My new Skywatcher Esprit 100ED has finally arrived! I recently sold my RC, ED80 and a host of accessories and bits and bobs in order to fund an upgrade to this triplet f/5 refractor. The whole automation project got me thinking that, as much as I loved the RC, if I needed to go into […]
Fun with PI! Having invested in Warren Keller’s excellent tutorial DVDs and book on Pixinight, I ran a test of doing a simple 4-pane mosaic of M31. I wanted to see if the step-by-step guide was going to help with the process and also how easy it was in PI. So, I started off drawing […]
I have been making progress on my automation project over the last couple of months and there has been some fun activities recently! Things are moving in the right direction and now getting to the stage where I need to start thinking about physical installation – how will I house the circuit boards and related […]
I have been working on a project for the Eastern Veil over the last few weeks, and now have started the processing. I have noticed that I have a definite ‘smearing’ of stars and I need to track down the reason! It seems to be OK at the bottom right hand corner, stretching up to […]
I have acquired a SkyWatcher AZ-EQ6GT from those good folk at FLO, so I took the opportunity of the bank holiday weekend to start installing it into the observatory….
I have acquired a SkyWatcher AZ-EQ6GT from those good folk at FLO, so I took the opportunity of the bank holiday weekend to start installing it into the observatory.
On the to-do list for this year was a respray of the pillar, so while I had the mount off, I took the opportunity to do this. I stripped the adapter off, gave that a rub-down and resprayed that as well.
I leveled the head and then I got the AZ-EQ6GT mounted. I had already mounted it on the tripod earlier in the day and checked the polar reticule alignment – which was actually pretty good – and got it aligned to North. I leveled the mount and attached the ADM mounting plates before getting called away to some pressing house-hold chores!
I got the mount connected to EQASCOM and got it set to my LEVEL park position (both axis horizontal), and then checked the other park positions – all A-OK!
The sound the mount makes, while similar to the EQ6, is much quieter and does not have the ‘chatter’ of the mechanical cogs and worms. I’m looking forward to seeing how the belt drive performs against the EQ6!
So, now need to re-run cable loom and find the mounting points for the RC8 and ED80 – and then should be good to go!! This of course means that clouds and poor weather will now ensue for months on end!!
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