eq6 pro arrived today!

[AlexN]

shame i'm not home till 9 pm. My house mate just called to say 'damn. What the hell is this thing. Its huge and weighs a ton!' lol.

As big kev would say. I'm excited!

[madtuna]

Don't get too excited..look what happened to Big Kev :D

Congrats Alex! go you!!

[Tandum]

Finally ... I guess you'll be up for the next 4 days straight then :)

[AlexN]

yeah probably. 4 or 5 :) i'll attempt sleeping maybe.. I dont have a guide scope yet. But wide field photo's and short unguided shots through the refractor. Rings for the newt due tomorrow..

[RB]

Excellent Alex, just in time too huh.......

[Tilt]

Yep, my EQ6 arrived today too. Just set it up in the garage and powered up! All is well :thumbsup:

Wide field 60sec shots are ok without guiding, did that last weekend on David's (Prickly) EQ6 and they turned out quite good.

[vash]

So we can blame this on you?:P (see attached image)
Don't worry the moon will get rid of the cloud and rain.
Mind you when I first got my EQ6 Pro it didn't stop raining for months.

You'll love it when It's all up and running, congrats.

[AlexN]

hah.. yeah im still at work now but have seen that theres some fine wispy clouds kicking around... in all the areas of interest.. :(

Yes, tis my fault... I told my housemate when he called to tell me it had arrived, I said " $5 says it clouds over for the next few days.. just to give me the sh!ts! :)"

[vash]

Lucky I live a little to the south, but I had a good run with my new purchase, I could handle some sleep.

[AlexN]

sleep?? Pfft... Thats quitter talk! :P

[vash]

I'm setting up as I type

[AlexN]

Thats the spirit! :) I will be in 2 - 3 hrs... and then I'll be cursing the gods for not making Octans brighter.. then Cursing myself for not having better eyesight... or something along those lines... I dont expect to get any photography done tonight.... Chances of even getting it aligned well enough for good visual use is probably lowish :) We'll see... I'll be happy to get it up and running and balanced...

[vash]

yeah, I'm drift aligning now, Just got to pick a target.

[AlexN]

M104 is in a good spot at the moment... (depends on your light pollution... So im M83... Of course you could follow the trend and hit M20/M8 when they get a bit higher...

[vash]

Nailed it right on the head
M83 has been a challenge to capture for me, and I've had a bit of a rough one getting set up, just getting the auto guiding and I'm off imaging, there is light cloud out too, just for the extra challenge.

[IanL]

Looking good over Brisbane for you new EQ6 proers :)
Nice and clear
Enjoy


Ian

[vash]

not so much down here, all my shots are very brown in colour. Last night was the best I'd ever seen the sky here, tonight is the exact opposite.

[Matty P]

Congrats Alex, I'm looking forward to see what you can do with it.

:thumbsup:

[mrsnipey]

You don't need clear skies for the first night or so while you're working out all the options. Mine was setup for two days before I ventured outside with enough confidence to actually use the thing.

[AlexN]

Can I ask how people power their EQ6's? I didnt expect to have to buy a 12v power supply separately from the mount... Any hints??

[Tandum]

I use an old car battery in a square bucket with a battery charger on it :)

It's cheap ....

[AlexN]

would the battery charger work on its own? I have one sitting in the garage... Says on it that its output is 12v DC 2.5A... the mounts manual states it requires 11-15vDC with sustained current above 2A...

Sounds like it would work to me?

[Tandum]

I wouldn't risk it, the battery acts like a huge capacitor smoothing the volts. Voltage regulation on battery chargers is either very poor or non existant. Don't blow it up on day one :)

[AlexN]

Yeah... true... nobody wants to see a big man cry! :)

Oh, Just for fun... heres this...

[h0ughy]

hope you get to use it someday

[AlexN]

its clouded over HARD this morning... I wasnt able to see a single star in the sky last night....

there was wispy clouds till i mounted the head on the tripod... then it closed over thick and fast

[mrsnipey]

I bought a 3A 12v regulated power supply for $60 from Richard Smiths for when I'm close to AC. No problems so far and saves having to charge my 7ah battery all the time.

[MrB]

At a guess I don't think a regulated supply is necessary as the manual says 11-15v supply, suggesting to me the mount has it's own regulator, hardly surprising as the chips cost less than a dollar in bulk.
Don't take that as gospel though, better to be safe than sorry.

[AlexN]

i got the dickies 12v3a regulated power supply, came with a ciggy lighter plug.. Powered her up this morning and input location information etc. 3 star alignment didnt go well at 10 am :) but slewed it around to check balance.. All sounded sweet. I'm happy i got a quick play in before work. Just need the clouds to move along.

