HEQ5 pro set up

[Michaelxr3]

Hello

I’ve recently bought a HEQ5 pro. Last night I spent several hours attempting to set it all up with the majority of guidance from YouTube. Achieved some progress but confused! Should I start with polar alignment or home position? Polar alignment it seems can be on any distant object?  Is there any guide/cribsheet that walks you through the process start to finish? Managed to set (I think) the home position but could do with some explanation of what this achieves and why. 
Have also bought a second hand Canon D600 but based on my progress last night feels a long way off before I’ll get to use it!

[Cosmic Geoff]

Did you get a manual with it? If not, download the Skywatcher manual for the HEQ5 as a .pdf and print it out.  And study it.  Quite of the information you may find online is misleading.

You need to mechanically polar align the mount - roughly for visual use and more accurately for astrophotography.  The "home position" has the telescope OTA above the mount and pointed at the north celestial pole (close to Polaris).  The GoTo mount will use the home position as a reference when starting a star alignment, or when resuming from Park.

[malc-c]

As Geoff mentioned, worth reading the manual as that covers the points raised.

[carastro]

The first thing is to make sure your polar scope is orthogonal, you can do this by tipping one leg of the mount and pointing the polarscope at an aerial or something, then rotate your RA Axis to make sure the Aerial stays central, if it doesn't you will nbeed to adjust the little grub screws on the polarscope.  Incidentllay you'll need to rotate the Dec axis 90 degrees in order to see thgrough the polarscope.  (Pretty sure I have the right axes here, it's been a while since I have done it as I now use Polemaster.

NO POLAR ALIGNMENT IS NOT ON ANY DISTANT OBJECT.  It needs to be done on the pole star (Polaris), because the sky rotates around it.  

You need to know where polaris is at any given time as it too rotates around the pole 1 degree away, so you need to get that accurate.

My website explains how to do it (scroll to item 6)

https://sites.google.com/view/astrophotography-carole-pope/how-to-image-with-a-dslr?authuser=0

Hopefully you also have a manual, though my experience is they are often basic and assume prior knowledge.

Hope this helps

Carole 

[bosun21]

As @carastro stated polar alignment must be done on Polaris. For strictly visual just getting Polaris visually centered is good enough to track your target in the eyepiece. For astrophotography this has to be much more accurate with Polaris being placed in the exact position for your time and location. This can be found in many apps online. The home position is set on the mount once, and you can mark both axis with marker ticks when set to enable you to quickly position both axis. Using the home position aids the go to in selecting your first and second star much more accurately, as it knows its starting point. HTH.

[StevieDvd]

Polar Alignment

You are using tools/hardware/software to align the central RA axis with the North/South Celestial Poles depending on which hemisphere you are in. The manual method is to level your tripod and having it facing North (or South if you are in southern hemisphere) set the Altitude for your location and align the mount using the polarscope (if fitted).  From now on I'll just use North as an example.

You can also do this with the handset, it's in the  handset synscanHandset.pdfmanual, by a repetitive process of re-centering an alignment star (not Polaris).

Home Position

A start point for your setup by putting the mount in a known position. Typically the weights bar pointing down and towards (North) and the scope vertical and pointed towards polaris via the altitude setting for your location.  Your HEQ5 is a goto mount and has a handset that needs a rough starting position (it will assume it is set correctly) and it makes it's goto changes by adding/subtracting the number of degrees in RA/DEC based on the home position.  The home position is difficult to set accurately so the goto computer (the handset) can ask  you to make a goto and adjust it if not central in your view. These are stored for the session as 'corrections' . As mentoned above the PA process can be fine tuned by doing a goto and adjusting the Alt/Az screws which move the mount without affecting the current computer stored position.

As long as you let the handset know, you can have a different home position - perhaps with the scope horizontal instead.

Visual Use

You don't need to go overboard on the PA  a rough one is usually good enough.

Imaging

You are likely to need a good PA so that the target does not move during shortish exposures. Longer exposures need very good PA and possiby a guide camera (something to look at later when the basics are mastered). But software can be used to help you with PA and imaging - SharpCap comes to mind as good starter for both.

Any questions just ask, there are plenty who still use polarscopes and avoid computers and can image just fine. Some of us don't have polarscopes fitted and rely on software.  So there should be help which ever way your preferred usage takes you.

 

 

 

[M40]

Hello Michaelxr3 and welcome to the site. When I first got my heq5 I couldn't read enough about home position, polar alignment etc, so adding my pointers to some great help already posted. 

First off, you need a bubble level and a pencil. You also don't need the telescope to be mounted or the weights installed to set home position or polar alignment so whilst you are learning leave them off, it will be easier to adjust the mount. When you get a handle on what you are doing put them on before polar aligning.

Level the tripod, it may/may not be required but just do it, it doesn’t take long.

Release the weight bar to its lowest position and lock it. 

