First light image from HEQ5 Pro (M27)

[Will Gater]

Hi everyone, :wave:

I recently bought a HEQ5 Pro mount for portable imaging (cheers FLO ) and have been dying to use it in anger. Tonight there was a gap in the clouds for about an hour, so I grabbed everything and very hastily 2-star aligned. I have to say I love the mount. It's quiet, simple to use and sturdy. This is the first light image - a widefield of M27 in Vulpecula. It's a very rough image and the stars are trailed due to my lazy setup, but I thought I'd share it anyway, as it's all fun. :oops: I can't wait to get another scope on the mount to autoguide, as I think this might just allow me to image properly long term from suburban Bristol! :? Details are: 9x60 seconds @ ISO 1600 through an unmodded 300D, CLS clip filter and a ZS66 refractor.

[Beyond_Vision]

Certainly is a great mount Will and it must be good to get out and use it in earnest. This weather is so frustrating I'm just down the road from you in Gloucester and I have set up my astrotrac ready to hit the go button but haven't had a long enough gap in the clouds to make it worthwhile.

Regards

Kevin

[FLO]

Its good to see you up and running Will

[Will Gater]

Thanks Kevin/Steve, I'm sure I'm going to love this new mount - it made imaging last night really fun!

[Ant]

Nice one Will,

I also have the HEQ5PRO and agree that they are a superb mount.

Love the image - I think M27 was my first object as well.

Ant

[Trevor]

Hi Will

Great start looking forward to more that’s if the clouds ever clear.

But it’s not in the middle lol

Trev.

[SteveL]

I`d almost forgotten you collected that from SWAF... nice to see you got to use it

[barkis]

It's a great start with the subject too. It has turned out well for a first attempt.

Will they allow you Image of the Month in the mag. Will? :laughing2:

Ron.

[Will Gater]

Cheers Steve/Trevor/Ron

But it’s not in the middle lol

I like to live dangerously Trevor! :)

Will they allow you Image of the Month in the mag. Will? :laughing2:

Ooo now there's an idea Ron! :scratch:

[robindurant]

Hi Will

Great shot, welcome to the world of the DSO Nutters

Robin ( Adur AS)

[RobH]

Hello Will, good to see you here

A fine first light and a great object at whatever scale.

Cheers

Rob

[Whippy]

If only all first light shots were as good as this eh? Nice shot Will .

Tony..

[ncjunk]

Very good first light, much better than I managed.

Neil C

[thing]

Excellent first light Will, I'm getting an HEQ5 I think (it's either that or the EQ6) so great to see that you can do 60 seconds unguided with little trail. Can't wait now............

[beamish]

Nice one Will, has the image been cropped at all ?

Karlo

[Will Gater]

Thanks for your comments everyone, you're all very kind.

Dave, you'll love the HEQ5 Pro mount - this was with a very rough alignment, I'm sure you could at least 2-3 mins unguided on it from what I've seen.

Karlo, yes this has been cropped to cut out some of the corners of the image that had the worst distortions.

[thing]

I dribble in anticipation. I've already got the patio marked out for it. How do you find the tripod though? It's only 1.5 inch is that correct? My CG-5 has 2 inch legs and is rock solid. Mind you, I could probably bung the HEQ on the CG tripod.

[Will Gater]

Dave, the mount in my opinion is rock solid - wonderful for observing so not a problem there. I've got some small scopes on it but perhaps things might be different if you were thinking of putting something much larger.

[narrowbandpaul]

well done on your first image...plenty of Ha shining through.

i noticed a strange gradient in your image...I wonder if it is from the CLS clip filter.

Did u see it yourself

Best Wishes

Paul

[thing]

Dave, the mount in my opinion is rock solid - wonderful for observing so not a problem there. I've got some small scopes on it but perhaps things might be different if you were thinking of putting something much larger.

Just an 8 inch Newt, if you reckon the legs are good then that's fine. Your unguided rough aligned image show that they are pretty stable.

[glennbech]

If you mount an 8" newt on it you'll get some vibration when focusing at high magnification. This is probably mostly due to the flexibility of the scope / rings etc and probably not so much because of the mount.

With a rough polar alignment (using setting circles), you can easily do 90 second unguided shots. I'm going to test longer subs after drift alignment and PEC training when I get some weather. You can probably do 2-3 minutes unguided shots without too many lost frames (at least at shorter focal lengths like my reduced Megrez 90 @ 500mm)

[thing]

If I can get two minutes after a good align I'll be a very happy chap. The Newt is F5.

[Tim]

Hi Will, glad u are enjoying the HEQ5. I also have one and enjoyed learning the ropes with it.

To get greta polar alignment, its worth taking the time to fine tune the polar alignment reticle in the polar scope, its three tiny allen screws, the technique is in the manual.

I found that once that was done, I could set Polaris up in the little circle on the polar scope, rotate it through 360 degrees, and Polaris would be hidden by the line all the way round, until it popped right back into the circle again. I should think you could easily get 120 secs unguided with a wide FOV.

TJ

[Will Gater]

Hi Paul, thanks. Yes I noticed the odd gradient too. I'm not sure what has caused it as it seems to be confined to a roughly rectangular patch slightly offset to the middle right of centre. Bizarre. I live right in amongst the light pollution of Bristol and there are two sodium lamps practically in front and behind of where I was imaging. Maybe they were to blame?

Thanks for the tip TJ, the next outing I'll try and align it all properly.

[Tim]

If you havent already adjusted the reticle in the polar scope, do it in the daytime Will. You need a rock steady object about 500yards away ideally, and a tiny allen key, you'd never do it at night The alt/az adjusters usually need altering too to enable you to do the adjusting.