[mrsnipey]

It's not looking promising for tonight Alex.

[AlexN]

it aint lookin good till next wednesday or so :(

[Prickly]

Sorry to hear about the bad weather. Obviously too many people buying Eq6s!

Just a suggestion. As much as the polarscope use seems a bit of a nightmare it is actually much simpler than you might think. If you can work out south and your latitude and find the asterism you will be pretty close. After a 1 star align my target star is in the field of view low power.

Saves heaps of time after you have done it once. You then just line the polar axis with an object in the distance and you should be pretty close to the asterism next time round. You can leave your polar axis altitude pretty much set for next time.

Cheers
David

[Tilt]

Yep, full cloud cover overhead here in Canberra... /sigh.

Hows it looking up your way now Alex?

[AlexN]

saw acrux and Jupiter for about 40 seconds or so through some low level cloud... but then it quickly clouded over....

The EQ6 is spending another night out of use....

Getting the balance right for my big honkin refractor is actually quite difficult.... especially when adding the weight of the 350D+70-200L on top.. I think its right.. but I would feel a lot more comfortable if there was someone else who knew more about it than I who could have a look for me... Last thing i want to do is damage the mount due to it being mis-balanced.. it stays still where ever i situate it on RA and DEC axis... no matter where i point it, if i swing it around the RA axis it turns and slowly comes to a stop in either direction... but im still uming and ahhing..

[renormalised]

I've got the perfect viewing night, tonight and I can't use it cos' my back's playing up!!!. I should try and teleport it down your way:D:P:P:D

[AlexN]

Please do! :D

I've seen a couple of stars this evening... but nothing worthy of moving the mount outside.... :(

///On the verge of tears!!

[renormalised]

I'll give you a description of what it's like....no cloud anywhere, transparency about 8-8.5, 10ºC, calm (and no jetstream), NO MOON!!!.

[AlexN]

I dont like the word... But I'll use it after that....

i... HATE... you right now :P

Lol.. well atleast you cant enjoy it either... (sorry to hear about your back though... no good at all..)

[renormalised]

:P:P

Yeah, got arthritis and my back is making life a little unpleasant.

[White Rabbit]

Oh, man , I feel you pain. I bought my 12" LB about a month ago and it was cloudy for three weeks straight, couldnt believe it.

Hope it clears up for your guys soon.

Sandy

[peter_4059]

I use either a 12V jump starter (Supercheap Auto variety) or a 240V/12V regulated power supply (Dick Smith variety).

[Tilt]

Its clear here now in Canberra, just tore the plastic off the EQ6 and set it up outside. I better go and polar align. Again, will shoot at 135mm tonight.

[AlexN]

It is definitely not clear here... black skies in all directions.. :(

Best of luck Tilt! I'll be on the lookout for your pics! :D

[Tilt]

No worries mate, I will see what I can come up with. Hopefully a good wide field of some sort.

[leinad]

Likewise.

[leinad]

Ive had my EQ6 for just over a month now. Only had a few weekends of use due to bad weather. The weather gods must enjoy frustrating us new EQ6 users.

A thing that discomforts me about slewing sometimes is that the motors/gears or whatever it is, whines at different pitches with small adjustments. It oftens worries me and I'll have to slew a small amount more Rate 1-2, to make the odd pitch noise go away and sound normal. Not sure how to explain it; you'll see what I mean maybe.

[AlexN]

yeah mine changes its pitch as it slows towards the end of the slew, then makes a short low pitch buzz during the "end slew" beep.

[Matty P]

Yep, the exact same thing happens with my EQ6 when making small adjustments. At first I was worried that there was some kind of problems with the gears or that the load was too heavy but after I realised that there was no problem, it doesn't bother me anymore.

:thumbsup:

[leinad]

Alex, you may want to check the level as well. I found the bubble guide on the mount head completely useless. Spirit level always.

I was also a little confused with balancing also. My RA and Dec balancing was Ok.
With the 8" Dob tube(Telrad,EP, Finder attached) theres a bit of weight. When counterwieht shaft is straight and south and I loosen Dec clutch, the tube will rotate to the left because theres more weight on the EP side. I had my 2 weights evenly spaced by their widths from the bottom end of the shaft. I was thinking about strapping a weight or magnet to the Dobs right side opposite the weight from the EP side of the tube.

Its actually looking not too bad outside at the moment, might go setup. The weather satellite shows lots of random cloud though :(
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/satellite.jsp

[AlexN]

yeah I leveled the mount using a spirit level.. however its leveled in the living room... so I'll re-do it when it finally goes out side...