Home position. You have two motor clutches on the mount, RA and DEC. Using the manual from the link provided earlier, start with the DEC clutch, release the clutch and manually move the mount head So that the dovetail lock is roughly horizontal, stick your bubble on it and set it precisely to horizontal and lock the clutch. Find the DEC setting scale and lock it to 90'. Release the clutch and return the head to roughly vertical, use the setting scale to set it at 0' and lock the clutch. Put a line across the fixed part of the mount and the rotating DEC part. This enables quick return to the DEC home position. Moving to the RA axis, release the RA clutch and rotate the mount so that the weight bar is horizontal, use the bubble on the weight bar to set it exactly level then lock the clutch. Find the RA setting scale and set to 90'. Rotate the mount back so that the weight bar is at its lowest point and using the setting scale lock the clutch at 0'. Again mark the mount on the RA axis. This is your home position. The two marks enable you to return the mount to home position quickly. Use the handset to park scope in the home position. The mount will then drive to this position, then turn the power off. If it has driven somewhere else, just manually set the mount to this position, job done. Always start from the home position.

Polar alignment. In the Northern hemisphere this is done by viewing Polaris through your polar scope and positioning Polaris at the correct position in the polar scope. Have a read of the info online and get back to let us know how you are getting on. You will need to ensure the handset time is in the correct format, mm/dd/yyyy, plus your precise location. Polaris is the brightest star in the area so you should have a good idea you are looking at the right star. All the best and hope it helps.

[Michaelxr3]

Thank you all for your comments, a great help. I’ll have a good read and try again when weather is OK (not very often in Manchester, UK). Will let you know my progress. Thanks again 😀

[carastro]

We were all there at one time.  Hope it goes well for you.  

Carole 

[Michaelxr3]

Thank you Carole,

The amount of information has surprised me, and clearly some of it is simply not correct. I had a look at your website and this is helpful, thank you. Hopefully clear skies at some point this weekend. I’ll read the HEQ5 manual thoroughly to prepare also.

 

[malc-c]

Part of the problem is that there is that there is still some element of error when using a perfectly aligned polar scope (especially with older polar scopes)  as the "bubble" in which polaris is placed is so large that you could fit three or four Polarises across the diameter.  Whilst this is fine for visual, for imaging it needs to be a little more precise.

Yes there is a fair bit of confusing, even on forums.  There has always been conflicting opinions of having to have an EQ mount true and level.  Before I placed my rig in its own observatory my workflow was to place the mount level with the N leg of the tripod facing North, then without the telescope fitted perform the polar alignment.  Once I was happy with the alignment the mount would be placed in the default home position (weights down in line with the N leg of the tripod and DEC axis correctly rotated and also in line with the N leg of the tripod)  I then fitted the scope.  Power was then applied and a 3 star alignment performed, and the scope then set back to the home position form the controller before selecting the target to observe.

[michael8554]

"clearly some of it is simply not correct."

Which info did you feel is wrong ?

Michael

[Padraic M]

Not much to add to the great advice above, just that when I started, it took quite some time to get my head around alignment. It's frustrating when you can't even get step 1 right, not to mind steps 2-100. The penny finally dropped when I realised that polar alignment and star alignment are two totally different things. Most of the manuals and guides assume that you know this already (how would we???). 

For polar alignment, you need to get the RA axis of the mount lined up with the celestial poles - also known as centered on a point very close to Polaris in the Northern hemisphere. Southern hemisphere is a little more complicated, apparently.

This can be done with no telescope on the mount. It could also be done in principle with no handset, or the mount powered off, but the mount and handset provide some tools to help. Key thing for me was that polar alignment is done using the altitude and azimuth adjustment knobs on the mount only, and not the handset direction arrows or the RA/Dec clutches. I also as a matter of course level the mount before PA, but as others have said, there are schools of thought on this. As a beginner, why not just level your mount. It's a little academic anyway because I doubt the bubble level on the HEQ5, or my eyes, are certified to sub-arcsecond accuracy.

As carastro said, on the HEQ5 you need to rotate the Dec axis by 90 degrees to use the polar scope, so by definition you can't polar align in home position.

Once this is done, you can mount your scope, go to home position, and do a star alignment using the handset and the arrow keys.

I suspect that nothing turns beginners off astronomy faster than an equatorial mount!

[AstroMuni]

On 14/05/2023 at 10:33, Michaelxr3 said:

I’ve recently bought a HEQ5 pro. Last night I spent several hours attempting to set it all up with the majority of guidance from YouTube. Achieved some progress but confused! Should I start with polar alignment or home position?

I have the HEQ5 pro and its definitely PA first and then place in home position. The bit that was confusing for me in the manual was the polar scope reticle. Mine has a clockface and not the one shown in the manual. If yours has the same then you just need to get polaris at the right position on this clock. I use an app on my phone to tell me the correct position of polaris at the time of alignment. I actually ended up writing a short FAQ on this after various discussions on this forum.

The other thing that got me down a rabbit hole was people suggesting opening up the polarscope to realign the reticle so that 0 is up in the home position. You DONT need to do that, just rotate the mount around the RA axis until the 0 position is at the 12 o'clock position. The important thing to check is what @carastro has mentioned about checking if the polarscope is correctly aligned.

There is no bubble level on my HEQ5 pro. The paving is quite level where I set up so I havent felt the need to use a spirit level.

Others have explained other tips quite well so I wont repeat. 🙂 Good luck.

 

Edited May 24, 2023 by AstroMuni