Mount dilemmas....

[Betton]

Hi everyone, long time lurker here. I have given up and resorted in asking for help, I usually try to struggle on my own, but it’s not working  

As of today, I use a celestron 130 SLT, which I’ve had for a few years and I’ve loved it. But as time has gone on, I’ve wanted to get more and more into Astrophotography, rather than just viewing. So I have been using this scope to practice, but as I am wanting to do deepsky stuff have been struggling, the mount and scope haven’t really got what it takes, albeit with some persistence some good images can be taken.

So it’s upgrade time (scope and mount) I have been looking at the Redcat 51 or the z61. But in terms of mount, I’m unsure what is necessary and what is overkill and also not regretting I spent that little bit Moreno in a years time. So my options are; the EQ3 pro, EQM-35 and the EQ5 Pro. Any advice or experience with any of these mounts would be much appreciate. 

Thanks,

Dan

[baggywrinkle]

The EQ5 would offer more future proofing with its higher payload than the EQ3 versions. But that depends on how far down the slippery rad of astro photography you intend to go.

Along with a heavier payload it does mean a heavier mount if you intend to move it around or take it to dark sky sites.

I have had both Celestron and Skywatcher over the years and both are well supported for technical advice and user experience for apps like EQMOD. I mention Celestron as they come from the same maker but operate in a slightly different way for alignment. They too have the equivalent of the SW EQ5.

Both Brands often come up for sales on second hand sites.

[Betton]

25 minutes ago, baggywrinkle said:

The EQ5 would offer more future proofing with its higher payload than the EQ3 versions. But that depends on how far down the slippery rad of astro photography you intend to go.

Along with a heavier payload it does mean a heavier mount if you intend to move it around or take it to dark sky sites.

I have had both Celestron and Skywatcher over the years and both are well supported for technical advice and user experience for apps like EQMOD. I mention Celestron as they come from the same maker but operate in a slightly different way for alignment. They too have the equivalent of the SW EQ5.

Both Brands often come up for sales on second hand sites.

Thanks for the response. I can already see this being a slippery slope with the bank account, I can’t believe I’ve got my wife to agree to these new purchases. 

Predominantly my set up will just be used for the back garden. As of right now I will only be using a redcat on the mount, so not much payload, but without auto-guiding, I’m not sure how long the EQ 3 will track for before you start seeing star trails. So it’s a toss up between what’s overkill and what is necessary. I suppose I can always get an auto guiding system in the future with any of those mounts

[wimvb]

1 hour ago, Betton said:

I’m not sure how long the EQ 3 will track for before you start seeing star trails

Not for long, I'm afraid. It all depends on your budget, but I've said it before, and I maintain that the eq3 (pro) is a very nice mount for a light weight, short focal length setup. Since your imaging scale (how much of the night sky each pixel covers, measured in arcseconds/pixel) is probably quite large with your intended scope, it may make sense to go for the smaller mount and add a guiding package (eg finder guider + zwo asi120) now, with the knowledge that you won't be able to chase the smaller galaxies. For that , you will later need to replace your entire setup. But you will get better results on wide field targets sooner. And you can keep the light weight setup as a grab and go solution to take with you to star parties and on vacation.

With guiding also comes the need for a computer next to the mount. 

[Captain Scarlet]

I have the EQ35-M, and I really like it. The model is fairly new, and because it's designated EQ3-something, I think people assume it has the same load capacity as all the EQ3s, which is not the case. I think SW have got their marketing wrong here, I'm sure people have been put off by the nomenclature.

The EQ3-2 has a stated load capacity of 5kg, whereas the EQ35-M has a stated capacity of twice that: 10kg. It has no problems at all handling my 7.5kg APM-LZOS plus bits.

M

Edited September 18, 2019 by Captain Magenta

[Betton]

22 minutes ago, wimvb said:

Not for long, I'm afraid. It all depends on your budget, but I've said it before, and I maintain that the eq3 (pro) is a very nice mount for a light weight, short focal length setup. Since your imaging scale (how much of the night sky each pixel covers, measured in arcseconds/pixel) is probably quite large with your intended scope, it may make sense to go for the smaller mount and add a guiding package (eg finder guider + zwo asi120) now, with the knowledge that you won't be able to chase the smaller galaxies. For that , you will later need to replace your entire setup. But you will get better results on wide field targets sooner. And you can keep the light weight setup as a grab and go solution to take with you to star parties and on vacation.

With guiding also comes the need for a computer next to the mount. 

