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QM departs from his beloved EQ5


Quatermass

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Is that "have seen improvements" AG or haven't seen them?

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Please accept my apologies, this laptop of mine has developed the dead cursor syndrom as a result sometimes it just deletes the words or letters frommy  posts without me knowing, all hail WIN7-64. I meant to say that I have not detected any real improvements as I use guiding all the time,  I guess people with drift aligned mounts will see an improvement if used unguided, but in anycase it is a decent mount with some extra load bearing capacity, I only wish that it could take the Losmandy dovetail as well as the Vixen style one.

Regards,

A.G

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Have recently been reading your exploits with the EQ5 has pursauded me to part with my hard earned (hidden from swmbo) cash into pucahsing one second hand. Next on the list is a couple of stepper motors and AstroEQ. So i might be picking your brains in a few weeks time. Looking forward to your exploits with your new mount.

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Nice one the eq5 combined with ASTROEQ is a great combo if you have a lighter telescope like the new sky watcher 130pds its just about perfect. Feel free to pm me with any questions you may have regarding ASTROEQ and Eqmod also try astro tortilla.

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I am considering putting on a belt drive on the HEQ5 when I get it next week as well does any one know how much difference this would make to pec or is it not worth the bother? Actually forget that I will ask that question on the other sections.

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Well I loved using my EQ5 mount and although its not as beefy as the HEQ5 it certainly is able to give you great images and cut the cost down as well so I hope very much people on a budget will continue to take up the challenge and use them.

Absolutely QM. What I am about to say surely it will raise some eyebrows but with my current HEQ5 Pro, I am yet to achieve the same level of accuracy I did consistently with my modded EQ5. I was able to achieve easily perfectly round stars with ten minutes guided subs with that EQ5 and the SW200P. And also there is the thing that you only need 4 cell batteries to have it working for ages.

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Absolutely QM. What I am about to say surely it will raise some eyebrows but with my current HEQ5 Pro, I am yet to achieve the same level of accuracy I did consistently with my modded EQ5. I was able to achieve easily perfectly round stars with ten minutes guided subs with that EQ5 and the SW200P. And also there is the thing that you only need 4 cell batteries to have it working for ages.

That has been my experience too to some extent, I am not quite happy with the motion of the mount in DEC axis as I can never be sure if the balance is correct or the friction is keeping it from tilting but I think that as the mount is working more and more it is sort of bedding itself in. I used to get 600s subs with decent stars and my SW 100ed DS Pro with the 0.85X FF/FR and a 50mm finder guider with the EQ5, with HEQ5 I seem to have a hit or miss affair  with my crappy 150 PDS but it works perfectly with the heavy APO triplet.

Regards,

A.G

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Well that is interesting to hear, my be having a heavy telescope on the HEQ5 improves things. Mind you I think these mounts can vary a lot depending on the amount of tweaking there given. My Eq5 worked much better after I took it apart and degreased it and took all the slack out of the worm gears.

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QM - I have been through your blog, stunning - I am just starting out - my kit is sw200p eq5 aswell.

I also have a canon eos 400d, a modded xbox webcam, a windows 7 laptop.

Being blunt - I am on a bit of a budget - how much do I need to spend to get the gear to create pics like yours?

Just assume I have the knowledge of how to use the kit for the moment!!!!  I'll get there!!!!

Thanks

Mark

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Thank you Mark very kind. Well if you have the 200p and eq5 you can simply do unguided images using a dual axis kit to track with and a bahtinov mask to focus plus a remote digital timer from fleabay or if you want to try guiding I suggest modding your hand set or getting Tom Carpenters ASTROEQ mount control box several options just depends on what your going to do. I pretty much covered every thing I have done in my blog really. I think the biggest learning curve is how you process your images that has taken me years to learn. So in answer to your question your pretty much there you just need bare minimum a single ra motor and control box a remote for your camera and a bahtinov mask that and a lot of patience and dedication. That means spending many ours out side freezing your buns off and getting a creaky neck looking through the finder scope. Pm me if you need any more help lots of people do and its a pleasure seeing them enjoy this hobby as much as I do :-)

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I'm out there with it now trying out the guiding my graph is nice and flat and my first 5min sub has nice round stars I am loving the fast slewing speeds to my targets. I think the addition of a belt drive is going to be a good idea as well. Thank you Daniel you have made this astronomer a very happy chappy. :-)

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Seeing as this is a very EQ5-mount oriented thread, I thought it might be worth asking my question here. I'm considering buying either the 150P with its EQ3-2 mount, or the 200P with its EQ5 mount. I will want to do some imaging eventually (once I've got the hang of visual, which may take a while), so I would be buying dual axis motors, a DSLR and adaptor, and possibly some kind of autofocuser if it would help. I'd like to stay away from laptops and software if I can, and try to keep things simple, at least to begin with. But I keep hearing about how the EQ3-2 can wobble with the 150P and camera etc on it, and that the EQ5 mount can have the same problem with the 200P and camera etc on it.

So my (quite possibly ridiculous) thought was to maybe buy the 150P OTA and an EQ5 mount, and hopefully have a decent scope on a mount that could comfortably handle the OTA, a camera, and anything else I wanted to throw at it. The only problem would be that there would be the 2" aperture loss from not buying the 200P instead, and the fact that the 150P on an EQ5 mount works out at basically the same price as the 200P on its stock EQ5 mount.

So just how ridiculous is that idea?

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Well trying to keep focused on the subject of deep sky imaging I used the eq5 mount and my 200p with just an ra axis kit and using short sub's to get my pictures. Its portable and works but the 150p would be a better bet or even the 130pds as this would keep the weight down. At some point you will want a more permanent set up using a laptop but you can do a lot with this set up certainly kept me busy for a year. :-)

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Well trying to keep focused on the subject of deep sky imaging I used the eq5 mount and my 200p with just an ra axis kit and using short sub's to get my pictures. Its portable and works but the 150p would be a better bet or even the 130pds as this would keep the weight down. At some point you will want a more permanent set up using a laptop but you can do a lot with this set up certainly kept me busy for a year. :-)

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I'm not too keen on going for a 130P because I will want to do some visual too (probably 50-50 I would say), so 150P would have to be the minimum really. That and I would want to go for at least the EQ5 mount for stability. So I've been switching between the 150P on an EQ5 (that's mix and match though so it would be just as expensive as the 200P on an EQ5), the 200P on the default EQ5 (cheaper option because they come together, but likely weight issues), or the 200P on an HEQ5 (my ultimate option, but serious money). And now that you've thrown the PDS into the mix, I wonder about those too. I was reluctant to consider a PDS because I imagined that it would be no good for visual because it's designed for photography, but then I hear that you can get adaptors which you can add to allow them to be used for visual as well?

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Just noticed this thread. I have to say reading your blog encouraged me to get the AstroEQ. I'm very happy with my 200p and EQ5 and dual axis motors kit as you know. Loving it infact.

I'm having issues with the worm gears already after just a couple if weeks. Will do further testing.

Good luck with the heq5. I will do my "apprenticeship" with my new eq5 and get some experience then may get one myself next year.

P.s. A beer or two is on me! :)

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