Skywatcher EQ3 goto

[gajjer]

Hi all

I recently bought a Skywatcher EQ3 goto mount. The manual that comes with it is not a great deal of help. Are there any tutorials on this thing?

I particularly wanted to use the mount with my Coranado PST to track the sun. But what do I do about alignment? There is only one star visible and that is the sun!!

I would appreciate any help.

cheers

gaj

[brantuk]

For the sun - it's so big and close that polar alignment doesn't need to be entirely accurate. If you just point the mount magnetic north and set your latitude on the alt scale it will be near enough - you may need to tweak the dec ocasionally when tracking

[gajjer]

Thanks for that, but it was really the handset alignment procedure I was refering to. Can I Select Setup, skip Alignment and just Set Tracking to Solar Rate?

Also, the Sun does not appear in the Object Catalogue under Solar system. Is it somewhere else or do I have to User Define?

cheers

gaj

[Cornelius Varley]

Thanks for that, but it was really the handset alignment procedure I was refering to. Can I Select Setup, skip Alignment and just Set Tracking to Solar Rate?

Also, the Sun does not appear in the Object Catalogue under Solar system. Is it somewhere else or do I have to User Define?

cheers

gaj

Yes you can skip the alignment procedure, you are not going to need it for the Sun, just set the tracking rate to Solar and manually adjust the mount to locate the Sun. The Sun does not appear in the object catalogues because it is fairly easy to find.

Peter

[Photosbykev]

When you want to control the EQ3 Synscan with a computer, download Ascom and the Celestron Unified drivers. Then you can just plug in the upgrade cable that comes with the mount into the bottom of the handset and then use a USB>Serial adaptor to connect to the laptop. You do not need to select PC Direct mode on the handset.

This will give you a small handset controller on screen to adjust the mount and allow you to use software to guide on solar features like sunspots or proms.

Only a rough Polar align is required but the better you can make it the better the mount will track.

[gajjer]

Thanks for the replies folks. I managed to get a few frames this afternoon before my battery went flat. I just need to learn how to process them now!

cheers

gaj