Considering SW NEQ6 - Espirit ED80

[Pepper (Steve)]

I used to use a illuminated reticle eyepiece too, but found it to be an unreliable bit of junk. or id accidentally left it turned on from the last session and the batteries had gone flat.
Now, like martin i use BYNikon to centre the camera.

[Startrek (Martin)]

Pepper
Only the 12.5mm centering eye pieces are junk , the Orion 20mm 70 deg illuminated reticle eye piece which I used originally for my imaging scopes and now use it for my 12” Goto dob for visual astronomy is excellent, wide field , good eye relief , quality optics
They are chalk and cheese when comparing the crappy Celestron or other brands 12.5mm to the Orion 20mm 70 deg eye piece
I bought a 12.5mm when I started and couldn’t see anything, gave it away , then bought the Orion 20mm 70 deg and wow what a difference, an excellent centering eye piece !!
Cheers
Martin

[Camelopardalis (Dunk)]

Yeah I’ve never memorised the right way to slow the drift, but I often use the DARV method, and this is implemented in software tools such as APT. It’s pretty quick and easy to get decent enough polar alignment once you’ve done it a few times.

It’s one of those things where it comes down to practice...

[abetts (Ashley)]

Thanks guys, some more great tips.

I've now tried the SynScan method a few times thanks to Martin's suggestion. I've managed to convince it that the mount is well aligned (within a few seconds for both elevation and azimuth) but yet I still can see minor star trails in 10 second exposures. I'm therefore not convinced it is really aligned. I realise this could be purely operator error but it appears to stay on the star during any following recalibrations. I'm using the finder scope as it has a reticle. Maybe the limited magnification is introducing too much error for the main scope? Another thought I had was, I haven't trained for PEC as yet.

Thanks for mentioning the DARV method Dunk. I had read about it sometime back and struggled to find it again recently. I've had a quick crack but need to hone in slewing speed and embed slewing direction into brain.

Cheers,

Ashley

[Camelopardalis (Dunk)]

Ashley, hooking up a laptop gives you more options, whether it’s connecting through the hand controller or with an EQ direct cable (my preference is the latter).

Software such as APT can be mount aware and can control the slew speed for you

[abetts (Ashley)]

Originally Posted by Camelopardalis

Ashley, hooking up a laptop gives you more options

I've been thinking along these lines. I'm considering an ASIAIR Pro to avoid a dedicated laptop.

[Camelopardalis (Dunk)]

You don’t need a dedicated laptop, pretty much any one will do, as deep sky imaging is not an intensive process.

Planetary is a different kettle of fish...

[Rerouter (Ryan)]

Dunk, can I ask what about planetary is so intensive? or is it for live stacking at multiple captures per second?

[Camelopardalis (Dunk)]

It’s the data write speed. When chasing planets (and to some extent, the Moon), to get the most out of the conditions it’s best to capture at high frame rates, and that requires good and consistent write speed. Not so hard to achieve these days with the price of SSD, but any type of spinning disk will not be fast enough and it’ll drop too many frames.

FWIW, a fast 80mm scope is not what is typically used to chase planets, it’s more of a wide field scope