martinclayden

I noticed today that the "jaws" on my HEQ5 Pro are not symmetrical - see attached pic; being wider at the bottom than at the top. So a clamped scope might sit squarely on the mount. Does this matter ? Martin

OK - I'll set DST on next time. I'm a bit confused about your second statement though; "as close to the pole as possible" - means Polar aligned I think ? If so, what's the relationship between "home position" and PA ? Regards Martin

I've just received a new HEQ5 Pro and discovering it's capabilities. After a reasonably accurate daytime PA (compass and inclinometer) and mount levelling, I find that the initial slew to an object is consistently off; to the West and South of the object. I'm a bit uncertain of the setup parameters for time zone and DST - I'm in the UK and entered 0:00 and No respectively. Has anybody any tips or observations about this please? Will this resolve after a star alignment? Thanks Martin

Recently I've noticed an odd effect when processing Canon 77D .mp4 videos. I've converted a 45 second 50fps .mp4 to .avi using ffmpeg with Autostakkert. When passed through AS! the resulting RGB image has the blue channel misaligned from the red and green! Hopefully this effect is visible in this image - which I've processed a bit to illustrate. As well as being visible around the sunspot (yellow shading bottom left) , the effect is quite visible at the image boundaries. Has anybody any ideas please?

I seem to remember testing calibration with a simulated star - but maybe I've mis remembered 😞 What I don't understand is how mount slewing IS possible from PHD2 via the drift align dialogue, but NOT from the manual control tool. I'm on v 2.6.9dev4 btw😁

I seem to remember testing calibration with a simulated star - but maybe I've mis remembered 😞

I've just acquired an HEQ5 Pro mount, connected via an EQDIR cable to my laptop. I've installed the ASCOM platform and installed and connected EQMOD - which is able to slew the mount; either in response to EQMOD control or under instruction from Cartes Du Ciel. All well and good I think. PHD2 connects to the mount correctly, pulse guiding is set up and I've set the Ascom PulseGuide settings to x0.9 (RA & Dec). For daytime testing I'm using a PHD2 simulator camera. BUT PHD2 fails in calibration - "star does not move enough in RA". Calibration steps are 1700ms. PHD2 IS able to move the mount in the draft align dialogue - so the connection is there, but manual control does not seem to move the mount - even at 5000ms pulses. I'm stuck now - any suggestions are most welcome Thanks

Ok, I'll give EQMOD and EQDIR cabling a try, thanks for your help

I have a new HEQ-5 Pro mount and I just started using APT (V. 3.87) . I've already downloaded the ASCOM drivers from the Skywatcher website and the ASCOM 6 platform. I am connecting the mount to the laptop through the Synscan hand controller using a USB type B port on the hand controller. When I connect on APT, it says "connected to sky watcher driver, unrecognized model #56". Some control over the mount is possible, but is this error message a problem that needs solving ?

Thanks to all for your replies - I'm a lot clearer now on the options!

Thank you! Very comprehensive. For the time being I'm planning to go down the route of USB into the handset. If that proves to have shortcomings, I'll change to EQMOD/EQDIR method direct to the mount and skip the handset

I did not not know that it's a USB port on the hub - so a standard USB cable works in this arrangement (in your case from hub USB A to mount USB B). That's good to know.

I'm trying to understand how to connect a laptop (with PHD2, APT, Stellarium) to a new HEQ5 mount. I've read of a couple of solutions to this (there may be others) (1) connect from a laptop USB to the USB B port on the Synscan hand controller. (2) connect from a laptop USB to the mount directly, cutting out the HC. This requires an EQmod cable. Both solutions need Ascom I do like the first option, but what's the forum's opinion of these approaches. Tia Martin