The AZ-EQ5 or AZ-EQ6 would be good mounts, and save you the annoyance of polar alignment if you plan to use the AZ mode for general viewing and planetary imaging. As you hint, you will need a second scope (a small high quality refractor) for deep sky imaging. The C9.25 is NOT suitable for this. By the way, if you are intending excursions to the moors, I hope you've been to the gym, as the AZ-EQ5 and AZ-EQ6 are not lightweight. 🙂 Don't agonise over eyepieces as the C9.25 is f10, I think, and the CC's even longer FR, so eyepiece choice is not critical. Inexpensive Plossls will work, so don't think that you have to buy expensive exotic types. Unless you really want to. Likewise don't agonise over diagonals. Tests have shown that the cheap ones work just as well - the expensive ones are better made, the coatings will last longer and the light transmission is better (not that you'd notice in practice). The C8 comes with a nice prism diagonal and I have seen no reason to change it. CC: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/357242-ts-optics-cassegrain-telescope-c-2032436-ota/

I have a zoom eyepiece - a 8-24mm Starguider. Like many zoom eyepieces, it has a small apparent field of view at 25mm and a large apparent field of view at 8mm. A slight re-focusing is required when changing the zoom. And the zoom action is quite stiff, so I gave to take it off the telescope and hold it under a light to see what I am doing with it. So a useful device for some tasks, but not a substitute for a set of fixed eyepieces.

I have the same scope, and I reworked one of the dovetail bolts so that the bar would slide endways into the clamp of a SLT mount. Basically I found a countersunk head screw with the right thread and countersunk the bar to sink the screw head. You could do the same on a longer dovetail bar, if you have tools.

What broke, and why? With mine I left the spreader in place and retracted the legs so I could carry the tripod through doorways, with the telescope removed. No point in removing the spreader and folding the legs unless you want to pack it away.

Didn't it come with a printed user manual? If this was not sufficient, where have you looked online? Basically, you have to polar align it (a mechanical operation), turn it on and enter various parameters (site, time etc), then do a star align (an electronic operation). Why did you buy an AVX rather than an easier to use alt-az mount?

The C5 is a fine little scope, but the C5 SE is a visual scope outfit, and the mount is not suitable for deep space astrophotography, so if that is your primary interest you should buy something else. It would work for planetary imaging, though. Sky-Watcher Explorer-200P (EQ5 PRO) Parabolic SynScan GO-TO Newtonian Reflector This is completely different from your first thought. Again, not particularly suitable for astrophotography. The mount is barely adequate for the 200p as a visual scope. Again, if astrophotography is your main aim, buy something else.

You probably just need to tighten it up a bit more. Thousands of scopes use this system without reported problems. Including several of mine.

Following my effort of 22 June, being unable to lift anything heavy, I set up my lighter weight telescope in a different position from the previous night to get some images of Mars. This was the first serious use of my EQ-5 with Synscan upgrade. I set up the gear and left it tracking the assumed GoTo position of Jupiter for a couple of hours. At 2am, Jupiter was not within the 25mm eyepiece field. Not so impressive. I repeated the imaging of Jupiter and Saturn, and also took images with the ZWO infrared filter. While slewing back to Jupiter, now apparently past the meridian, the mount did a meridian flip and ended up pointing at a street lamp. I was not impressed. ☹️ Eventually Mars emerged from behind an adjacent building, and I took images in IR, visual, and visual with a x2 Barlow lens. Equipment: 127mm Maksutov 1500mm fl, ASI224MC camera, ADC, x2 Skywatcher Barlow, best 20% of 5000 frames (visual), processed in Registax6. EQ-5 Pro Synscan mount. Key: Monochrome images were taken in infrared. Larger Mars image with Barlow. Mars was jigging about in the poor seeing by nearly its diameter (11"). Note: the hottest moon (Io, to left of planet) seems slightly brighter in the IR images. I think the 127mm Mak punches through poor seeing better than larger apertures.

I recently had a minor chest operation which has temporarily left me unable to lift anything heavy, which has curtailed my astronomical activities. Last night, being clear in the late evening and early hours, seemed too good to miss, so I set up my 127mm Maksutov in place of the CPC800. I had intended to image Mars as well, but discovered in the early hours that having set up in a different position to my 30 May effort, Mars was blocked by an adjacent building till dawn. Equipment: 127mm Maksutov, SLT mount, wood tripod, ASI224MC camera, ADC, each best 20% of 5000 frames, processed in Registax6. The Great Red Spot should just be visible disappearing around the side of Jupiter. Part of the Cassini division is visible in the Saturn image. Overall these have not turned out too badly, considering the low altitude and poor seeing.

I used to work in the electronics industry. I do not recall encountering any power supplies that failed by giving an over-voltage, though I am sure it is possible. I dimly recollect that some designs included a crowbar protection, so that should an over-voltage start to occur, the power supply output would instantly be clamped to 0v. Cheap supplies may omit the protection circuitry... As for a high voltage appearing at switch-on, was this with the power supply loaded or unloaded? A power supply is supposed to have a load, so it may be possible for a transient to occur with no-load that would not occur if the load was present. I am not convinced by the idea of using a step up or step down converter. To my mind this just introduces another point of failure. A battery supply for a mount etc has the advantage that the output cannot rise to a damaging level, and also you can't electrocute yourself with 13 volts dc. Multiple supplies may have an advantage in that some devices (mounts) are sensitive to over and reverse voltage while others (dew heaters) are not. Almost all power supplies these days are switchmode, and (especially if poorly designed) could generate some electronic hash. There are also linear regulated supplies, generally distinguished by their weight and lower efficiency.

