HEQ5 Drift alignment questions from first time poster.

[batema (Mark)]

Hello all. My school has recently purchased a Skywatcher Ed80pro and a HEQ5 pro mount. My collegue Adam and I are very keen to introduce the concept of astrophotography to our Physics course now that we have the above mentioned. We have been using a C-8 celestron in the past and are keen as anything but are still very new to astrophotography that involves accurate alignment. In the past we were happy if the star trails were not too long. Sad.
My question is in relation to the drift alignment with the mount. We focus on a star near the eastern horizon and can adjust the altitude to stop the drift of the star. Sometimes when we swing the scope to the zenith for the azimuth adjustment (hope this is right process) and we try to move the scope using the hand control we find that we can move the star in three directions but the forth will move the star to a certain point and then the star will stop and the hand button fails to move it any further even though we can hear them whiring???? We don't know what is going on with this. Could anyone offer suggestions. Thanks Mark
I would like to show two photos for feedback of the orion neb however am unsure as to how to do it. I click on insert image but unsure of what URL means and tried to attach however takes forever maybe because each photo is 50MB?????

[Astro78]

Sounds like the mount must be "reversed" to observe both sides of the meridian. This is typical to the Equatorial design and I believe a minor weakness. With my non-powered EQ5, I simply adjust the lock knobs and swing the baby right 'round to face the other portion of sky.
Can't see why it would be any different with the HEQ5 apart from some auto control feature that might place you in same position once the mount has rotated automatically??

For better alignment of azimuth you should aim high on the meridian and at the intersection of the celestial equator (further North along the meridian than the zenith). Otherwise you're still slightly at the mercy of altitude errors.

[iceman (Mike)]

Hi Batema, to IceInSpace!

When drift aligning for azimuth, I find a star slightly east of the meridian so that it gives me time to do the adjustments without the mount wanting to swing over to the West part of the sky.

For photo-uploading and attaching, you need to resize it to web-sized.. so, resize it to something like 800px wide and save it as a jpeg. It needs to be under 200kb and then you can use the "Manage Attachments" link and upload it from there.