centauri
09-10-2007, 05:41 PM
The mighty new EQ6 arrived yesterday so here is a quick rundown of my first impressions.
Impression 1, Jesus the boxes are heavy. :scared:That was also the consensus from SWMBO as she had the honour of accepting delivery and moving them inside.
It came in two LARGE boxes, one containing the mount and the other the tripod and counterweights.
Opening the tripod box first, trying to not act too excited in front of the missus, the first thing of notice was the sheer size of the legs.
Being used to the eq5 tripod and numerous other camera and accessory tripods, this thing was so impressive I could hardly contain myself, but I must as we cannot be seen by those watching to be excited.:rolleyes:
The tripod was very well packed for shipping and was in pristine condition, so it was out of the box and onto the floor with it, all in the blink of an eye. There was then a moment of reflection as I stood back and admired it, but that was short lived and it was on to the next box with glee.
Again the mount itself was well packed and blemish free, I quickly dove in to remove it and was soon met with an unexpected resistance, you will all know this as gravity x mass. It weighs a ton, well not really but it catches you unaware the first time you try and lift it out.
Staggering to the tripod with the mount in the “hug me, hug me” grip it was soon in position and the base screw tightened to secure it.
Once again I stood back in contemplation and awe at the immensity of the thing as a whole.:)
Attachment of the accessories was a snap and without much reference to the manual all was assembled. OK now what? Well time to move it out the back yard and put it through it’s paces.
To move the thing required removing the mount again as if left whole I would break my back!
Tripod out first and then I noticed that the mount AZ post was in the wrong spot by 180degrees. A quick removal / replacement with the trusty Leatherman and it was corrected. This is necessary to ensure the weight of the mount is over the leg that is to point South.
Levelling the tripod without mount needed the use of my Suunto clinometer (accurate to 0.5 degrees) as the bubble level is on the mount itself. Once the mount was put on I could clearly see that the inbuilt bubble level was not really accurate, rechecking with the clinometer confirmed this.
Next, using the clinometer again, home position was accurately determined and locked.:thumbsup:
I then placed a specially made straight edge made of Jarrah wood into the mount saddle and tightened. The straight edge is around 1.5 metres long and the majority protrudes toward the rear of the mount.
With this I then used the compass on the Suunto to set the mount exactly to 178.5 degrees which is the true south setting for this locale. The straight edge enables the compass to get reference from the scope mount point and be far enough away from the mount not to effect the compass reading.
All set now for the attachment of the OTA, in this case my 6inch Mak would be the guinea pig.
The power lead supplied is not very long or very heavy gauge, so I used my existing one which is supplied by a 12volt deepcycle battery kept charged by a solar panel (we have lots of sun up here, anyone want some?)
Power and handset connected time for the smoke test. Well guess what there aint none, smoke that is.:P A beep from the controller, led illuminated and all is well. Data entered into controller as requested, paying attention to the date format of mm/dd/yyyy and 24hour time clock.
All good so far, time for an alignment. Alpha Centauri provided a likely one star target so it was selected and the button pressed. Off went the mount in search of the target, but wait what’s this? It’s going the wrong way both in Ra and Dec. :help:Rechecking all the input settings, home position, reinitialising the mount all made no difference. What could be the problem I asked in calm and relaxed manner (ok I lie) , so it was off to the internet for advice, and guess what I found…nuthin’. After a couple more attempts I decided to go with the flow and let it do it’s thing and go the wrong way if it wanted and then I manually brought the target to bear with the keypad, I was now prompted by an “alignment successful” message, go figure?:shrug:
So the litmus test was to perform a goto, likely target Jupiter was selected, and off the mount went and blow me down with a feather, Jupiter appeared on the finder scope and slewing stopped.
Trying to fine tune Jupiter in the scope with 25mm EP was weird.
Every time I moved the position with the keypad it rebounded back to original position it came from, WHAT THE?:sadeyes:
This was the effect I knew well from the eq5 with autostar mod, it’s called rubber banding.
So off to the backlash settings I went and discovered they where set for 3 degrees on both Ra and Dec. I reset them to 0 for now and went on testing.
I performed a 2 star alignment and did some more testing and the result brought a massive smile to the dial.
I tested tracking by centering Jupiter and left it alone for almost an hour and it was still almost centre…WOW!
In all I am very impressed and like what I have seen so far. I am looking forward to many hours at the helm!
