Mo P

9 minutes ago, Mo P said:

Forgive me if my posts are all over the place I am new to this App. 

1 hour ago, happy-kat said:

That is a super wedge you have made there.

As you have built a wedge we can skip you could get started in astrophotography using it in alt az mode. Though if you do use it in alt az mode I found with mine I needed to make the weight of the camera/lens slightly bias to being tail heavy when imaging East and slightly nose heavy when imaging to the West. Perfect balance does not work always and I found a slight star trailing bias on the altitude direction, your mileage may vary.

Hi, I am confused, are you connecting the handset and then turning it on whilst you hold button 5 on the v5 handset, I did not think that would work, anyway your mount one way or another is supporting EQ mode from your comment.

The synscan handset will not recognise the virtuoso as having EQ mode support so will offer only altaz (as far as I know). The synscan handset with the later firmwares read the mount and recognise whether they are altaz or eq, so the handset ill only recognise the virtuoso as altaz I think.

When you want to use the wedge I think you wont get EQ goto options.

You could fit a sight tube to your wedge to align the wedge to polaris (I think given the mount the detail of lining up to the NCP is overkill). Then place the mount on the wedge with the mount's north arrow lined up to facing up to polaris.

 

These are threads on the virtuoso mount you may find interesting.

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/189541-pc-control-of-sky-watcher-virtuoso-mount/

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/239925-skywatcher-heritage-virtuoso-controlled-via-bluetooth/

link to a capture and reprocess of Orion using the cirtuoso in altaz mode nd a vintage Nikon Q200mm lens on a canon 1100d.

Thanks for your reply 

I find all this very confusing as I only started in April/May. 
I press 5 on mount and it starts in EQ mode, only tracks in az. 
I have tried with handset not connected and with it connected. I would have thought all being Skywatcher they would all work together and have more info from Skywatcher.  
The user guide I have for mount says mount on wedge type tripod and start mount using 5 so surely it should work. 

Why oh why can’t Skywatcher be more helpful??

cheers Maurice 

On 04/07/2020 at 21:05, happy-kat said:

I have a virtuoso mount but so far have been using it in Alt Az and have done some imaging with it within the limitations of it's tracking before star trails become too apparent.

My mount has a later firmware and so far proves not to have the EQ mode button 5 recognition as seen in the earlier copies of the user manual, though I intend at some point to make a test wedge to double check.

I have seen your other thread.

 

Forgive me if my posts are all over the place I am new to this App. 

Hi 

my button 5 option works fine on my V5 handset 

On 04/07/2020 at 14:59, Mo P said:

 

I am using Skywatcher Heritage 114 Virtuoso with Nikon D5100 with standard lens or 200mm  telephoto or no lens with camera fitted to scope with adapter and 2x Barlow. 

Hi

I can’t boot up mount in equatorial mode with SynScan handset connected, It will boot up in EQ mode when pressing button 5 and powering up but when I connect handset and set I up it starts tracking in both axces. Am I missing something?

 I presume when it’s on my home made wedge it needs to only track in EQ mode. 
 I want to get into deep sky photography. 
Is there an easy way to polar align this setup without polar scope?

I also use Stellarium on a Notebook 

Many thanks in advance 

Maurice

Hi

Has anyone got a Skywatcher Herritage 114 Virtuoso with SynScan handset?

I have one but it does not seem to do what it says on the tin!

I have several questions if anyone has the same setup and knows how it all functions.

Any help and info would be much appreciated as  I am new to this hobby.

Hi

forgive me as I am very new to this hobby. 
I have a Skywatcher Virtuoso mount with SynScan handset. 
I have made a wedge out of 10mm acrylic sheet. 
My question is with mount in equatorial mode (press button 5 and power up) and mounted on the wedge, will the handset still have the goto function? as I want to try deep sky photography. 
If it doesn’t it will be difficult to locate objects. 
I also use Stellarium which I guess will not be able to point scope at a selected objects. 
I don’t know if I am trying to run before I can walk. 
Any help would be very much appreciated. 
Thanks in advance 

On 23/02/2017 at 16:27, happy-kat said:

Welcome.

You might want to read the no eq challenge thread because there are members using altaz mounts to image with. Exposure lengths vary from 30-60s and stacking many frames can bring out detail. What camera and telescope or lens are you using?