First light.

[Casus belli]

I managed first light with my Skywatcher Ed 80 and heq5 mount tonight.  It arrived yesterday and I spent most of that evening figuring out how to align the mount.  (It didn't need any as far as I can see).  This afternoon was spent figuring out where everything goes and learning how to balance the scope.

I started setting up for observing just as the sun was going down.  It all went pretty well although I'm still a bit confused about the polar scope.  Anyway I did my best, turned it on and did a two star align.  First star arcturus.  Miles out.  Pressed the direction buttons and nothing happened.  Hmmm.  Tried upping the slew rate and got my first pleasant surprise.  It was slewing on my first attempt but so quietly and slowly I hadn't noticed.  Second star Vega.  This time it was much closer.  Alignment successful according to the controller.  

By now of course some low cloud was scudding in on a brisk breeze so I decided to go for a fairly difficult target.  M81 & M82.  It slewed over and there they were smack dab in the middle of the eyepiece.  To see how good this was at tracking I went into the house for a well deserved cuppa, leaving it to do its thing.  When I came back out 20 minutes later they hadn't moved by an iota.  I slewed over to m31.  Again smack dab in the middle of the ep.  Again I left it to track for 10 minutes and I couldn't see any drift.  I'm just not used to this.  My previous goto scope was an ETX 90 and I always had to use the control keys to keep anything centered.  The wind which was blowing at a good 20mph had no effect on viewing.  No vibration, nothing.   M27, M51, and M57 all smack in the middle of the EP with no extra input from myself.  By now the cloud was getting unbearable but I had to have a look at albireo.  Stunning!

So as you can tell I'm pleased with the mount.  And I'm just as pleased with the scope.  The stars are pin sharp to the edge and I was pleasantly surprised at the detail I could see on the DSO's with such a small scope from a moderately light polluted site.

My only disapointment was that the constant scudding cloud prevented me from trying out some short exposures with my DSLR but to be honest I never expected things to go this well on first light.  I've still got a heck of a lot to learn but I cannot wait to get out again.  I'm also still awaiting my lodestar x2 ccd to arrive so there's another big learning curve for me.  But tonight I'm buzzing!

Big thanks to Astro Baby for her "Idiots guide to setting up an HEQ 5 mount" and to those awfully nice people at Flo who took a large sum of money from me but gave me so much back in return by the way of one hell of a nice scope and mount and loads of great advice.

[John]

Thats a nice 1st light report

I'll bet you can't wait to come back for more !

[recceranger]

I have the same setup. Wait until you get it to a dark sky site - the visual and imagery is simply outstanding.

I have an 150 MAK and the SW ED80 both of which I would never let go. However, for pin point sharpness on larger DSO's (M45/42) the ED is stellar!