I have the HEQ5 with the std 4 way handcontroller and have been photographing and guiding manually - which is getting a little tedious. I've seen the Synscan upgrade kit which would give me better motors ? and an autoguider port that I assume I could then use something like the Orion autoguider and a PC to take care of all the guiding for me. Is this a worthwhile mod for my HEQ5 (particularly as it's $650)? It would be really nice to look at the sky for 5 minutes instead of squinting into an IR eyepiece while taking the photo!!
I got my HEQ5Pro + an 8" SW Newt, and a set of colour filters, and a
Lumicon DS filter for $1050, so, as RobF says, you should get a used
HEQ5 Pro for around $650-750.
raymo
What sort of imaging rig (main OTA and guidescope) would you be loading it up with?
I'll either use a 4" F5 acro refractor for the guidescope or the 4" ED F9 (as in the pic) and an ED80 for the camera (K50). Used this rig with my Pentax 1st DS a few years ago but have since upgraded to the K50 which has a much, much quieter sensor - so I'm looking forward to some nicer images out of it.
I've also rigged a ball head mount for the camera in place of the ED80 so I can do some wider field of view photos - may even invest in something like a 200mm f2.8 lens. The ball head allows me to point the camera anywhere while keeping the guide scope on a bright guide star.
I'll keep an eye on the s/h section and see what turns up over the next couple of months.
PS: I've also found that the K50 has a 'multi exposure' mode which allows me to stack up to 9 photos in camera - initial test shots look very promising (rather than stacking them in photoshop).
Apologies for off topic post John but it looks like you've caught a nice image of the crux and pointers in the background behind the scope. Would that be right?
Thanks Rodney. Yep, that shots looking towards the south. I'm about 25km away from Ballarat (pop 100,000) and on a slight hill so I've got pretty decent skies for the most part. Although there's major highway works going on with more and more lights being put up every year. Sigh.....
The dreaded light pollution - hard to get away from. I'm about 10km east of Bathurst, NSW and whilst not a completely dark sky it is still ok enough to image.
On the matter of your HEQ5 question, prior to purchasing my EQ8 I was running a HEQ5 Pro which I purchased second hand about two years ago for $800. It is a great little mount and worked well for my payload which was a Skywatchwer 100mm Apo, Canon 60Da and Orion 80mm guidescope. This lot would have weighed in around the 10kg mark which is about as far as you would want to push this mount.
where do they sell these heq5 pro's 2nd hand for $650 or so? I've been looking in classifieds here, astrobuysell, gumtree and ebay. Is there anywhere I should be looking?
We here in Australia are only a small astro community, so they only pop up from time to time, so you need to keep a sharp eye on the places you mentioned. They seem to come up in IIS classifieds fairly frequently. You
could also place a wanted ad in IIS classifieds.
raymo
I did the upgrade. I ended up getting the kit for $589.00, and it was the best thing I have done. I wasn't worried too much about the price, because I got the scope and mount for a very good price. I have seen the heq5 mounts come up from time to time in the classifieds, but they are never there when you need one.
I did the upgrade. I ended up getting the kit for $589.00, and it was the best thing I have done. I wasn't worried too much about the price, because I got the scope and mount for a very good price. I have seen the heq5 mounts come up from time to time in the classifieds, but they are never there when you need one.
Thanks! And the autoguiding's working well? (I'm assuming from your sig that you're doing a bit of photography through it).
where do they sell these heq5 pro's 2nd hand for $650 or so? I've been looking in classifieds here, astrobuysell, gumtree and ebay. Is there anywhere I should be looking?
Thanks! And the autoguiding's working well? (I'm assuming from your sig that you're doing a bit of photography through it).
Hi Hoges, yes, my son and I do a bit of photography through it and are happy with the results. They are not perfect, but I am not a perfectionist. Just happy to get some result that I can see. Auto guiding works well, but I find that because of the light pollution in my area, any exposure longer than 2 minutes @ ISO 800 starts to get too white.
A couple other things I thought I might ask about the upgrade - the 2x tracking speed on the std HEQ5 is pretty jerky/hit 'n miss to guide with. Does the upgrade give slower speeds for guiding?
Also, how effective is the periodic error correction?
I notice on my HEQ5 that the star wonders back and forth a long way in RA (I've just about got it so there's no movement in Dec over 10minutes). Would the PEC eliminate this, or at least reduce it to much smaller levels?
