Motor needed for equatorial mount

[Supersharpshooter]

Hi, I'm new to using a telescope and I want to take photos of the night sky. I have a 900mm scope with an equatorial mount. The mount is not motored and I want it to be, it doesn't have a model number or anything written on it so I need help to find a suitable motor to fit it without wasting time and money. I will post a pic. Thanks for any help.

[mikey2000]

I'm not an expert but it looks sort of a similar design to my EQ2 mount that came with my Skywatcher 130P telescope.  The RA axis seems to have a larger toothed wheel on the other end to the slow-mo hand control.   My mount has an optional motor that drives that toothed wheel.

 

It's fine for keeping something small in the view at high magnification but rather unsuitable for longer exposures with a camera.  I managed a 20s exposure once, but only once at prime focus (650mm focal lenght)  There seem to be two problems:  1) the mount is a bit wobbly, 2) it's really hard to get a decent polar alignment.  And Problem 3 - most reflectors aren't easy to hook up to a camera. 

 

Have you tried attaching a camera? Can you get it to focus on a star?

[Supersharpshooter]

I can get my camera hooked up no problem, although it takes a little while to balance it all properly. I can get it to focus on bright stars, I haven't had the time yet to go somewhere really dark yet, long exposures were where I was expecting to hit a wall hence the need for a motor. What you suggest, find a motor or get a better mount??

 

[Cosmic Geoff]

This looks similar to the mounting I got with my Lidl supermarket scope - in fact it was sufficiently like an EQ2  for an EQ2 motor to work with a bit of engineering. I got the cheaper of the two options at £30, but it was not satisfactory and soon broke down. You really need a better mounting, but this could cost you far more than you spent for your complete telescope kit.

[ronin]

Looks like an EQ2 and the RA motor for that is £64 according to FLO: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/skywatcher-mounts/skywatcher-ra-motor-drive-for-eq2.html

Although I cannot make much out from the image, I sort of guess that not all the kit is displayed in the image. I see FLO say 6v and I am sure I assembled one for someone about 4 years back and it used a small PP9 battery. But the person brough the kit to a club and I was asked to sort it out for them.

The EQ2 has no option for a polar scope and so polar alignment will be sort of level it all, set latitude, guess at where to point the mount axis. Makes it more interesting and fun in some ways.

I would not expect your exposures to extend beyond say 40 seconds, reason for this is just that there are likely to be a few unknowns in the set up and if you tried for 60 you might find you lose many expuosures through trailing, equally just take more 40 second exposures, they do not have to be 60. On a DSLR 40s to my thinking works well as I would set a 40 second exposure, then an 20 second wait (for cooling) then start the next exposure. Works out at a minute an exposure.

Ultimately a better mount is the way to go, but that is I suppose a £400 way to go. Could put a wanted ad out for a RA drive for an EQ2, have seen them appear occasionally for sale. For the better mount option I would suggest - if you decide on that - to look at the for sale sites and grab a better beastie if one appears, your post does not imply that you consider you need one immediatly. The £64 for the EQ2 drive seems a fair amount of money. Had it been around £40 then not that bad but £64 just seems a bit much for the mount.