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SW HEQ5 Payload


krikus

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Hi all,on the lookout for a mount for astrophotography and the SW HEQ5 is popular,but the payload seems to be 9kg.

That seems to be a bit light for mounting a refractor and camera,guidescope etc

What are your thoughts on this?

Thanks

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HEQ5 has load capacity of about 15Kg, but you don't want to load it that much. About 2/3rds is recommended maximum for AP and I tend to agree with that.

I pushed my HEQ5 up to almost 15Kg and while mount copes with that much weight - it is not stable for AP.

03.jpg

Sorry about low quality image - long exposure, a bit of hand shake. This is Skywatcher dob OTA - 8" F/6 scope, weighing about 11-12kg with 60mm guide scope and camera, tube rings and imaging camera.

To balance that, 3 CWs of 5Kg are needed.

I now image with 8" RC scope that has less than 10Kg, I also use OAG and 1Kg counterweight to balance ota in DEC. Overall I think I'm at 11Kg, and that is about as high as I would comfortably go with Heq5 for serious imaging.

IMG_20160730_214040.jpg

Here is another image from that period - RC8" + ST102 mounted side by side. Again 12-13Kg+ but much more stable configuration because OTAs are not long. Managed to balance it with 10Kg CWs - but pushed to the edge of CW shaft.

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1 minute ago, krikus said:

Thanks Vlaiv for your response,yep that mount is definitely loaded up alright,maybe its the HEQ5 pro has that 15kg payload i`ll have go back

and have another look.

There is not difference between HEQ5 and HEQ5 pro - there is only one version of the mount.

Maybe you thought of NEQ5 - which is just EQ5 class mount (I had to go and check twice thread title and your first post - it is so easy to confuse the two - HEQ5 and NEQ5). In any case, EQ5 mount is going to have less weight capacity, and indeed it is maxed out with 9-10Kg but for imaging I would still use the same rule of thumb - go with about 2/3 of total capacity. I think people load EQ5 with 8kg at most for imaging, but not really sure.

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Ok,cant find any specs for the NEQ5 it always comes up with HEQ5,its the Wex Website specs for that mount which is confusing,the overview says 9kg payload but in the specifications it says payload of 13.7 kg confusing!!

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3 minutes ago, krikus said:

Ok,cant find any specs for the NEQ5 it always comes up with HEQ5,its the Wex Website specs for that mount which is confusing,the overview says 9kg payload but in the specifications it says payload of 13.7 kg confusing!!

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/skywatcher-mounts/skywatcher-heq5-pro-synscan.html

image.png.841f274ade815a59092ce84d6ff05070.png

Pretty much the same as my experience

vs

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/skywatcher-mounts/skywatcher-eq5-pro-synscan-goto.html

image.png.1ae1d91473a73ffc9cc69a23fec78645.png

Mind you, FLO lists this mount as EQ5 not NEQ5 as most other retailers. For example, here is text from Astroshop.eu:

image.png.d7e5ff7d57175f96feae9d4c77f001af.png

which have it as EQ5 in product name but use term NEQ5 in product description. In any case Skywatcher made quite a bit of mess with using that N in front of what everyone knows as EQ5.

In the end - HEQ5 is much better mount for AP, so you should look at that one.

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I've got an HEQ5 with an 8inch SW Newtonian. The scope is well within the payload limit but I have to say that it is still  much too heavy for the mount especially if you want to do astrophotography. I like the mount but I wish I'd bought a smaller, lighter scope.  

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15 hours ago, woodblock said:

I've got an HEQ5 with an 8inch SW Newtonian. The scope is well within the payload limit but I have to say that it is still  much too heavy for the mount especially if you want to do astrophotography. I like the mount but I wish I'd bought a smaller, lighter scope.  

Due to their length, Newtonian scopes have a higher moment of inertia and these are more sensitive to wind etc.

For these, I would halve the load capacity for the imaging load budget.

N.F.

 

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7 hours ago, nfotis said:

Due to their length, Newtonian scopes have a higher moment of inertia and these are more sensitive to wind etc.

For these, I would halve the load capacity for the imaging load budget.

N.F.

 

Yes, this is something I've come to realise. A Newtonian with a heavy mirror at one end and cameras, eyepieces and finders at the other is an ideal oscillator. I did a maths course a while ago and we studied such oscillators - a rod with a weight at each end and suspended on a torsion spring. In fact I think they've used such oscillators in clock mechanisms.  All the same - I love my Newtonians.

 

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  • 1 month later...

I'm using my SW150PDS Newtonian on a HEQ5 as primary telescope and it works well as long as it isn't too windy outside.
Weight of the OTA with everything mounted on it is just around 8 kg. 

OTA mounted here for both visual and AP use which makes it a bit harder to balance...

20201209_121134.jpg?w=768

Edited by TomBee
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Hi Krikus,

I have a HEQ5 and run a William Optics FLT110 triplet frac on it. Plus filter wheel, cooled camera, OAG and guide camera.

Still within the capabilities of the mount, it guides well.

I would say the 110 frac is a good size for the mount, I guess you could go bigger, but I am happy with the combination. I get nothing like the wind effect a big newt would get...

Hope this helps.

Gordon.

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