Auto guiding is a subject I need to research more as I’ve always seen it as something I can add later, but the more and more I delve into this hobby, the more I realise how important guiding can be. My problem is I have a new, quite expensive desktop pc, so definitely cannot warrant a laptop. Is it possible to get guiding software on a tablet and run a raspberry pi on the mount and guide over WiFi from the tablet? Or would this bring latency? 

14 minutes ago, Captain Magenta said:

I have the EQ35-M, and I really like it. The model is fairly new, and because it's designated EQ3-something, I think people assume it has the same load capacity as all the EQ3s, which is not the case. I think SW have got their marketing wrong here, I'm sure people have been put off by the nomenclature.

The EQ3-2 has a stated load capacity of 5kg, whereas the EQ35-M has a stated capacity of twice that: 10kg. It has no problems at all handling my 7.5kg APM-LZOS plus bits.

M

Thanks for the feedback, mate. What exposure times do you get with your set up?

[wimvb]

The eq35 actually has a slightly higher load capacity than the eq5, but depending on its internals, its tracking may be poorer. I have tuned my own eq3 pro and a heq5 mount. The heq5 has ball bearings on its axes, where the eq3 doesn't. I don't know about the eq5, but since the eq35 is based on the eq3, it may lack those bearings as well, which will affect tracking. The price difference isn't that large, so it would be wise to investigate these differences further. 

[wimvb]

7 minutes ago, Betton said:

possible to get guiding software on a tablet and run a raspberry pi

You cab control your entire setup from a RPi, and control that with Remote Desktop from your house. That's how I do it. Cost is a RPi, housing, sd card and eqdir cable. Plus investment in time to set it up. Phd also runs on a Raspberry Pi. 

[Betton]

2 minutes ago, wimvb said:

You cab control your entire setup from a RPi, and control that with Remote Desktop from your house. That's how I do it. Cost is a RPi, housing, sd card and eqdir cable. Plus investment in time to set it up. Phd also runs on a Raspberry Pi. 

I will look into this. I have a few spare Raspberry Pis. This would be ideal. Thanks

[DaveS]

If you want something that's "plug and play" then the ASI Air might do it.

And AP can be a horribly slippery slope into a financial black hole. When I took up astronomy again in '09 I was just going to get an EQ3 to put my DSLR on. That turned into an HEQ5 and Megrez 90, and now I have kit worth a nice car .

[Betton]

5 minutes ago, DaveS said:

If you want something that's "plug and play" then the ASI Air might do it.

And AP can be a horribly slippery slope into a financial black hole. When I took up astronomy again in '09 I was just going to get an EQ3 to put my DSLR on. That turned into an HEQ5 and Megrez 90, and now I have kit worth a nice car .

This looks very useful. Is my understanding of these setups correct? Can you use this just to guide and not take images, and use a DSLR to take the images. Because these only work with the ZWO type cameras, right? Sorry for all the questions, there is just so much information it’s quite overwhelming. 

And yeah, I can see this happening already. Which is why I want to make the right decision, it’s so stressful 😂

[DaveS]

Ah, right I didn't spot that sorry. I think the ASI Air may only be for CMOS astro cameras, I was thinking of the guiding etc.

[Betton]

Can it not work as a stand-alone guider through a finder scope, and then images are taken with a DSLR? I will have to have a read into it. Getting information overload again 😂

[Captain Scarlet]

1 hour ago, Betton said:

... Thanks for the feedback, mate. What exposure times do you get with your set up?

Ah, there you have me ... for now I am visual only.

And @wimvb is right about the bearing thing - my EQ35-M has bushes not bearings.

M

[wimvb]

3 hours ago, Captain Magenta said:

And @wimvb is right about the bearing thing - my EQ35-M has bushes not bearings

I was afraid of that. I found out the hard way that my eq3 needs the chinese gunk (aka lubrication, aka grease) to operate smoothly. 

The ASIAir also supports (some?) dslrs, but operation may not always be smooth, afaIk. 

You can run just guiding from a raspberry pi. Both PHD and Lin-guider are available. Phd seems to behave slightly better if you install INDI (indilib.org)

INDI is an open astronomy tools protocol that runs on the Linux OS. It works with several client software packages, such as Ekos/kstars, Cartes du Ciel/ccd du Ciel or Pixinsight. INDI and Ekos/kstars can run on a single Raspberry Pi, together with guiding software. You can use a remote dedktop program to access the Pi, as I wrote before. You can also run the client program remote on a Windows computer. 

Commercial solutions, all based on Raspberry Pi, are StellarMate, ASIAir, and AtikBase.

Edited September 18, 2019 by wimvb