The time has finally come

[Ivan Hancock]

Update: Well I'm happy to say that after many hours of research 😋

Tomorrow I finally pickup my new EQ6-R Mount, a 100ED Esprit, the Orion 50mm guide scope & the ASI 120mm Mini guide camera, and a SW WiFi dongle, I believe this should

move me into the next bracket of AstroPhotography 🔭 Pretty exciting times  

AND HERE IT IS 😋

Edited July 20, 2019 by Ivan Hancock
Counting down days !

[rml63]

That sounds like a great rig Ivan.  What made you choose the EQ6R in the end?

 

Mike

[Ivan Hancock]

On 17/06/2019 at 19:06, rml63 said:

That sounds like a great rig Ivan.  What made you choose the EQ6R in the end?

 

Mike

Hi Mike, Reason for going EQ6-R, I have had Skywatcher mounts in the past and have had no problems with them at all, The latest EQ6-R has a USB port built into the mount head for direct control via usb and EQMod. The price is right for my budget as well.

The reason I moved away from the CGX idea is purely my thoughts, thinking the spring loaded worm drives look a bit tacky, and I have noticed a lot of people having to tweak and tune things quite a bit to get a decent degree of reliability . The end result seems to be okay but I just feel a bit more confident 

keeping with skywatcher. Plus I like the green setting circles 😉

[Ivan Hancock]

First Light with the Esprit 100ED & the EQ6-R, after fiddling my way around a polar alignment using SharpCap Pro, followed by a 2 star alignment, I chose the Lagoon Nebula as my first test subject. I framed up the Lagoon & Trifid nebula's  I set my intervalometer to 40 x 60 seconds and let it do it's stuff.

I wasn't ready to deal with PHD 2 just yet, That can wait till the next dark sky weekend.

So here is my very first image from the first outing with the new gear, I am pretty happy with the results. 

Now I have a few weeks of processing to do....🤓

[Shelster1973]

Very nice setup indeed. I am after getting the same scope at some point in the future. 
interesting to see that there is now a USB port on that mount. Mine did not have that, so am guessing they have just had a revision. Still, have had no problems controlling it via an eqmod cable. 
 

enjoy and clear skies

[Ivan Hancock]

Hi Shelster, I ended up getting the EQ6-R Pro, but with the usb port in the bottom of the hand controller.  The newest revision is very slow getting to Australia and I was sick of waiting !!

However, I have been having plenty of success with my mount, and I am going to be guiding with my ZWO ASI120 MM and selecting "on camera guiding" My friend does it this way and it works

a treat 🙂 and this also means there's only one cable to worry about as well 👍 so all I have is the power chord and the camera lead because I use the SynScan WiFi dongle with my iPad, this ends up being

a pretty tidy setup 👌 Cheers Ivan..

[ndabunka]

On 20/08/2019 at 01:06, Ivan Hancock said:

Hi Shelster, I ended up getting the EQ6-R Pro, but with the usb port in the bottom of the hand controller.  The newest revision is very slow getting to Australia and I was sick of waiting !!

However, I have been having plenty of success with my mount, and I am going to be guiding with my ZWO ASI120 MM and selecting "on camera guiding" My friend does it this way and it works

a treat 🙂 and this also means there's only one cable to worry about as well 👍 so all I have is the power chord and the camera lead because I use the SynScan WiFi dongle with my iPad, this ends up being

a pretty tidy setup 👌 Cheers Ivan..

Perhaps I am resurrecting an old thread but could someone help clarify the term "on-camera guiding" for a newbie?  I have a similar scope/mount combo arriving in a few weeks.  I am planning on using a relatively inexpensive camera (like the ASI385MC, ASI178MC or Altair GPCAM3 290M) for imaging and had thought that I also would need a separate camera and scope for autoguiding like the  ~$300 Altair combo here. 
https://www.altairastro.com/starwave-50mm-guide-scope--gpcam-mono-guide-camera-combo-91-p.asp

If "on-camera" guiding ACTUALLY means being able to guide on THE camera I am also using for imaging, then perhaps I don't need the separate guidescope?

PS - I work for British Telecom but live in the USA so please excuse the use of USD...LOL

Edited August 20, 2020 by ndabunka

[david_taurus83]

50 minutes ago, ndabunka said:

Perhaps I am resurrecting an old thread but could someone help clarify the term "on-camera guiding" for a newbie?  I have a similar scope/mount combo arriving in a few weeks.  I am planning on using a relatively inexpensive camera (like the ASI385MC, ASI178MC or Altair GPCAM3 290M) for imaging and had thought that I also would need a separate camera and scope for autoguiding like the  ~$300 Altair combo here. 
https://www.altairastro.com/starwave-50mm-guide-scope--gpcam-mono-guide-camera-combo-91-p.asp

If "on-camera" guiding ACTUALLY means being able to guide on THE camera I am also using for imaging, then perhaps I don't need the separate guidescope?

PS - I work for British Telecom but live in the USA so please excuse the use of USD...LOL

Hi. 'On camera' guiding is the term used by PHD guiding when it uses an ST4 cable that connects from the guide camera to the mount. Ie your laptop or PC is only connected to the camera and guide commands are sent via the camera directly to the mount. The more popular way nowadays is pulse guiding where the laptop or PC is connected to the mount and guide commands are sent this way via EQMod. Either way is fine with the ST4 way being the simplist to set up.

FYI, you can't guide and image from the same camera at the same time. Guiding does require a separate camera.

[ndabunka]

2 hours ago, david_taurus83 said:

Hi. 'On camera' guiding is the term used by PHD guiding when it uses an ST4 cable that connects from the guide camera to the mount. Ie your laptop or PC is only connected to the camera and guide commands are sent via the camera directly to the mount. The more popular way nowadays is pulse guiding where the laptop or PC is connected to the mount and guide commands are sent this way via EQMod. Either way is fine with the ST4 way being the simplist to set up.

FYI, you can't guide and image from the same camera at the same time. Guiding does require a separate camera.

OK, so "on camera" does mean using an guide camera & it's guide scope.  Thanks for clearing that up for me.  I am going to have a laptop connected to control the HEQ5 so perhaps pulse guiding is where I am headed but it sounds like I will still need the guidescope/mini camera for that as well then.

Edited August 21, 2020 by ndabunka