Skywatcher 127 mak

[RikM]

The EQ3 Pro (or any equatorial mount) does need to be polar aligned for good GoTo accuracy. The closer you get your PA, the better more accurate the GoTo alignment will be. A rough PA (point it north and set the latitude) may well be good enough for observing.

Personally, I wouldn't worry about astrophotography with the Skymax. At nearly f12, it is too slow for anything other than the moon and planets and you don't even need an EQ mount for them, let alone GoTo.

I have used a Skymax 127 with an EQ3-2 head on the steel legs from an AZ4 and it is fine.

[knobby]

Cheers Rik, just thinking of wacking an SLR in the mount, nothing flash

[knobby]

Just picked up an EQ5 syncscan ... Now I just have to read the manual

[RikM]

Good luck with that

[knobby]

At the moment I can't even work out which way up the scope goes

And I'm really intrigued by this meridian flip thingy, sounds great especially as most of my viewing is towards the east and south!

[Bingo]

Nice one Knobby .... good luck with the photos

p.s

scope on top legs underneath LOL

[RikM]

Should end up looking something like this:

The light comes in the big end and you look through the little end

[Dunkster]

That should be a nice sturdy solution

[knobby]

Well its all in one piece now and I'm balancing the ota now

[knobby]

Well I think I've got it right... I've aimed it North ( ish) and set the lattitude to my address, done the date and time ( in correct format) co-ords on handset to my location... Did a dummy align to roughly where two stars are hiding behind the clouds 'Alignment successful '

Goto'd to Jupiter and yippee it slewed to the point in the sky where Jupiter is hiding, behind the clouds .

I will of course now be bashing you all with questions about EQ5s til your sick of me...

should there be a cap over the front end of the polar scope hole?

see I've started already!

[RikM]

Looking good

Yes, there is normally a cap to cover the polar scope hole. Not sure where you'd get a spare. I think it's a little bigger than an 1.25" dustplug

[knobby]

Any DIY suggestions for the Polar cap

[zakkhogan]

check you out.... now for a camera

[BargeGazer]

When I got my EQ3 the polar scope cap was forever falling off and I knew I would lose it VERY soon. So I drilled a small hole in the end of the cap and knotted a pice of string through it and tied the other end to a convenient point on the mount.

It stil falls off very regularly but at least it is still dangling there rather than lost in a dark field somewhere.

Just another bit of bad design to go with the polar scope setting circle.

David

[JamesF]

Any DIY suggestions for the Polar cap

If it's the same as the EQ3-2 then I think it's a 36mm diameter hole. When I made my DIY polar scope illuminator I found that with a some light sanding to reduce the diameter ever so slightly then an off-cut of solvent-weld ABS waste pipe would fit (whichever size is the metric equivalent of 1.5"). You may find that there's a blanking plug for that sort of pipe in a suitable diameter that could work as a cap.

James

[knobby]

Cheers James... Looks like its going to be a blutak/ White card bodge then