HEQ5 SynTrek First Light

[jgs001]

Finally, after nearly 2 weeks, I got the HEQ5 out for a session. Plonked it down, I was able to carry the entire thing all bolted together which is something, with the N leg in about the right direction, plugged in, swung the scopes to open the polar scope hole, winging the dec (??) axis to set the current date and time on the circles, and started to polar align (I'd been dreading this bit, as I've got how important this bit is).

Anyway, I was having some difficulty polar aligning, I couldn't see Polaris, so I double checked and whilst I thought I'd set the altitude to 51degrees, I was sadly mistaken , Quickly rectified that, and Polaris slipped into the FOV. Some adjustments on the bolts, Polaris slid into the correct point on the reticule. I have to say that the red illumination made this very easy.

The moon was up, so I swung around to that. Shifting each axis and getting closer with each move. It took a few moments, as the movements were peculiar, but I don't think it's going to take long to get used to this mode of movement.

I had a quick look with the 5mm Hyperion and Ultima barlow and I have to say, the view, once focused was superb. I did notice that I didn't have to wait anywhere near as long for the vibrations to settle, that's much better. Then I had a few goes at imaging the moon, the results have been posted already, so I won't repeat them here.

Then as I was swinging around to look for Saturn, the power pack gave up and the mount wouldn't track or slew anymore. A quick check of the gauge and it showed as flat as a pancake. Serve me right for not charging it back up after playing with the movement controls a few times

I have to say I needed that. The mount is far easier to setup and align than I thought it would be, and the same is true for the movement controls. Hopefully I'll get a few clear nights so I can test it out further.

[rawhead]

Great to see you are getting on well with the new mount.

Shame your batteries ran flat

Looking forward to seeing some deep space stuff... Clear Skies.

Cheers

Jon

[beamish]

Nice report John, good to see you got to play !

Karlo

[jgs001]

Thanks guys.

[Ferox]

Good to hear that it's reasonably easy to set up John.

I've yet to get a chance to try my new one out and was (am) a bit nervous about it.

[jgs001]

I was pleasantly surprised. Have you run through Astro_Baby's tutorial on setting up the polar scope ? I did that during the day when I first put it together. Then use the polar align tutorial and that was it. When the mount is powered the reticule in the scope is lit in red so it's easy to see. The setup concerned me too until I tried it.

[Ferox]

Thanks John, I should have some free time over the weekend so I'll give that a go.

[jgs001]

good luck