First light Heq5+SW200p+E-420 combo

[AstroLuke]

Hi everyone

1½ month ago i got around to buy a Heq5 Pro Mount to help me take some pictures. Not that I don’t like to observe but there are so many pictures being posted on this forum that I thought I would try it out aswell. Anyway, its only about 1½ week since I got around to buy the tube rings and dovetail to mount my Skywaytcher 200p skyliner onto it. Everything fitted perfectly, although I got a bit annoyed when my mom said, “Wow, hooney you almost have an entire spacestation now” -.-‘ .

IMG_2137 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Yesturday i had my first light using my Heq5 Pro mount and my SkyWatcher 200p skyliner combined. At around 22:00 I crried everything out and set it up. I had quite a trouble polar aligning. I coul get Polaris in the right place bu as soon as I rotated the mount, Polaris fell out of the circle it was supposed to stay in. I messed with it for 20 minutes and then gave up. I hoped it would be alright. At 23:00, it had become dark enough for me to start observing/imaging. I had only an hour, and wanted mostly to test out if the mount was woking and if I could take pictures with my Olympus camera mounted onto the scope.

The moon had come up quite a bit already and was messing with the eastern horizon. I thought to myself, why not start with the moon. As always beautiful, but at the time also very bright. I put on my camera and took a single picture at a fast shutter speed.

P8172369 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Next I moved on to M32, The Andromeda GalaxyI was surprised at how big the galaxy was in the eyepiece compared to other objects in the sky.

I then choose the ring nebula in Lyra on the hand controller. I was surprised how accurate the GoTo system was. Spot on both with this object and the last. After looking at it some time I screwed the camera on to the scope again. I took 3x 20 second exposure subs. I was surprised to see how much I could see just in 1 sub.

ring neb2 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

As the time was running out I choose 1 last object. M13 in Hercules. This was where my biggest surprise of the whole evening was. After only 1x 20 second exposure with the camera I already got loads of detail in the cluster. I ended up with taking 3 images each 20 seconds of exposure time.

m13a | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

I was sad that I had to wrap everything up, but I didn’t want to come to school absoloutly messed up because of lack of sleep.

I still had some problems that I’d like some help with. My polar alignment wasn’t good enough. I took a 1 minute exposure of M32 and I already saw some star trails. What do I do if I have Polaris where its supposed to be in the polar finder, but when I turn the mount on the RA-axis Polaris gets of the circle in the polar scope that its supposed to be in.

I made 10x darks and 20 bias for one of my images, but I couldn’t figure out how to make flats. I heard its something with putting a white t-shirt on top of the telescope opening?

Anyway, I guess this was it. Thanks for reading.

/Lukas

-Please note these are my first images ever taken through the focuser of a telescope, so if you have any comments regarding the pictures please dont be to hard

[Bizibilder]

Those are exellent first images - well done. The problems you had with polar alignment will soon go with practice - there is just so much to do! You will soon get into a routine that allows you to set up both accurately and quickly. Again well done!

[Pete Presland]

very nice set of images there well done.practice makes perfect and with that start you have the only way is up literally

[AstroLuke]

Oh, i see i wrote M32 when i meant to write M31. I cant seem to find the edit button (anymore) so i will just write the edit here :S

[toml42]

polaris won't stay in the little circle when you rotate the mount! the little circle is just for the initial alignment, and polaris will only be in that circle when you have your mount aligned for the correct 'time'. Polaris should stay on the perimeter of the larger circle as you rotate the mount, or as the night progresses.

[AstroLuke]

This is what happens

[toml42]

Ah, ok, that's not right. You may need to check that the polar scope is correctly aligned with the mount.

[AstroLuke]

Is there a guide for doing this, somewhere?

[toml42]

Astro Babys HEQ5 Polar Alignment this is the one that i used, very helpful

[Dave Moulton]

Straight out of the box the mount polar scope should be close. I think this is something else

Are you rotating the RA Axis to the right hour angle before you centre polaris in the circle ?.

Turn the RA Axis until the constelation map in the polar scope aligns with the constelation orientation in the sky then center polaris in the circle

Other than that I would also check you have the mount level more or less before you start

Dave

[AstroLuke]

I have tried this method toml42 posted, it was a bit hard to find a dot on the wall, so i did my best. Hopefully this works, i will see tonight. If not im stuck again.

Dave: I turn the RA axis so that polaris fits in the circle. And i do it so that itl ooks like on polarfinder.

[Dave Moulton]

I have tried this method toml42 posted, it was a bit hard to find a dot on the wall, so i did my best. Hopefully this works, i will see tonight. If not im stuck again.

Dave: I turn the RA axis so that polaris fits in the circle. And i do it so that itl ooks like on polarfinder.

Hi Lukas,

OK still not sure that's the right method though. Forgive me asking again. The steps I would use for rough polar alignment are

1. Place the mount roughly pointing North. A compass is good for this in daylight

2. Level the mount (use the built in spirit level) that should be close enough

3 Next rotate the RA axis to the correct hour angle . Polar finder map aligning up with the night sky orientation. That should get you close.

4 Move the mount using only the Dec elevation bolts on the mount and the East West shifting bolts to centre polaris. Don't touch the RA axis to make polaris fit the circle, just use the mount adjusting bolts.

If this is how you are carrying out your polar alignment then if its still out maybe your polar finder is out of square with the mount as has been suggested.

Your first pictures I have to say are fantastic for a first effort so well done with those. I look forward to seeing more images from you

Dave