HEQ-5 to AZ-EQ6GT for imaging?

[Stratis]

So when I finally got into astronomy seriously a couple of years ago, I chose the HEQ-5 as my first 'real' scope mount; it was bought to bear a C9.25 (which it handled admirably) for mostly visual work, at the time I held no aspiration to astrophotography whatsoever. Despite wobbling a bit in the wind, I have been very pleased with the HEQ-5 and haven't regretted its purchase for a moment.

Unfortunately living in a tiny flat with very difficult outside access, the C9.25 had to go (I am young and strong, but narrow staircases and brick alleys are just.... harrowing...) and has been replaced by a variety of smaller and more managable scopes and I've had them all on the HEQ-5 without any fuss. Now though, I have a real back garden and it's five steps to set up my scopes and I am thinking of a mount upgrade to carry my 115mm triplet.

I have budget available, and I would like a mount that is superior to the HEQ-5 for imaging yet still managable for one person to set up and polar-align without an entire hour devoted to the process.

So far I haven't stressed the HEQ-5's payload too much and autoguiding seems to take care of what errors do creep in without too much difficulty.

My question to those in the know, is the AZ-EQ6GT a decent upgrade for dual-purpose imaging/visual or is it simply a gimmick? Will I notice a meaningful improvement in mount performance for long exposure (obviously not Paramount or Takahashi territory) or will it end up just a heavier HEQ-5 with a greater price tag?

If it's not going to be worth the bother, I will save my pennies long-term for something like an EQ8, or perhaps go high-tech and invest in an Adaptive Optics unit to just entirely eliminate whatever errors the HEQ-5 might introduce.

Advice from my betters very much appreciated

~Paul

[graemlourens]

Hello Paul.

I have an AZEQ6, but never had a HEQ5 so can not compare.

I read a lot about HEQ5/6 & AZEQ6 and can throw in my 2 cents.

The AZ-Mode i never use honestly as for visual i have a different scope.

The main reason for going towards AZEQ6 for me was the different & more reliable belt drive, as well as much improved knobs and levers for altitude, and both declination & RA. Its really easy to handle them.

AZEQ6 in terms on weight is just managable for me. But you have to take it all apart to move. its impossible to move in one piece even with couterweights off, without hurting my back. (scope on)

As for going from HEQ5 to AZEQ6, it depends. As you state your current setup handles tracking very well so i'd think twice about making that rather small jump to an azeq6. 

If you have round stars now with longer exposures (>=300s) then i wouldn't switch as you'll not have any improvement there. BUt if you're fighting with wind, trailing stars and so on then yes, an upgrade is necessary.

Regards, Graem

[swag72]

Here's my thoughts on the AO solution ..................... I found it to be very much a gimmick and it didn't last more than a season with me.

I used it on a longer focal length scope than a 115mm and I struggled to find stars to guide with. They were also never bright enough to get the 0.1s ideal guide. Sometimes I had to use a 3s sub to get a guide star and so I may as well have not bothered. I also found it unreliable in that I rarely got a complete night in when using it. The faintest whiff of cloud and it corrected itself until the glass was at it's maximum tilt and that was that. There was no coming back without resetting the lot through software.

So I would think long and hard about that option for sure.

[Ouroboros]

I agree with Graemlourens. For me the AZ-EQ6 was a great upgrade from my EQ5 mount (shown in my member pic). It seems well engineered. It is relatively easy to set up and works well. The tracking (unguided) is better than my old cheap mount, but not fantastically so. I have to use guiding to get exposures of several minutes duration. Wind will still shake the scope I'm afraid. There's no avoiding that, except inside an observatory perhaps. Amazingly guiding seems able to cope with wind to some extent. Fortunately it's not often a problem because wind often dies down on clear evenings anyway.

The AZ-EQ6 is heavy and I just about cope with it, despite being a not too strong oldie with a bad back. When doing Astronomy I store it a few yards from where I set up. I keep it at waist height so that I don't have to bend down to pick it up. I too remove the weights etc when moving it.

[kookoo_gr]

if it is guiding improvement you seek, first go through the basic steps to eliminate these errors. Check polar alignment, flexure at the setup, balance, proper settings for guiding, an adm saddle does wonders at removing some flexure. Also an alternative to improve guiding is the rowan astronomy belt mod. I installed one at my heq5 pro and after 3 months of bad weather and a couple of weeks of tweaking the mount it i had a very good performance at guiding my gso rc8" scope and this is the image of m20 i took 25x300 LRG, 13x300B. I believe for your scope the performance will be at the same level. In few words give your current mount a chance at imaging before going for an azeq6

[Grotemobile]

Like the picture. Wow

Very good.

Steve.