Greg, I think the RC's are a bit out of the price range for now. I don't know if I can pass up the value for money $1,349 8" newt on the HEQ5, looks like it fits the bill nicely.
I may pick one of these up shortly, if its good value for AP as well as provides me some nice, convenient goto visual performance, then perhaps the other scopes may become redundant and then fund any more bits and pieces later on. In the meantime the idea of firing up a goto scope is quite exciting (but may bring a new raft of clouds and rain for Sydneysiders )
Sorry about that in advance.
I really appreciate all the fabulous and experienced advice from everyone. Thank you all so much...
Well, I don't muck around once the decision has been made, I just came home from picking up the BDN200 and HEQ5Pro from Andrews for $1349 and am looking forward to putting it all together and then staring at some CLOUDS.
Sorry for the inclement weather that will inevitably wash away most parts of Sydney now....
Thanks again to all who contributed to this thread, I will no doubt keep you informed of my progress with the new beast.
Good choice of gear. I think you chose well.
The RCs are also more finicky to image with and probably need
some modification to bring them up to being operational.
8 inch F5 imaging will be very rewarding.
You will need a Baader MPCC coma corrector and whatever adapter is needed
to connect it to your DSLR.
Also its good to have a laser collimator. I bought a cheap Antares unit
from Scope Stuff that did the job. I found it very very hard to collimate
my Vixen R200SS F5 200mm Newt without it. But with it it was very
easy and only took about 5 minutes to collimate.
Basically the skywatcher newts have a funny focuser which is great for visuals but the 2" adapter they use is far too long to allow cameras to come to focus. Therefore owners of the scope usually end up cutting down the adapter (see the link) or buying a new focuser. Don't do any of this though until you have an MPCC and know where the focus point is as the MPCC changes the focus point.
The other option is to fit extra long collimation bolts to lift the primary mirror higher up the tube (this is what I did).
Good choice of gear. I think you chose well.
The RCs are also more finicky to image with and probably need
some modification to bring them up to being operational.
8 inch F5 imaging will be very rewarding.
You will need a Baader MPCC coma corrector and whatever adapter is needed
to connect it to your DSLR.
Also its good to have a laser collimator. I bought a cheap Antares unit
from Scope Stuff that did the job. I found it very very hard to collimate
my Vixen R200SS F5 200mm Newt without it. But with it it was very
easy and only took about 5 minutes to collimate.
Greg.
Thanks Greg,
I picked up a Baader MPCC at the same time as the mount and I think I already have all the T ring adaptors I need to connect it to the scope as I tried this with the 12" dob previously.
I have a Laser collimator also from the dob days.
Now that I have the hand controller reflashed (after some DARK time when I killed it with my USB to serial converter) I found Geoff's post about using a REAL serial port and she is now working again. SCHWEEET.
Now I can get back to working out the Stellarium to HEQ5 tutorial which wasnt working because the USB to serial had the wrong driver, fingers crossed, I should have that worked out soon.
MAN, I havent even had time to collimate it yet.
Might post a pic soon, this thing is A BEAST, almost 6 foot tall with the tripod legs DOWN! Glad I didnt go for the 10" - that would have been massive.
Basically the skywatcher newts have a funny focuser which is great for visuals but the 2" adapter they use is far too long to allow cameras to come to focus. Therefore owners of the scope usually end up cutting down the adapter (see the link) or buying a new focuser. Don't do any of this though until you have an MPCC and know where the focus point is as the MPCC changes the focus point.
The other option is to fit extra long collimation bolts to lift the primary mirror higher up the tube (this is what I did).
Hope this all makes sense.
Dave.
Thanks Dave,
I will keep all this in mind when (OR IF) the clouds clear and I can go out and use it for some visual work. I really need to slow down and get used to driving the mount first and enjoy the experience before I try taking photos in the DARK.
Fingers crossed, I will get the gremlins out and first light may not be far away.
i find the 10" quite large to the point if i was doing visual work, ide be standing up on the 2 and sometime 3 rung , so i got to the point where I just take images and look at things that way happy days!
Well, I just found out that the freaking Celestron Ascom driver the manual recommends DOES NOT WORK using the PC direct setting on the controller, so I downloaded the EQMOD ascom driver and used that instead.
NOW I have the scope sitting in my study connected to my hard wired serial port on my old computer talking to Stellarium and spinning around when I tell it to slew...!
Almost there. All I have to do is duplicate the settings on my laptop and try it with the serial to USB (NEVER worked before coz I was using the STUPID Celestron driver like the manual said. JEEZ! It definitely didnt work as the home computer is controlling the scope fine using the EQmod controller. Sweet.
Fingers crossed. The final piece could be coming together for tonight.
Yay for me, got the laptop's USB to serial working fine with the EQmod program and the EQAscom driver, which is all you really need to control the HEQ5. Laptop can sync the scope, drive it manually or even goto the cursor in Stellarium just by hitting CTRL 1 - and off it goes!
Yeehah! Now I am cooking with gas, all I need to get now is a powertank so I can use it outside instead of my son's laptop cord and I am ready to go do some visual.
I spose I should collimate the tube before then, but hey, important things come first...
Wow Chris it sounds like you're learning fast with this new system! Good work getting it to talk to the computer!
As for getting a power tank, I would recomend steering clear of any product which uses normal SLA (sealed lead acid) batteries. "Normal" SLA batteries are not designed to be deep cycled ie discarged and recharged. I went to a battery specialist and bought a 20AH deep cycle gel battery designed for an electric wheel chair. I think it was about $150 but boy is is good! It doesn't need to be a gel battery, just ensure its good for deep cycle. Otherwise you can kill a battery quite quick if its not designed for the purpose. I'd also recommend one of the battery fighter type of chargers specifically designed for SLA batteries.
There are some good threads on this site about batteries if you search around.
So where are these photos you've promised??? We want to see it!
Wow Chris it sounds like you're learning fast with this new system! Good work getting it to talk to the computer!
So where are these photos you've promised??? We want to see it!
Thanks Dave,
Yes, I was little worried about it when the handset wouldnt power up after I busted it, but I found Starkler's post on using a fixed com port and voila, 30 seconds later it was flashed with the latest firmware and database.
I took some photos for you to show you how pretty it is as well as one of my ugly mug so you can see just how big the set up is, as I am 6 foot 9 and the tripod legs are all the way down!
Cheers
Chris
Last edited by Screwdriverone; 14-07-2010 at 12:39 PM.
Reason: Fixed Pictures
Congrats Chris, a "jump in head first" man like myself.
Just a comment on collimation. You may be way ahead of me on this subject, but I found with my f5 newt that the simple laser + barlow method gave excellent easy to use results.
You may have clouds.....here it's clear skies (and high winds)
I started posting a LONG essay here about my first light tonight, but decided to shift it over to the Obs reports forums instead as a stand alone post here.
A little bit of wind and clouds tonight but all in all a successful first light (visual only) until the clouds swarmed me and I got a bit cold. Collimation was good, only had to tweak it a bit once everything chilled in the night air, but surprised in the performance of the 200mm scope.
Skip over an have a read of my first light post (or short story - as is my wont)
congrats on the successful first light with the new rig. Just something for you to remember, it will take a little while but give it say 12 months or so and you will be nigh on imaging without having to stand by while images are happening. That is where your 12" will come into play, something to do while you set your mount off to do 3 hours worth of exposures.!
)
, so i got to the point where I just take images and look at things that way 
