Listen very carefully.. I shall say zis only once ...
I'm just going to leave this here. Although it's not officially released or even available I believe it will cost $2400 and a friend of mine got one from Bintel which means they can probably hook you up, maybe, if you give them the special illuminati handshake. I dunno.
My EQ6 is great, I mean bang for buck it's incredible really. My friend is getting way better guiding results already which is annoying because he's more of a beginner than I am. I'm not sure if this works with EQMOD out of the box but if I hear it does or is likely to soon I'll probably hock a kidney and get it.
This message will self destruct in 10.. 9 ... 8 ...
I'm not sure if this works with EQMOD out of the box
If yr mate can run a simple test, we can read out its capabilities and settings to see if it matches anything already there, or it has been given a new ID.
It looks like the casting has been revised around the altitude and azimuth adjustment bolts. Maybe more work under the skin to make it into a better setup?
A bit of intelligent profiling of the cast nose they press up against would make bent bolts a lot less likely.
Tripod looks identical to the old one, that's a bit of a shame IMO. Claimed payload went up from 18.2kg to 20kg, the same as for AZEQ6. Frankly speaking I am a bit sceptical in terms of dramatic improvements in tracking and also smoothness of the PE, but surely the new mount will offer some improvements over the EQ6
If yr mate can run a simple test, we can read out its capabilities and settings to see if it matches anything already there, or it has been given a new ID.
Andrew
I'm pretty sure he's using the hand controller only.
But you can bug him on instagram if you want.. here's an unboxing photo on his feed :
I will put my well tuned belt driven NEQ6 Pro up against it. Later generation NEQ6 Pro capacity was always advertised originally as 20kg, and the Bintel webpage still shows it as 20kg, but for imaging it will still require restriction to 15kg. It seems Skywatcher has now dropped the capacity in the NEQ6 Pro advertising to 18.2 on its webpage. Seems like a bit of trickery to differentiate the new model in some way, makes it seem improved. A well sorted NEQ6 Pro with Rowan belt mod kit is pretty much the same thing, if not better, as the internal casting clearance issues would have likey been cleaned up when the belt mod was done and bearing end play and worm adjustment would be better than factory slop. I would like to see one broken down before getting too excited.
A well sorted NEQ6 Pro with Rowan belt mod kit is pretty much the same thing
I've always wondered about this but I'm not very handy at that kind of mod work. I'm better at the computer end of town than the mechanical side Do people provide this kind of service for a fee? I'd consider it.
To answer your question Dylan, it is a fairly easy mod to do (costs just $208 Aud) and the instructions were very clear; importantly it gave those doing it a greater understanding of how the mount works mechanically, and thus the other tuning that needed to be done was more likely to get done at the same time (like end play and worm adjustment).
Looks to me they have implemented some of the features that they intro'd in the AZ EQ 6. I like my one, only thing they haven't done is the alt adjustment which is the best feature on my mount. Having said that, from the pics the bolts appear beefier. The carry handle is a nice touch, especially for those of use without a permanent setup. Carrying a mount head indoors at 2am on cold Colac night is never a fun experience!
I would be surprised if EQMOD didn't just work, remembering that if they have the same connector as the AZ/EQ6 so you need the USB2EQ5 adaptor or the Bluetooth version.
I would be surprised if EQMOD didn't just work, remembering that if they have the same connector as the AZ/EQ6 so you need the USB2EQ5 adaptor or the Bluetooth version.
Malcolm
Me too actually considering the huge community built around EQMOD, and that it seems like a hardware upgrade mostly, and maybe some hand controller updates, but the underlying controller could be identical. If anyone gets one please let me know.
I would hope the handle can be detached, otherwise it could get in the way of larger filter wheels and cables hanging off refractors, or when someone has motorised Moonlite rotator for example - the handle could interfere at some orientations of the rotator.
Dunno, as it now has PPEC and a snap port, so extra pins reqd.
Also, the PPEC is stored in the mounts EEProm for the other models with PPEC, so maybe a new PIC has been used???
The AZEQ5 actually changed from microchip PICs, to an ARM based processor, so will be interesting to see if the new EQ6 has been upgraded too. A simple connect test will tell if it is a type natively recognised by EQMod.
It should work with EQmod, because AZEQ6 also has PPEC and the same snap shot port, and when I swapped HEQ5 for AZEQ6 I did not need to change anything in my software.