The later C8's have dedicated dome-headed screws front and back for fixing dovetail bars, finders, etc. With luck, the old ones will have similar. The hardest part of using them is figuring out the thread sizes so you can buy bolts of the right length - probably UNF or UNC in this case. What are you going to mount it on - the HEQ5 Pro?

I had an EQ-2 clone mount a few years ago and I was not impressed by it. Wobbly with a 70/700 refractor. Buying anything from ebay can be risky, and if you buy a secondhand mount it is quite likely that it might need a bit of sorting out. Which might require some knowledge of mounts and DIY skills. I once bought a used EQ-5 mount, and when it arrived it was in bits and I had to reassemble it, and replace a missing eyepiece tray with chipboard.

I think you know what I am going to say. Your proposal is unrealistic. I suggest that you buy your relative a beginner's visual scope (eg the Heritage 130p) and let him/her contend with the practicality and cost of doing imaging.

The 127mm Maksutov is an excellent scope for its size and there are very few complaints about them. It does not do widefield, but then no scope does everything.

The Mak should come with a 1.25" diagonal. But if you want to spend money on a replacement, that's up to you. The Mak has a long focal ratio which renders a Barlow largely unnecessary.

Some people fit low power 2" eyepieces on these scopes, but if it does not come with 2" adaptors, you would need a 2" visual back, 2" diagonal and 2" eyepiece. Add up the cost of these and you might think that your money was better spent on a separate widefield scope. 1.25" eyepieces are cheaper. Eyepieces - AFAIK same as for a C8, I use a 25mm, 15mm 8mm and a 8-24mm zoom. At f10 eyepiece choice should not be critical, so buy whatever is in your comfort zone. Filters - don't buy unless you find a need for a narrowband filter like an OIII, or suchlike.

Could you give a bit more information about your setup? I have a Starsense, but if it can control a focus motor that's news to me. Does the Starsense boot up Ok with the focus motor disconnected?

You should pay attention to the reviews from "more experienced persons" rather than those from novice users who have not had the experience to compare it with anything else. Beginners' telescopes have been exhaustively discussed in this forum. Or see forum sponsors FLO's list of telescopes for beginners.

Re points 3 and 4, telescopes are not like smartphones where a new model is needed every few months to maintain market share. New developments do appear, mainly in mounts, but the basic refractor design is centuries old, the basic Newtonian design is a couple of centuries old, and the basic design of the Celestron 8 inch SCT has not clanged much in over 40 years (though the mounts for these SCTs have changed a lot). It seems that you are looking for a Dobsonian telescope. So that would be a Sky-watcher or a Bresser, unless you want something less mass-market or more customised.

It looks fine to me. When I tested my used C8 after purchase, the star test looked like a badminton shuttle tilted at an angle. Maksutovs rarely need any attention to the collimation - I have never needed to touch the collimation of my 127mm Mak.

I fitted a Synscan upgrade kit to an EQ-5 earlier this year. It's worth noting that the recent software includes a digital method of fine adjusting the polar alignment. After a two-star align, the software gives values for "Mal" and "Maz" (not mentioned in my user manual) and an opportunity to go back and adjust the altitude and azimuth screws on the mount. You'd need to look up the details online.

Spending nearly £2000 on a scope outfit when you have never owned one is something of a gamble. You should have a clear idea of what you want and expect. If not, start with something cheap you can try, then stick in the attic or sell on. You can get an 8" scope for a lot less then £2000 - so if spending that much you are paying for more advanced features, compactness, etc. The Starsense is a handy extra but by no means essential. The various off the shelf packages including a C8 offer you: SE - cheapest variant - a handy visual outfit. Evolution - a better quality Alt-Az GoTo mount, with internal wifi and battery. AVX mount - a GoTo equatorial, if you need an equatorial, which you mostly don't - only essential for advanced deep sky imaging. CPC - has a massive fork mount and an uprated tripod, resulting in rock solid mount - also has internal GPS - well suited to planetary imaging and general visual observing. With the exception of the SE, none of these leave much if any change out of £2000. There is also the EDGE HD variant of the telescope itself - offering an optical upgrade that offers better flatness and sharpness over the whole field of view - nice to have for visual observers but mainly of interest to (advanced) photographers. Is 8" enough? It's enough for a lot of tasks. Go bigger and while you have more potential performance, it will be more of a pain to set up and will be more severely affected by bad seeing.

It looks like focus is your major issue. The suggestions above are good. I generally focus either on Jupiter's moons or on a star. I have also seen the suggestion from an experienced imager that one focus on the planetary detail. Good single frame captures should look better than the images above. I think that your choice of camera is another issue. If you use a dedicated planetary camera (at a minimum ZWO ASI120MC-S or similar, or better a ASI224MC with IR-cut filter, or equivalent) you can get frame rates exceeding 200fps on Jupiter and can easily save videos of 5000 frames or more. These cameras allow you to adjust the region of interest, closing in on the planet and increasing the possible frame rate. Once you achieve better images, you will start to see the need for an atmospheric dispersion corrector (ADC) also available from ZWO.

You just need a weight with the same centre hole size. I managed it for my EQ-5 with the aid of Astroboot.eu.