EQ8 Mount - Delivered Today !

[jcm]

My EQ8 mount was delivered today:thumbsup:
No problems installing it in the obs.
Needed to use a 7A power supply as the 5A one was insufficient. ( red light flashing - low power with 5A)

PS - The mount WILL work on a 5A power supply.
The first supply I tried was faulty!

[h0ughy]

That's great news. Don't forget to take the handle off once you are polar aligned. It does tend to catch the cables or can easily be bumped

[h0ughy]

Also the autoguiiding problem has not been fixed.

[jcm]

Thanks for the tip.
Will remove them.

John

[jcm]

Will have a go using the auto guiding port to see if the fault is still present. I already have EQMOD set up ( used with EQ6) so I can guide without using the guide port.

John

[h0ughy]

well you should have no problems then using eqmod - it wont be an issue

[jcm]

Managed to get out for a couple of hours last night.
The polar aligning was much easier with this EQ mount than with any of my previous SkyWatcher mounts. The azimuth and latitude controls are so easy to operate. I used drift alignment.

I used my Lodestar guider through the ST4 port and to my surprise apart from an initial "spike" it seemed to guide OK. ( 8" RC operating at 1200mm focal length )

EQMOD worked perfectly no problems with it at all.

I thought I would try some unguided exposures ( Canon 1100d and 8" RC at 1200mm FL)

Got as far as 2mins and the cloud rolled in.

At the moment I am collimating my RC - not quite there yet.

2min image below.

John

[AstroJunk]

Great news John, mine is still working brilliantly, especially now I have worked out where the cone error is in my system and have built a pointing model around it!

Looking forward to those clouds parting - May 2014? :P