Upgrading EQ5 mount.

[Garethr]

Can anyone advise which would be better for basic astro imaging. I have a celestron 130 with goto fitted and a skywatcher 200 on an EQ5 mount is it worth fitting RA and DEC motors to the EQ mount or spend a bit more on a better Camera currently have a fairly cheap camera that works ok but as you know want better images . Your thoughts always appreciated

[Oily]

Whats your budget Gareth?You can pick up a Canon 350D from £40 onwards(body only)As for the mount most will say get a HEQ5 but I've imaged as have others on here with a motorised EQ5 with great results.Take a look at my M42 i took a few days ago:

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/199602-first-go-at-m42/

If you do go for the dual axis kit for the EQ5 I can thoroughly recommend AstroEQ(£90),this little gadget turns the mount into a 'GOTO'

[Garethr]

Cheers Oily

Looks like a good plan to upgrade the eq5 and will look into the Astro gadget it's sounds worth it.

Still using a cheapo CCD and learning to use registax (taking time).

Great shot of M42 it certainly sets the bar high and I reckon it might be a while before I post any works, tried the moon the other night but realised I hadn't planed things very well and wasted loads of time resetting scope after it dropped behind my roof line ( total muppet )

Also having trouble getting a sharp focus so have invested in an auto focuser. Please hurry mr postman as it's looking cloudy for Sunday night.

[Oily]

If your struggling to focus a bahtinov mask works wonders Gareth

[Garethr]

It's on order now Oily, have read about them and looks like it will help. Ta for the advice

[ultramol]

This sounds just what I am looking for, for my plans to come together......

[Garethr]

Just to finish the post guys, invested in the motor drives to upgrade the EQ5 mount and the auto focuser and wow things are better (despite spending 2hrs working out why the motors wouldn't track properly) Then my son pointed put the wires were plugged in the wrong way round......DOH. He was not impressed as he had been on the NET looking for solutions including checking the worm gears and constantly in and out trying too solve the problem:/ Still making stupid mistakes like not aligning camera properly and ending up with Jupiter on a 45% tilt? DOH. Question as I close this thread how do you get the moons to appear on the image as just getting jupiter burns out/ under exposes the moons. Can you stack different AV files in Regi to end up with one image?

[PorkyB]

how do you get the moons to appear on the image as just getting jupiter burns out/ under exposes the moons

You can always try something like this.  Three images a different exposures then stiched together using layer masks in GIMP.

2 sec (Callisto & Ganymede), 1/20 sec (Jupiter) & 1/2000 sec (Moon)

Moon & Jupiter by porkyb, on Flickr

[Garethr]

Cheers porkyb will look at this GIMP software and see what I can do.