Motorising an EQ5 mount

[teh_feckerer]

Afternoon guys,

I've had a significant search on the net and come up with no real solutions.

My aim is to motorise my EQ5 mount with some stepper motors, preferably for cheaper than buying a Synscan unit, but hopefully with the same accuracy. Reasons for this are, I'm poor as heck right now and I'd love to get some better AP images than I have been so far.

My question to anyone that can help, is that would this be possible? I understand a significant amount of niavity involved in this and that I'll not get as good results as the Pro's. Unless someone can come up with a solution for guiding with a laptop as well?

If this is possible for less than the cost of Synscan (285GBP) then I will be attempting it.

For those interested I'm using a Skywatcher 200p on my EQ5, I know its a big scope for the mount, but I'm managing 60% of shots perfect at 30seconds with hand tracking, so Im hoping with motors I might manage one minute or so.

If anyone could help that'd be great

Thanks guys!

Ted

[Carl M]

How about one of these: First Light Optics - Single-Axis D.C. Motor Drive for EQ5 it will give you the ability to track in RA without having to manually track and is significantly cheaper than the synscan upgrade or you could add an extra £20 or so and get the dual axis drives for DEC and RA which just helps a little when trying to center an object in the FOV.

[teh_feckerer]

How about one of these: First Light Optics - Single-Axis D.C. Motor Drive for EQ5 it will give you the ability to track in RA without having to manually track and is significantly cheaper than the synscan upgrade or you could add an extra £20 or so and get the dual axis drives for DEC and RA which just helps a little when trying to center an object in the FOV.

Hi Carl, thanks for the response, I've been looking into these motors and their accuracy is not supposed to be as good. Annoyingly I can't seem to find another human being that's actually tried them.

Its a possibility anyway

Thanks!

[Carl M]

There are quite a few people on the forum which I have seen using the 200P EQ5 with these motors for imaging and their results are very good considering the equipment used. I had the dual axis motors on my CG5 with the 200P on top and didn't get on well with the mount or motors, but if you have patience i'm sure you would get some good results. Take a look at this site which is made a member of this forum (Quatermass): Star Gazing A good example of what can be done with minimal equipment and a lot of patience. Hope Quatermass doesn't mind with the referral

[teh_feckerer]

There are quite a few people on the forum which I have seen using the 200P EQ5 with these motors for imaging and their results are very good considering the equipment used. I had the dual axis motors on my CG5 with the 200P on top and didn't get on well with the mount or motors, but if you have patience i'm sure you would get some good results. Take a look at this site which is made a member of this forum (Quatermass): Star Gazing A good example of what can be done with minimal equipment and a lot of patience. Hope Quatermass doesn't mind with the referral

I've actually stumbled upon this chap several times on Youtube!

I've been wandering around the net and come across numerous different stepper motors for rather cheap prices that tempt me, I've been debating buying a user programable board to control them. I work it out that it might only cost me £30-40 that way. I know it seems tight fisted but that's the way things are at the moment