HEQ5 PRO time zone setup problem

[Craig_L]

Hi all,

I live in Adelaide which has a time zone of 9.5 hours instead of say 10 for Sydney. The HEQ5 only allows for whole numbers to be input ie 9 or 10. How do you suggest I get around this problem - do I set it for 10 hours and add a half hour when I put the time in? Will the mount slew to the right position in "my" sky?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Craig

[Starkler (Geoff)]

Originally Posted by Craig_L

do I set it for 10 hours and add a half hour when I put the time in? Will the mount slew to the right position in "my" sky?

That should work and when daylight savings ends make it +9 instead of +10.
Apparently the daylight savings setting doesn't work for us down under.

[Craig_L]

Thanks Geoff. I'll give it a go when the clouds clear.

Craig

[Kokatha man]

Hi Craig - faced the same question myself when I recently got my HEQ5 V3.0

Evidently one of the upgrades (V3.2) does allow you to factor (our) SA and NT half hour oddity - haven't downloaded it yet but have been told this is correct: in the meantime put in EST zone (+10) and add half an hour to the time you punch in - should then be fine.

Cheers, Darryl.

[Craig_L]

Thanks Darryl,

Have just downloaded it. Will try installing it soon.

Craig

[Stephen65]

Apparently the daylight savings setting doesn't work for us down under.

That's correct, at least with my EQ-6, it only asks you about adjusting for daylight savings during the Northern Hemisphere daylight savings period, which is irrelevant to us.

What I do in Melbourne (+10 zone) is leave it on +10 time zone and always tell it to ignore daylight savings if that question appears. Then when daylight savings are on here you subtract one hour from the current time and punch that in.

In SA if you left it on +10 year-round then you would need to add half an hour outside daylight savings and subtract half an hour during daylight savings to current time.

Anyway, if you are doing a two or three star alignment accurate time is not essential, putting in a wrong time just means an error in the RA axis and after you slew to your first star and centre it then provided your scope is properly polar aligned the scope should correct for the RA error and slew accurately to the second star.