A couple of daft questions about my Heq5 mount yet to see first light!

[lifeonmars]

Hello everyone

I know you folks are a mine of information and i am wondering what to expect from this Heq5 Pro Synscan mount I have bought secondhand I am playing around with it in the garage ,just waiting to by some decent mounting hardware for my scope,and i am curios about a few things on this mount.

When its set up and goes to its target lets say for arguement Altair, once it reaches Altair and you centre it up will it automatically track the star at the sidereal rate without me manually activating it.I realise you would have to select Sidereal rate in the set up Menu.

Also if you don`t want to use the goto function on this mount,i presume you can just manually slew the scope and centre your target and then select Sidereal rate and it will track.The reason i ask this second question is the mount doesn`t seem to be slewwing.I have selected on the handset Setup>Sidereal rate pressed enter and you can hear if you put your ear to the covers something rotating and when you press stop tracking the noise stops,but the mount doesn`t seem to be moving, left it running for one hour put a couple of pencil marks on it on both axis but no movement.I am presuming the ra and dec axis need to be locked to track. I am i missing something.The mount does slew in both axis when setting up for goto and goes to three alignment stars.I hope I am making sense but would like to iron all the problems out before any observing sessions.Thanks for your help in anticipation.

[Capricorn]

Yws it will revert to the standard siderial rate and track so hopefully keeping the target in view.

Unless of course someone decides to sue Skywatcher for removing their personel choice of track or not, no doubt some one has thought of it.

You can manually move it, no goto, however it will still need to be polar aligned.

One simple option here is to find out the minimum setup+alignment necessary (read the manual) and do it without too much care.

That gets the alignment done and out of the way and you can get on manually locating whatever you want.

The motors run very slowly and quietly when just tracking a star/object, hence they appear stationary and silent.

[lifeonmars]

Thanks for your help capricorn but with it set up in the garage and Sidereal rate selected and left for one hour running my pencil marks are still in the same place,i thought I should be getting approx 15 degrees per hour in RA.I understand the declination movement may be a bit more suttle. but nothing seems to be moving,but when do a three star alignment the mount slews ok any other ideas thanks

[lifeonmars]

whoops think I`ve solved it ,I had more or less in the home position.So I suppose you wont get much perceptable movement around the celestial pole.I moved the axis to point south and hey presto ,I can detect the movement and my pencil lines are moving!Think I should engage brain before posting thanks for your help.Thanks!!

[lifeonmars]

Can I also ask the red power light pulses three times during tracking after a while of continous running it starts flashing fast I cannot find anything in the instructions about this ,could anyone throw any light on this thank you yet again!!

[Astro_Baby]

Led flashing tells me the mount isnt geting enough power. It needs a solid 2 amps of power.

[cotterless45]

Make sure that what you're powering with is charged. I use a 12v leisure battery.

There's a whole host of info and tips on the forums about the mount.

Personally, the most important factor for me is to get the ota accurately balanced. Load up the ep and balance precisely in both axies.Oh and take your time going from stage to stage, it'll pay off,nice,

Nick.

[lifeonmars]

Thanks for that nick,so should the power light flash during tracking ,it seems to flash three times at a regular interval during tracking,and then as the battery gets down it flashes fast ,i am only using a 7amp hour skywatcher battery pack.Hmmm looks like I may need something more hefty.

Thanks Frank

[Breakintheclouds]

I'm glad you worked out why the mount wasn't moving. I was about to suggest that perhaps the clutches weren't tightened up!

[Rustmonkey]

No such thing as a daft question....especially considering I have bought an HEQ5 today so it's nice to get some info/tips before it arrives.