AstroMuni

Have you considered the Celestron StarSense for Skywatcher mounts? https://www.celestron.com/products/starsense-autoalign-for-sky-watcher-mounts Several of my friends have it and swear by it. Its expensive but does the job. On a different note, assuming you dont wish to spend that much, the EQ6-Pro is a very good mount. Have you done the initial 2 or 3star align process? Ref your question on how to align when on equator, if you google for "polar align without polaris" you should get loads of links. Several of us have the same problem, i.e. cant see polaris even though we live up north 🙂

Thanks TerryMcK

I have recently acquired an HEQ5 PRO mount and now trying to control it via PC. I have read up about EQMOD thro ASCOM (EQASCOM) for Windows and the INDI-EQMOD driver for Linux. Looks like they are not the same drivers even though they share the EQMOD name. What are the major differences in functionality (if any) between these two?

This picture is without any processing other than cropping the image and adjusting brightness, contrast using the std Photos app on the iphone.

I had bought my 130eq also for same reasons for my daughter, but its now become my hobby 🙂 The mirror on yours is a similar size as mine so you should get lovely images of the moon and Jupiter and Saturn once they are visible during at more convenient times (atm they are visible in early morning). You could also get your son involved in taking pictures through the camera phone. I am attaching an image of the moon that I took using an iPhone 8 held next to the 23mm eyepiece by a £10 holder.

Try this site. It gives more realistic images https://www.stelvision.com/en/telescope-simulator/.

I was going through the same challenges last week and finally managed to install EQMOD driver and INDI on Linux Mint as I dont have a Windows PC For those who are interested just follow the guidelines here https://www.indilib.org/devices/mounts/eqmod.html

So the guide camera needs to take samples at less frequent intervals compared to the main camera? Correction: I think its the other way around 🙂

I have a basic question on guiding. I have read about guiding and the options; the options below are taken from https://agenaastro.c...hotography.html - A separate guide scope and guide camera - An off-axis guider that splits off light collected by the main telescope, but which directs the light to a separate guide camera that detects a guide star somewhere in the same field of view as the main object that's being imaged - A dual-chip CCD camera on the main scope with one chip for imaging the main subject and one for the guide star - A specialized dual-sampling CCD with some pixels designated for guiding and some for imaging the main target. My question is why do they need multiple sources to achieve this? And why cant the image from the main camera be used as the source for the guiding.

Definitely not user friendly. And there are positions when it gets in the way of movement of the OTA :-(

Hi, I have a Motor drive for the 130EQ and when I attach and switch it on it drives the RA axis. But once its attached its very difficult to move the OTA in the RA axis manually. Am I missing something? Is there a way to easily couple & decouple the motor so the OTA can be moved manually? Is there someone who uses one of these motors who can help me pls.

Try this simulator https://www.stelvision.com/en/telescope-simulator/ Its pretty realistic for visual viewers. Tools like Stellarium seem to give you colourful images that you are unlikely to see with naked eyes and a pair of binocs or telescope.

I suspect you are looking at the 20mm erector eyepiece? From one end you can see the erector prism and it feels like you are looking at glass.

Hi andib479, I have the exact same telescope. If you cover the front of the telescope with a piece of white paper, remove the eyepiece and look down the hole where the eyepiece fits, can you see an image of your own eye? Also, as someone else suggested, its easier to try out your telescope during the day using your 20mm erecting eyepiece. BTW, just looking through the eyepieces, you wont get a focussed view of the moon. What you could do is place the eyepiece close to a wall in daytime and you should be able to get a projection of your window on the wall.

older newbies also need a stool /chair, I can confirm

Being a newbie myself, I have realised that one important bit that you need to factor in (if you havent already) is set aside some budget for eyepieces & telrad (optional). Hope this helps