Difficulty with HEQ5 Pro

[Peart]

Hi,

 

I have been using my HEQ5 Pro it worked perfectly last night but tonight i just cant seem to find the stars during the alignment i am sure it is polar aligned correctly but when i go to do my star alignment it is way of and i cant see the star. any advice? 

[michael8554]

Can you see the star in the Finder ?

Centre as best you can using the finder, then the star should be in the FOV of a long focus eyepiece, if your finder and scope are both pointing correctly.

Then for precision chage to a high mag eyepiece for final centring.

Or is it that you can't identify the stars ?

Michael

[Jiggy 67]

Have you entered the date correctly, remember it needs to be in the American format month-day-year

[Guest]

I had similar problems. I'm still getting used to my HEQ5 which I've had since the autumn.

The thing which made it much better for me was to find an accurate home position for the mount. There are several you tube videos on how to do this. You have to mark the RA and DEC axes accurately when the scope is in the home position. I used some insulation tape to mark them. My new procedure is as follows -

1. Switch on

2. Do the polar alignment

3. Switch off

4. Manually move the scope to the marked up home positions.

5. Switch back on

6. Update the time and date but skip the polar alignment. Go directly to the alignment. It should go to the first star fairly accurately. It should at least be in the finder. I find it usually in the eyepiece.

 

The reason I do it like this is because when you switch on the mount it resets its position registers and it assumes that the scope is in the home position. It then knows how to move the scope to get the first star - approximately.  I do the polar alignment using the handset. To do this you have to manually rotate both axes. As soon as you've done that the scope has lost its position. At the end of polar alignment the handset takes you directly to alignment 1,2 or 3 star but if you do that the scope will be miles away from the first star. So to make sure that the mount knows where it's starting from when you start alignment I switch it off, put it in the home position and then switch it back on. Go straight into alignment. It works for me anyway.

 

 

 

[B4silio]

A bit late to the party, but just to give a bit more detail:

• Park Position: Position of the mount with weights all the way down, scope pointing straight up (toward the pole if it's perfectly polar aligned)
• Home Position: Where the mount thinks [DEC: +90°0'0" & RA: 0h0m0s] is. In an ideal case this is exactly at the Park Position which and it means you never have to star align anything
• Star alignment: The procedure to tell your mount where the origin of the sky [90°0'0" x 0h0m0s] is, or how "off" the Home Position is from the Park Position
• Current Position: Where the mount think it is pointing in the sky, it uses the motors to know that, which means every time you unclutch your mount, it loses the match between it think it is pointing and where it actually is 

The best way to NOT have to star align is to always put it back to Park Position at the end of a session or every time you've unclutched it for any reason (e.g. whenever you're changing equipment on it, re-balancing). If you have a reasonably well marked Park Position this becomes very quick.

 

[spikkyboy]

yes to park position weights down scope up. After you set go to home check that this is the position it has parked to. Mine was off and i adjusted that by selecting park then turn off and adjust as in the how to set videos with the spirit level.

Also "point the leg marked N to north" This is crucial if the scope is not set dead north nothing works.

I had a tip to measure the distance between the centres of the front and rear legs.

Mark a spot on the ground and call this N.

Mark a line at distance to rear leg centres mine was 76.8cm This line must be true East to West. set it with a good reliable compass.

Now when you plonk the scope down front foot on N rear legs on the East West line it is dead north aligned.

I had pre set my altitude and when i looked thru the Polar scope it was almost spot on! A few weeks on altitude and the two side adjustment screws and im on it. Now I park to home at end of use and im good to go.

Yes Polaris wanders around the pole circle but im close enough to get my targets centre eye piece every time.

Good luck it is a very good mount. I thank the lock down for giving me the time to resolve this or it could have taken me weeks.

I store my kit in the summer house next to where I observe from and don't strip it down so all of my settings and finder scope etc don't get knocked off.

I hope this helps.