HEQ5 tales of love.

[MattJenko]

I have been the happy owner of the Skywatcher HEQ5 for 18 months now, and it is about time I posted something about this remarkable bit of machinery. This post could probably be in the members equipment review section, but I think it is worth putting here, because the general aim of the post is not mount specific per se, more of a general sentiment about working at getting the best out of what you have.

I have been working hard in the time I have had this mount at understanding all aspects of imaging. It is only recently however that the penny really has dropped. There is only so much theory and so much advice one can absorb before a confrontation with the huge reality of taking many images over many months drives home how important the mount is. Cameras, pixel scale, narrowband pass-through wavelengths, field of view, sub length, bortle scales, QE values all pale into insignificance in the face of mount precision. It is this that aspect to which I would like to show my appreciation. I don't have the luxury of experiencing high end mounts, I can only talk about my progression with my HEQ5. When I got it, I had no idea what to do, and my images reflected that and to a huge extent my results were saved by the processing skills and advice from others. However, experience does work wonders and after a lot of failures, and a Rowan belt mod later (of which I cannot speak more highly of), I am achieving results that seemed out of this world when I started.

Working out how to use my mount properly has meant that:

- I can balance crudely. I know roughly where the dovetail should be in the saddle.

- I can polar align crudely. A quick placement of polaris on the circle is all I need. It is almost the case that more accuracy would be less useful.

- PEC - no thank you.

- EQMOD - yes please

- SGP, PlateSolve2, PHD2 - thank you, thank you, thank you,

At the image scale I work at with my ED80, this mount rocks. When I started, it would oscillate badly between 4 arc secs either side. Now I have more of a clue and I play to the mount's strengths, I get results like the screen shot below. From this you can see that even though it still requires a lot of guiding, it guides well.

Did I say j'adore my HEQ5?

[swag72]

I started off with an HEQ5 - They are great mounts all round. Mine certainly was a good workhorse and chucked out 30 minute subs time and time again. I don't hesitate to recommend them to people starting out in AP as a good mount to get them going Glad that you love yours ................ what is there not to love with them? :d

[wxsatuser]

Like you it is my main mount from day one.

With the Rowan belt mod and some new bearings it certainly does the business.

Mine is obsy bound but it is easy to polar align if needed and once a three star is done it hits the target virtually spot on everytime.

I normally get pretty good guiding using the original PHD and it easily does 20minute subs although these days with fast lenses I never go much over 5minutes.

I have often look at highend mounts but quite honestly for the time in use and what I use it for, it's not worth it for the moment.

[Macavity]

Yes, when everything else (almost) has suffered intermittent gremlins

and / or needed mods, at least my trusty HEQ5 has kept on truckin'!

(Touch wood, has born several seasons of seaside salty air outside?)

Totally unguided (for video astronomy) it has a *slight* tendency to

"wander about" with some scope setups. I did a part stripdown and

re-grease, but should do this *properly* at some stage...

At the moment, still looking for a UK supplier of a (specifically) HEQ5

ADM Vixen Saddle mod? I sense these would sell like hot cakes?

My only upgrade idea would be for one of the more modern "dual"

Alt-Az mounts. But I recently bought a SkyTee II for visual stuff... 

(No BAD thing to put a modest amount of effort into astronomy?)