[Stephane]

Originally Posted by Drac0

I would settle for a clear night to image ANYTHING...

Mark, my thoughts exactly. I am getting depressed just looking at the weather forecast. I still have a few things on order to arrive, but the telescope is coming tomorrow apparently. Very exciting!

Originally Posted by leon

Nice Stephane, Orion would be great, but whatever it will be is exciting for the first time, enjoy.

Leon

Thanks Leon, I saw Trevor Jones (Astrobackyard on Youtube) has a great Photoshop trick to softly blend two photos at different exposure lengths so as to get good detail and not blow out the core. Looks reasonably easy to replicate, so I will try that!

Originally Posted by Startrek

Stephane,
Congratulations on your new EQ6-R !!!
Great mount and will serve you well for many many years
As an out of the box mount , it will be perfectly fine for unguided ( short exposure) and guided long exposure Astrophotography ,but later on down the track your seeking tighter guiding you “may have to” check backlash and tweak a few things. My first EQ6-R didn’t need any tweaking but my 2nd EQ6-R purchased 12 months later did , it had a bit of backlash on both Dec and Ra which was fixed in 30 mins ( thanks to a video from Cuiv the lazy geek)
As they are mass produced mounts , there maybe a few that slip through the cracks without a good quality control check prior to sign off , packing and shipping.Also remember mounts in this 20kg category can vary in price from $2,500 to $15,000.
That’s not to say they are bad mounts , they are damn good mounts for the quality performance and price , but stringent QC is not on the top of the list priorities coming out of Taiwan ( as with most mass produced items exported from these regions )
Anyway , good luck ,enjoy your new mount and most importantly enjoy the journey into Astrophotography
Best
Martin

Thanks Martin, your advice has been invaluable. Last night I downloaded EQMOD, connected the mount to the computer using the eqmod cable you recommended and went through your PDF procedure to then slew to targets using Stellarium. It was fun getting that all to work even with no telescope on the mount. I still took care to balance the mount by using the extension counter weight bar, but without using the weights so as not to put any strain on the gears. Frustration was minimal thanks to a well-explained document. Thanks again.

The BT200 f/5 comes tomorrow. I recently purchased a Baader MPCC MkIII coma corrector and ASI120 guide cam. Just waiting for the guidescope and L-Extreme filter to arrive through the post. I know the filter and CC weren't necessary so early on, but I just couldn't resist.

I watched that video from Cuiv some time ago. Needless to say, unless I'm encountering terrible backlash, I will not be playing with those screws, especially so early on. Good to know though that tweaking can improve performance down the track.

Thanks for all your help,
Stéphane