HEQ 5 Polar scope issues

[Simon B]

Hi all

I have had an EQ3-2 with polar scope for a few years and have just bought an HEQ5 mount second hand.

Tonight was the first night I have tried it and the polar scope seems to full of what look like speckles. Also, I can't see any stars or even Polaris. There is no obstruction and I focused on a street lamp which I could see, but its surrounds seemed dark. I have included a pic of the scope taken from my phone.

I replaced the front lense with my other polar scopes lense and the issues remained.

Any ideas why it is not working?

Thanks

Simon

[jambouk]

There is an option in the handset to turn down the brightness of the poor scope LED

[TerryMcK]

That looks about right to me. As jombouk says there is a setting on the handset to turn down the brightness of the illumination.

I found, when I used the polarscope, that it was best to focus on something distant during the day to ensure you had focus. Then at night the polarscope sometimes shows dust specs etc. Ensure that the RA is positioned so that the hole in the shaft is clear and just persevere. Get a right angle polarscope adaptor and that will make a vast difference to finding Polaris. 

Better still buy an electronic pole finder like PoleMaster or Ioptron iPolar and let the camera in those devices find Polaris for you. I mentioned in another thread since using PoleMaster I can be polar aligned within 2 minutes - and my knees are not dirty nor do I have a crick in my neck.