Hey,
I am about to buy the HEQ5.
My ultimate goal is to discover new universes. Of course. Whose isn't.
I began with pointing my cam upwards and playing around with exposure times and ISO. Got a tripod. Understood where the streaky lines come from... By chance, I caught the outlines of the Orion nebula in a 2 secs exposure with a 200mm lens. yay! stoked!
Then I built a barn door mount - manually driven. 1 test drive showed a gain of 16 seconds exposure time on an object at 45 degrees above horizon. From 20 to 36 secs widefield - ayyaayyay! (Which must mean I understood the theories involved, too.)
I decided against attaching a mirror ball motor and speed controller to the barn door - because I would have to have a little knowledge and further tools for the
electronics involved. I might still do that - just to
do it.
But since this area is not closely connected to my ultimate goal of discovering ways to bend space and discover new universes, I'll give myself some slack here.
And simply buy the HEQ5.
(This particular model because it allows for future growth towards the ultimate 8" SCT - the maximum weight
me and this mount can handle.)
Now, I want to attach my camera to the mount and use its motorized tracking to gain yet more exposure time than with the barn door.
(No scope whatsoever, still, at this stage!)
I
imagine that the grid view in my "focusser" will help me to use 2-star alignment.
(I have a Sony Nex-5N - it has a digital display and a grid view option - no old fashioned "focusser".)
What do you think?
Will that alignment work and allow yet some more seconds of light on my chip?
And HOW would it get attached?? Does the HEQ5 ship with those metal rings which have a 1/4"20 piggy pack rod to screw the camera on?
And if I simply screw the cam onto one of those rings (should the mount come with them) - and the ring onto the mount's dove tail or whatever it is called you screw them on to -
wouldn't the empty ring with the camera weight on it catch wind and all sorts of vibrations?
What do you think?
Or is it possible to use an existing hole in the dovetail to stick a leftover 1/4-20 bolt from my barn door through it and attach my cam this way?
("existing hole" - I've never seen a dove tail and I don't want to drill a hole into it for this purpose... mainly because I don't have the tool to do so)
I would like to go 1 step at a time. Like in dating, you know what I mean?
Prolong the experience - grow exactly when the former state is no longer satisfying...
and all the time don't invest scarce money into things I can not re-use in my final setup.
IF it turns out that I will have to have a scope to properly align the mount for my camera and/or mounting the cam on it, I am thinking of getting this Mini Borg II 45ED
http://www.optcorp.com/product.aspx?pid=4178
It's portable, it can be used as guide/finder scope in the final setup (I think), it can piggy pack my Sony and it can be a camera lens, too. (If my camera can be attached to it - which I would yet have to figure out.)
Or I can piggy pack the camera on it and look through the tube ... I have never looked through a telescope, either ... one of those wonderful steps along the way I enjoy dreaming of...
But other than the site in the link I couldn't find an option to order this scope from New Zealand (and I'm not sure they would deliver it - or if they would - to an affordable price...) . Availability of all these things is always an additional problem in this beautiful country.
So maybe you have heard of an alternative lens/scope which ships in NZ?
But mainly: how can I attach my camera to the new mount to use the motorized tracking???
Thank you for bearing with me! I realize it's a very verbose and different approach ... no rocket science but all romantic ... ah well.
All ideas
a million!
All you'll need is a simple dove tail bar and a mounting screw to attach the camera to it. 
