Which mount?

[patohalmo]

I can see all the points.

Right now I'm a student in the shared accommodation. We have a back garden, even a socket outside, so no problem to set up there for a session. But I can't leave the stuff outside.

I'll be moving in the summer back to Slovakia for good, then job, house, wedding and a kid (if all goes fine).

So I don't want to start planning too much ahead. I do have a working setup for now and I'm happy with it.

I do have a WO 72 APO I can use as a guide scope, with the stand alone auto-guider. It's the Synguider. It's reasonably fine. And for the WO - I got actually good few images out of that scope just on the mount's goto.

But I'm getting a better main scope and that's the reason for a mount upgrade. I do have all the other stuff and access to a lot of toys

The Mac is used for uni stuff - take with me to library, carry an extra weight around  

Most of the time I'm stuck behind desktop.

[patohalmo]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qltfnbt70gozpxo/IMG_0202.CR2?dl=0

I'm not sure if this works, but the picture should be a 7 min single shot, no guiding used other than the goto on HEQ5 Pro. WO Megrez 72 APO. Canon EOS 5D MkII, Astronomik UHC visual filter. No post processing of any sort used - this is a Raw image on ISO 800

I hope I'm not breaking any rules by posting the link. I couldn't see anything in the SGL CoC and the image attachment option won't let me do it.

I just wanted to show that the mount I have is good and nothing against it. But it won't simply support any of the potential scopes in my first post side by side the WO 72 as a guide scope.

[patohalmo]

Ok, it works if you download it. You don't have to sign up for the service just continue to download without it. Sorry once again - I really don't know how to use the tools here....

[Carina Lass]

Goodness - 100 pound will buy you an old XP laptop which is fine for the job and never need anything on it but the relevant progs. Leave it in the shed or with your scope - a  separate monitor or even a TV will give you a better view of the software in use.

[fondofchips]

+1 for the AZ-EQ6 GT - Steve Richards review here: -  http://www.firstlightoptics.com/user/Sky-Watcher_AZ-EQ6_GT_part_1.pdf

Cheers,

Fondofchips.

[patohalmo]

Goodness - 100 pound will buy you an old XP laptop which is fine for the job and never need anything on it but the relevant progs. Leave it in the shed or with your scope - a  separate monitor or even a TV will give you a better view of the software in use.

For less than £30 I can buy network extender and hook the whole lot direct to my PC. But that's not the point. I'm still finding my way around this hobby and for now I don't want to spend / buy a lot (even being cheap) as my small student room is already filled up a lot

I will see where it leads me and maybe I will get the laptop. But as I said, I will be moving soon and I may end up with something completely different. So for now I'm happy to try with what I have.

[xs2man]

Fair enough.  You could set-up a dual boot to run xp / 7 / 8 / whatever on you mac then?  I'm sure the effort would be worth it for EQMOD and all the other good stuff that is only available on windows.

[patohalmo]

That's one of the options I was considering. But the bootcamp still got compatibility issues time to time. I may give that a go. Thanks.

[Fogboundturtle]

SkySafari has a wifi adapter that works with Mac. You can control your mount without any cable

[patohalmo]

that's a good one, thanks