Brief first experience with the HEM15 with iPolar mount

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I have recently had the opportunity to use my HEM15 and use the iPolar electronic polar scope for polar alignment. Levelling the mount was easy: I plonked the tripod with mount attached onto a tiled garden path and the spirit level said all was fine. I then hooked up the iPolar to my laptop and fired up the iPolar app. It connected to the camera, and then lost connection... and connected again, and lost connection... and so on. Suspecting a poor cable (it wasn't the original), I replaced the cable (the original). That showed similar behaviour, but ultimately I got a long enough duration of connection to (a) get a dark image, and (b) get a first fix on the position of the pole, after plate solving by the app. I then tried to use the hand controller, which apparently did not like the cold, because the display was near impossible to read. I connected it up to the laptop, and fired up the iOptron Commander app to control the mount, and could duly rotate the RA axis some 90 degrees, get another fix on the pole, and perform the actual alignment.  Although this was quite tedious, partly due to my inexperience with electronic polar scopes, partly due to poor connectivity (maybe due to the cold?), the polar alignment I got was absolutely spot on. I could easily do 180s subs with the Samyang 135mm F/2 without any trailing. As I had lost so much time I decided to go for imaging without guiding using 120s subs. I would go out into the garden from time to time to check progress, and perform some manual dithering if needed (usually the slight drift I get over time works out well enough). To my surprise, the tracking was extremely accurate, so I had to give the mount the odd nudge in RA and Dec for dithering. Even the next day (after leaving the mount covered overnight) it was still tracking beautifully. The result can be seen here:

 

 

[Ags]

Looking forward to getting my HEM15 in a few weeks (not in stock at FLO currently)! Three-minute subs at 135 mm focal length is quite remarkable performance for a harmonic mount I think.

I went for the non-iPolar version as iPolar only works with a laptop not a phone, and doesn't work with ASIAIR at all. I'll use the ASIAIR polar alignment routine instead. Sad to hear that the handset does not cope with even the realtivle moderate subzero conditions we have been having! But I think the only use I'll be making of the handset is plugging in the ASIAIR 😃

[fwm891]

Thanks for the write up. Waiting for my HEM27 to arrive, noted about the handset although I’ll be running an asiair plus to do pa etc., which worked well with my AZ-GTi mount. Already using Commander with a CEM60 so familiar with that. Intending to use an 80mm f6 or RASA 8 on the mount…