Newbie seeking advice

[CThody]

Hi. I am new to skywatching and imaging... I am really confused about aligning my scope for astrophotography... I have an EQ2 mount with a Skywatcher 130 and additional lenses etc to enable focusing. But I can't work out how to set the mount up to begin with. Any advice would be so much appreciated! Thanks.

[MikeP]

Hello and welcome to SGL.

You need to point the mount at Polaris (not strictly true but close enough). This means pointing it up at the right angle as well as facing in the right direction. As it happens, the angle you point it up at, is your current latitude - I'm at about 51 degrees in SE England so I have to point it up at 51 degrees.

This puts the axes of the mount's rotation parallel to the Earth's axis. So, if you are looking at a star and do nothing it will drift out of your field of view. By having the mount aligned, you can just rotate the mount with the slow motion control to counteract the Earth's rotation.

Have a Google for "setting up an equatorial mount".

HTH

Mike

PS I should have said that unless you have the motor fitted, you'll be limited to very short exposures for astrophotography. Should be OK for the moon and brighter planets though

[ombos]

this book is a must my friend Making every photon count by steve richards