:2thumbs:
Rgds
Darren
Impression 1, Jesus the boxes are heavy. :scared:That was also the consensus from SWMBO as she had the honour of accepting delivery and moving them inside.
It came in two LARGE boxes, one containing the mount and the other the tripod and counterweights.
Opening the tripod box first, trying to not act too excited in front of the missus, the first thing of notice was the sheer size of the legs.
Being used to the eq5 tripod and numerous other camera and accessory tripods, this thing was so impressive I could hardly contain myself, but I must as we cannot be seen by those watching to be excited.:rolleyes:
The tripod was very well packed for shipping and was in pristine condition, so it was out of the box and onto the floor with it, all in the blink of an eye. There was then a moment of reflection as I stood back and admired it, but that was short lived and it was on to the next box with glee.
Again the mount itself was well packed and blemish free, I quickly dove in to remove it and was soon met with an unexpected resistance, you will all know this as gravity x mass. It weighs a ton, well not really but it catches you unaware the first time you try and lift it out.
Staggering to the tripod with the mount in the “hug me, hug me” grip it was soon in position and the base screw tightened to secure it.
Once again I stood back in contemplation and awe at the immensity of the thing as a whole.:)
Attachment of the accessories was a snap and without much reference to the manual all was assembled. OK now what? Well time to move it out the back yard and put it through it’s paces.
To move the thing required removing the mount again as if left whole I would break my back!
Tripod out first and then I noticed that the mount AZ post was in the wrong spot by 180degrees. A quick removal / replacement with the trusty Leatherman and it was corrected. This is necessary to ensure the weight of the mount is over the leg that is to point South.
Levelling the tripod without mount needed the use of my Suunto clinometer (accurate to 0.5 degrees) as the bubble level is on the mount itself. Once the mount was put on I could clearly see that the inbuilt bubble level was not really accurate, rechecking with the clinometer confirmed this.
Next, using the clinometer again, home position was accurately determined and locked.:thumbsup:
I then placed a specially made straight edge made of Jarrah wood into the mount saddle and tightened. The straight edge is around 1.5 metres long and the majority protrudes toward the rear of the mount.
With this I then used the compass on the Suunto to set the mount exactly to 178.5 degrees which is the true south setting for this locale. The straight edge enables the compass to get reference from the scope mount point and be far enough away from the mount not to effect the compass reading.
All set now for the attachment of the OTA, in this case my 6inch Mak would be the guinea pig.
The power lead supplied is not very long or very heavy gauge, so I used my existing one which is supplied by a 12volt deepcycle battery kept charged by a solar panel (we have lots of sun up here, anyone want some?)
Power and handset connected time for the smoke test. Well guess what there aint none, smoke that is.:P A beep from the controller, led illuminated and all is well. Data entered into controller as requested, paying attention to the date format of mm/dd/yyyy and 24hour time clock.
All good so far, time for an alignment. Alpha Centauri provided a likely one star target so it was selected and the button pressed. Off went the mount in search of the target, but wait what’s this? It’s going the wrong way both in Ra and Dec. :help:Rechecking all the input settings, home position, reinitialising the mount all made no difference. What could be the problem I asked in calm and relaxed manner (ok I lie) , so it was off to the internet for advice, and guess what I found…nuthin’. After a couple more attempts I decided to go with the flow and let it do it’s thing and go the wrong way if it wanted and then I manually brought the target to bear with the keypad, I was now prompted by an “alignment successful” message, go figure?:shrug:
So the litmus test was to perform a goto, likely target Jupiter was selected, and off the mount went and blow me down with a feather, Jupiter appeared on the finder scope and slewing stopped.
Trying to fine tune Jupiter in the scope with 25mm EP was weird.
Every time I moved the position with the keypad it rebounded back to original position it came from, WHAT THE?:sadeyes:
This was the effect I knew well from the eq5 with autostar mod, it’s called rubber banding.
So off to the backlash settings I went and discovered they where set for 3 degrees on both Ra and Dec. I reset them to 0 for now and went on testing.
I performed a 2 star alignment and did some more testing and the result brought a massive smile to the dial.
I tested tracking by centering Jupiter and left it alone for almost an hour and it was still almost centre…WOW!
In all I am very impressed and like what I have seen so far. I am looking forward to many hours at the helm!
:2thumbs:
Rgds
Darren