Celestron C9.25 & Skywatcher EQ6 Pro mount

[Brinders]

Hi all,

Here are some pics of my lovely new Celestron C9.25 and Skywatcher EQ6 Pro mount with my old TAL 150P in the backround.

Tube was purchased from Steve at FLO and the mount from Pulsar Optical. My new kit saw first light (very briefly) on Monday, weather has been too bad since! Got to view Mars (see my post under equipment discussion) and for one fleeting moment got the best view I've had of it in years. Scope appears to be well collimated (although Bob's Knobs are on order) but I've got to get the hang of the mount. Didn't have time (because of the poor weather) to Polar align properly so ended up slewing to Mars manually. But I've got to say I was impressed with the way it tracked once I had Mars in the eyepiece even with the high power of the Baader 8MM Hyperion I bought from Hinds to go with it. So much better than trying to manually track with the TAL at high power! Also got the Williams Optics Carbon Fibre 2" diagonal from the Wide-Screen Centre.

Also I had the same problem others on this forum have had with the altitude adjusting bolts, as a precaution I had ordered a set before the mount arrived from Astrodevelopments. They turned up in the post the day after the mount was delivered and proved a life saver. I had been having trouble getting the mount adjusted to my latitude of 54 degrees. Replaced the new bolts for the originals and got the mount adjusted with no problems. I noticed the original altitude bolt had already begun to bend a little after I extracted it. When you consider the cost of these mounts I don't know why Skywatcher don't fit something similar as standard. If you have an EQ6 Pro (or an HEQ5 Pro for that matter) I recommend these bolts. Also John Rose at Astrodevelopments has been very accommodating. I had ordered the bolts for the HEQ5 but then I changed my order for the HEQ6 Pro, after some discussions with the boss (i.e. my wife), John has asked me to return the bolts so he can exchange them for the EQ6 Pro bolts despite the fact that the HEQ5 ones did fit. Apparently the EQ6 altitude bolt is a little longer and the adjusting knob a little larger. Excellent service!

Kit looks great, just hope I can do it justice. The whole lot has been paid for from some of the money I inherited from my late father who died age 80 in July and helped introduce me to astronomy over 40 years ago when he bought me a tiny Tasco refractor on a table top tripod one Christmas. I see this 'scope as a memorial to my Dad.

Brinders

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[markcol]

That's a really great setup Brinders, just the job. You will get familiar with EQ6 before long, apart from the weight it's fairly simple to setup.

The old learning curve is unavoidable in this game...

My dad started me on astronomy too, pity he's not around to see the stuff we do nowadays.

Clear skies and loads of astro fun!

Mark

[Brinders]

Cheers Mark, just had a look at your Astro photos - very impressive.

[Albireo380]

Lovely Kit, Brinders. The C9.25 gets a very good name both for observing and imaging. The EQ6 is a "beast", but should hold the OTA as steady as a rock.

Congratulations and clear skies.

Tom

[Brinders]

Thanks Tom.

I was aware that the EQ6 Pro is heavy but the opinion here was that is manageable. When I first unpacked it and put it together I felt somewhat intimidated by both the weight and sheer size of the Telescope/Mount combo. But after assembling it an reassembling it all a few times I'm finding I can manage, but it all makes the TAL look like a lightweight - never thought I would say that!

[beamish]

Nice set up that Brinders. I too bought some of the bolts from John( at Kielder) really nice guy, and fantastic upgrade on the SW originals. What kind of camera is that in the diagonal?

thanks for sharing.

Karlo

[Brinders]

Hi Karlo,

Its an integrated video camera with a 1/3 inch Sony CCD chip bought off e-bay. Only tried it on the TAL as yet before my new scope arrived. I've replaced the lens with a telescope c mount adapter and Atik infra red blocking filter. Tried a short burst of AVIs of Mars a week or so ago. Seems to work okay, but I'm going to have to play around with getting the exposures correct as Mars was overexposed from time to time. Also, the TAL being hand driven, it was difficult keeping the image centered as the small chip size inevitably means high magnification. Still the principal works and it was able to pick up some brighter stars, noteably the Pleiades cluster.

[dogfish]

Hi Brinders

That looks sweet and would be my ideal set-up (one day perhaps ). Hope you have a great time using it.

Cheers, Martin

[centroid]

That really is a nice setup, and and its going give you many hours of pleasure, I'm sure.

Enjoy!!!

Dave

[Brinders]

Cheers Dave, I'm sure I will once the weather improves.

[Sam]

Nice scope, nice mount, nice setup! You're going to have a lot of fun with that.

[beamish]

Cheers Brinders, I look fwd to you posting some pics.

Karlo

[dweller25]

Great setup Brinders and a very fine memorial.

Last night I got really great views of Mars and Saturn - Mars was through clouds and it IMPROVED the view !!

Saturn was really something - looking forward to opposition.

You have PM.

Here is my setup .....

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[CELESCOPE]

Hi Brinders , lovely set up , my dad was here living with me when i started out , since then we built a lovely warm room Obs,sadly he passed away , 5 years ago , and like you i wish he was now here to see how i have progressed , so yup my images all go to him , you will have many hours of enjoyement from that , and when u get on to imaging as hopefully you will ,feel free to ask me any questions

Rog

[Brinders]

Thanks Dweller 25, I've sent a reply to your PM. Your advice has been invaluable.

Hi Rog, yes I will be doing some imaging eventually, both with the IVC and my DSLR (Samsung GX10) but I want to get use to using the mount and scope first and so far the weather has hardly been favourable. I'll no doubt be in touch once I'm ready to start some serious imaging. My interest will be largely planetary and lunar, though I may have a go at some deep sky stuff at some point.

Cheers guys and thanks for the positive comments and encouragement.