Drift aligment error

[naskies (Dave)]

Good work! You can repeat the polar alignment routine a couple of times to increase the alignment accuracy. The Skywatcher EQ5/EQ6 mounts are not very accurate on their own, so you'll almost certainly need to use autoguiding to not get trailing with long exposures.

[alexV]

Saxon 100 ed
Finder scope
Canon 60d

[RobF (Rob)]

I suspect you're seeing a lot of periodic error in RA and backlash in Dec Alex (people have described this earlier on). The EQ5 is a lot lighter in construction than the HEQ5 or EQ6 - only uses teflon bearings from memory. It can definitely do astrophotography, but you'll be working harder to keep it working within limits. Typically that means shorter guidescope/camera exposures (1 sec) and a lot more corrections issued versus an expensive (non-chinese) mount. Even HEQ5s and EQ6s take a lot of work to behave well as Dave says.

I get the impression you're trying to work it unguided, which is probably going to be tough for exposures over 30-60 secs?

[alexV]

So which mount will give me less headaches?

[Jon (Jonathan)]

Originally Posted by alexV

So which mount will give me less headaches?

Alex, if you are getting over a minute unguided with decent results with an EQ5 you are doing well. The next step up is autoguiding. Something like the Orion mini auto-guider package should let you get much longer subs with your setup.

[alexV]

i have Orion Awesome auto-guider package.

Can you recommend any material for setting it up?

[alexV]

Went for another session yesterday and i am glad to say that everything went perfect.

Manage to get 10 min exposures guided.

Did not had to do any drift alignment at all.

All i did was rough polar alignment, 2 star alignment and Synscan Polar alignment.

Thank you everyone for your help and hope this post will make someones life easier.


This image is 530sec not stacked but photoshoped

[IMG]http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w...psaed046e3.png[/IMG]

[Jon (Jonathan)]

Well done Alex. That's pretty good guiding! Stack 10 of those in Deep Sky Stacker and you'll have a really nice Eagle image.

[alexV]

Thank you Jon

i have tried to stack about 5 but some reason DeepSkyStaker did not like my long exposure shots.

Is it better to have lots of short exposure shots something like under a minute or fewer but longer exposure shots ?
Thank you