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better detail with ra drive turned off??

yelsac

By yelsac
in Discussions - Mounts

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yelsac

yelsac

Posted
Posted

Hi First ever post! Please be gentle

I'm fairly new to looking at the heavens, so learning all the time

I have an EQ3-2 mount with a new dual axis drive on it.

I was looking at Jupiter last night & the view was superb, saw the great red spot & two other spots on the other band, but I've found that whilst using the drive is good for keeping it in the middle, when the drive is switched off & the planet starts to move again I can see more detail on it. Also noticed that occasionally the image seemed to be pulsing with the drive on.

This doesn't seem right especially if I was going to mount an SLR camera! Am I doing something wrong? or is it easier to view with the naked eye when the planet is moving?

Many thanks for your time & help

Yelsac

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yelsac

yelsac

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Hi First ever post! Please be gentle

I'm fairly new to looking at the heavens, so learning all the time

I have an EQ3-2 mount with a new dual axis drive on it.

I was looking at Jupiter last night & the view was superb, saw the great red spot & two other spots on the other band, but I've found that whilst using the drive is good for keeping it in the middle, when the drive is switched off & the planet starts to move again I can see more detail on it. Also noticed that occasionally the image seemed to be pulsing with the drive on.

This doesn't seem right especially if I was going to mount an SLR camera! Am I doing something wrong? or is it easier to view with the naked eye when the planet is moving?

Many thanks for your time & help

Yelsac

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Ludd

Ludd

Posted
Posted

I've had exactly the same experience with a motorised EQ3-2 mount and a lightweight newtonian. I don't want to sound discouraging but I only managed to get past this problem when I picked up a second hand GP mount which had no vibration on it.

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brantuk

brantuk

Posted
Posted

Hi Yelsac and welcome to SGL :)

As you rightly observe the motor does cause a little vibration on the mount/ota combination. First thing is to make sure the cogs engage smoothly without any friction or cog jumps - it may need fine tuning.

My old 150P/EQ3-2 was very light in weight and I allways had to wait a few seconds after using the focuser for the vibrations to stop. You can try snicking all the bolts up together so everything is reasonably tight on the tripod, spreader, mount and dovetail attachments.

Hanging a weight under the spreader can help dampen vibration (eg a few bricks in a strong net bag). If the legs are hollow you can try filling them with sand. You could also switch the puck and dovetail for something beefier. For observing it's fine as is - but imaging requires a lot of stability. Hope that helps :)

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Ludd

Ludd

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It's a model of mount made under the Vixen brand, the GP stands for Great Polaris. It's the model that the EQ5 is a copy of, so it's a bit beefier than the EQ3-2 and the Vixen seems a good deal smoother and more solid. They can be picked up quite cheaply second hand (that's what I did - £100 did the trick).

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