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GOTO Mount choice

phattanglo

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sgazer

sgazer

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I had a CG5-GT which was great for the second hand price that I got it at, but they are very noisy. I upgraded to a HEQ5-pro, also second hand, which I control with EQ-mod and can fully recommend. Very quiet, and better weight capacity than the CG5-GT.

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phattanglo

phattanglo

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Sadly a bad back, bad wrists, fatness and oldness have helped make it an easier decision.

Ah well in another 10 or 15 years I'll be old and fat enough for a Harley or God forbid a trike ! ;)

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Eddie

Eddie

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HEQ5 for me too...but at that price, you could almost stretch to the syntrek version of the 6, and EQDIR control it..

But the 5 is superb

unless you really needed to put a big scope on your mount. get a HEQ5 Pro (or syntrek) as they have smoother PE and thus will increase detail in your images.

Eddie

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Astro_Baby

Astro_Baby

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If you buy an HEQ5 thats been upgraded make sure you give a throurough test before parting with any money.

After upgrade mine was a bitch to get it to work and it ended up being completely stripped down and rebuilt - now that was good news for the astro world cos everyone got a decent strip down guide - but if it had worked I wouldnt have complained. The stripping down of an HEQ5 is not much fun for most people.

For all I know the seller is a jolly nice chap and his upgrade worked perfectly but theres a chance it didn't do use caution.

Why would the upgrade fail ? Well the standard motors have a lot more torque and go so slow that the mount can be very roughly tuned at the factory and work ok. Wehen you put the upgrade motors in for Synscan then the mount needs to slew real fast which highlights any small problems. In my mounts case the gears bound up very badly and as there werenet any tuning guides for the HEQ5 I had to take it to bits to find out what was up.

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phattanglo

phattanglo

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Well my trusty steed has gone to a new owner and I find myself in a state of solvency.

Being mindful of the minimum computer spec required for stellarium to operate correctly, it occurred to me that I might just be able to afford the mount and a cheap laptop if a syntrek mount was to prove cheaper than synscan.

Does a mount operate the same via EQmod as it does through a Synscan handset ?

I am absolutely new to the world of goto and really I want to make it as uncomplicated and straight forward for myself

as possible.

I'm looking at laptops on ebuyer for example. How can I tell from the spec if a particular laptop will support openGL as the descriptions don't seem to mention this.

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Astro_Baby

Astro_Baby

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I dont use a PC with mine - for me portability was the key and having to lug a laptop and extra power was a complete no-no.

I have seen it done with a PC and it was nice - kind of rinky but for me its too much hassle as I;d have to get a decent laptop and it all just started to look like a headache.

I guess if portability isnt an issue it would be ok - cant say whats needed to get a Syntrek to interface with a PC.

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phattanglo

phattanglo

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I suspect you're right Mel.

It was just a thought to incorporate a laptop into the equation but I would imagine my lack of knowledge could easily turn it into a major headache.

Simplicity, I'm a big believer in it.

Well being a simple soul, I would. :)

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ncjunk

ncjunk

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I would say it does depend on what you want. If portability is important (and you don´t already have a laptop) then possibly the syncscan is the better option.

As far as connecting it up and how it works, once you have the usb lead you just connect it to the pc and the port on the heq5. After first installing the ASCOM platform, EQMOD and CdC or Stellarium.

You can then run CdC and select the telescope to connect to, the EQMOD Ascom driver will show on the list. Then to go to an object you browse or search for the object you want then right click on it and select GoTo.

Obviously you also need to configure your long and lat and also the comms port for the Comms cable which connects to the mount but it isn´t too dificult and you can always ask on here.

It does come down to whether a pc is going to be too bulky and a pain to use. I already had one and was building an observatory so it was a no brainer for me to save a bit of money on the Goto and just use the PC I had.

It is nice just right clicking on a target and selecting goto...or browsing around CdC to see what there is.

budget 20 - 30 pounds for the cable, the details are on the eqmod website if you wanted to build one.

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phattanglo

phattanglo

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Well truthfully no I don't need a new laptop as I've been quite happily using my old desktop since my laptop became ill.

Right decision time, a secondhand HEQ5 pro Synscan mount, a pair of lowish budget 10x50's and a nice treat for Mrs Phattanglo.

That sounds like a recipe for a nice quiet earache free life :)

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StarMan1701

StarMan1701

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Just to confuse the issue again...

Stellarium doesn't need ASCOM drivers loaded to operate the mount any more - the latest versions have built-in 'plugins' for most popular mounts which are very easy to configure. In addition, the very latest release, 10.5, can also be run in a 'no Open GL' mode...

Lee.

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ncjunk

ncjunk

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You can always have a play in the house, if you get the goto version, by connecting to the handset using the pc direct cable that comes with it (i think) and installing the software on your old desktop.

No good for taking outside but you could have a play!

didn´t know that Lee, makes it a bit easier then!...I use Ascom as I am using it on ACP observatory control then that acts as a hub for everything else.

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Macavity

Macavity

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If you don't want a Laptop (I'm happy with just a desktop) a 10" (e.g. Samsung) Notepad runs Stellarium via an perfectly adequate screen and virtually all night long. Now a lot cheaper (£150?) than when I bought mine a year ago... :)

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phattanglo

phattanglo

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I suppose it's what you're used to, I downloaded cdc to have a play with and having only used stellarium prior to this I found cdc a bit confusing but I'll persevere with cdc as my old laptop does appear to run it ok, I just don't find it as natural to use as stellarium.

I can feel the need for SGL's combined wisdom coming on :)

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Merlin66

Merlin66

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Carte du Ciel is a powerful star mapping program which can access almost every database available, and show stars down below 18mag! IMHO ever better to use than TheSky V6.

IMHO Stellarium is a pretty planetarium "visual" program, good for novices to see what's up in the sky at the moment and provides a useful representation of the night sky...CdC does even more.

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