Martthebass

Have a word with Adam or Ian at RVO, they’ll be able to assist I’m sure. Quite local to you (assuming you’re Scunny or thereabouts).

Many thanks for the replies. Now that night has finished until August here in the depths of Yorkshire I'll have some time to try and get to grips with some of the advice.

Watching this with interest; I’m using a Lynx Asro cable for eqmod from my ASIair pro into an AZEQ5 but was sad to find it wouldn’t allow control from SkySafari

Welcome to the forum Niko, just a little south of you in Ravenfield, Rotherham.

Much appreciated, many thanks.

I’m somewhat tail heavy on my new imaging rig. I gather that’s not unusual with the WO short F ratio refractors. Could someone give me a heads up on the best way to relieve this; my current thoughts were along the lines of a longer dovetail bar, moving it forwards and perhaps turning it over to stop the focusser fouling? TIA.

Unfortunately I am a Mac User, PC at work, Mac at home. This hasn't been a problem until I decided on this foray into astro-imaging. I'm using a ASIair pro for the capture side which is great but I'm falling back on my MBP (which I'd upgraded with a SSD) for the stacking and processing side. Sadly I seem to have fallen at the first hurdle as I didn't realise that DSS wasn't on OSX and I'm really clueless about boot partitions/emulators and the like to get PC stuff running on the MBP. So....can someone recommend me something similar (and simple) that will do the same job? I watched a tutorial on Nebulosity which seemed somewhat complicated but it might have just not been a good tutorial.....TIA

Slightly over £1k but another recommendation for WO. Unfortunately this time the colours don’t match. GT71 on an AZ-EQ5 with ZWO mini guide and ASI120 mini. 0.8x reducer fitted.

In part it comes down to what you want to use the telescope for. The AZ GOTO is great if you're looking to do mainly visual observing, the GOTO will be an added benefit in helping to locate objects fairly quickly which will assist in stopping the kids getting bored. If you are looking at the possibility of doing astro-photography/imaging then you really need an EQ mount to do justice (though you can take quick snaps on the AZ of bright objects like planets with eyepiece projection using a camera phone etc) to the 127 Mak.

Thanks for this, also interested as they look good like a good bang for the buck.

If I can trouble you guys just a little more.....managed to get both iPads working with the software app, recognising the main and guide cams ok but how do I connect the mount? I think I’ve got one of the newer synscan handsets and don’t seem to have the required connectors. would it be better to bite the bullet and try EQMOD or sort using the handset.

Thanks Jamie, much appreciated.

I was lucky enough to receive my ASIair pro from RVO at the weekend; now that it's out of quarantine I was about to get it all sorted with my set up. Now I'm a complete newbie to AP so I was hoping for a reasonable set up guide, as one doesn't come in the box I checked online and found reference to a user manual on the ZWO site but I don't seem to be able to find one. Anyone got a link? Thanks.

Not had first light with this yet, still awaiting goodies from the Far East...... The lockdown may increase the speed of deployment though.

Waiting patiently for mine, don’t expect till end Feb, early March though.

I recall some years ago spending many nights trying to see M33 with my (now departed) 8" SCT in my suburban skies. Not a chance, I concluded I was looking straight through it. I was lucky enough to use the same scope under Bortle 2/3 in a very rural location in Devon and was amazed at the brightness and level of detail I could see in the same target.

Thanks AG, does that mean I need a different dovetail?

Well I’ve worked out that the holes in the tube rings are M6.....however the threaded holes 🕳 in the dovetail are smaller than M6. Oh well think again.

Sorry for the daft post as I should know this but, what bolt sizes do I need to fix together my tube rings and skywatcher/vixen dovetail? The rings came with my WO 81GT - but no info on the fixing sizes. Many thanks in advance.

If you are only rarely going to do any visual obs then I'm inclined to agree with you that there's no point in going for the AZ-EQ variant - for a start why spend the extra cash? I didn't see/hear any comments that using the mount in the EQ mode was an issue or that it performed less well than the HEQ5 but I would be interested to see info on that if it's available. I looked at a couple of the set up vids on Youtube and the set of the AZ-EQ looked quite straight forward though I may be proved wrong and develop a case of Tourettes on the first couple of uses. Initially I was discounting doing any visual stuff but decided to keep my options open - plus I know how much I hate doing visual obs with an EQ mount (especially without encoders). Cheers, Mart

Well the AZ-EQ5 mount is incoming next week so no doubt a few days of broken nails, gnashing of teeth and pulling out of hair to follow.....

Glad this was nothing to do with me then. I generally find when I've settled on a purchase the price jumps in the wrong direction. Not really surprised based on the $/£ - hoping that I don't have to take out a second mortgage after 31st October 😂

After a long lay off from observing due to aggressive light pollution a house move to a better site has encouraged me to get back into the fray. Previously I was visual only as time was at a premium and I didn’t think I could give it the time required to look into AP. To that end I managed, as a first step to pick up a nice WO 81GT and the next step is to acquire a suitable mount. I'd pretty much decided to go with the HEQ5 pro mount with the Rowan belt upgrade, I had considered the very pretty iOptron alternatives but the mixed views on these put me off a bit (the QC mainly).  As I expect to have some bother with set up, etc I've decided to buy new, probably from RVO as it’s local. The thing is I find myself thinking that, whilst a bit more expensive, the AZ-EQ5 might be a bit more useful? I'm coming around to thinking that I may well do some visual as well as AP (especially in the frustrating moments) and I may add a second larger Mak/SCT or ED scope to do this and I know from experience that playing with Alt-Az is easier than EQ for visual. If anyone has gone through the same thought process and come to a decision I’d appreciate any comments. Sorry if this topic has been covered before please feel free to direct me to a suitable thread should that be the case. Edited August 15 by Helen change font colour to white for easier reading (see edit history)

Apparently it's in the Mutara sector which is located in federation space (but closely bordered by Klingon space). Should be able to find it in SGP now.