Sktwatcher HEQ5 Pro First Impressions

[Juno16]

Thank you everyone for your very helpful replies on the thread "New Mount Advice" viewtopic.php?f=24&t=21203

As you can tell by the title of this thread, my new mount is the Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro.

This is basically the same mount as the Orion Sirius which was my first choice when I started AP. I had a very limited budget at the time and went with the Celestron AVX because I could get a new one (open box) on High Point Scientific in the $700 range.

Don’t get me wrong though. I really enjoyed the past 4 years with the AVX. I learned a heck of a lot about tweaking and trying to get the most out of the mount. It did me right too. I got lots of images that I am very happy with. I am not through with it yet either. It works great for visual which is what I plan to use it for when I am imaging with the Sharpstar 61.

I ordered the HEQ5 Pro last week. Got it quickly from High Point Scientific and set up in a spare room to get familiar with it.

Of course, it is still new and quite a bit different from the AVX, but I thought that I would share my impressions and comparisons.

I referred to the manual a few times, but pretty much set it up on the fly. I used a usb cable from the hand controller and things work pretty well.

I bought a direct cable from Amazon to work with EQMOD, but did not have any success setting it up. ID’ed the com port in Device Manager and set it in EQMOD, but EQMOD would partially load, then disappear. The usb from the HC works fine. I just use the HC to set the initial location and date/time, then connect the usb cable and connect to Cartes du Ceil and N.I.N.A. can take over from there with goto's, plate solving, and syncing.
I haven’t figured out how to park the mount (in the correct park location) in N.I.N.A. yet. I have to use the HC to park the mount.

Physically, the HEQ5 Pro mount is built like a tank compared to the AVX.
It is bulkier, sturdier, solid, and heavier. Very nicely finished in white.

After setting up new profiles in PHD2 and N.I.N.A., all went pretty well. The HEQ5 actually had measurable backlash in PHD2 (Guiding Assistant) at 6000 ms, but the AVX measured at 13000 ms the only time that it was measurable. Not good, but much better.

I set up a sequence in N.I.N.A. for NGC 7380 to mess with the guiding settings. I shot two hours of data dithering every frame (2 minute exposures) to try different guiding settings. I tried PHD2 backlash compensation for the first time and it seemed to do more harm then good. It rapidly took out the backlash, but then shot to the other side of the graph and it took PHD2 many pulses to re-correct. I actually settled on mostly basic settings in PHD2 (guiding assistant) with the best results.

Yes, this target is North, but I was happy with a total rms error averaging about 0.5 arcsec. Of course, when the dither hit, things got a bit squirrelly until everything settled down, but even with dithering every frame and messing with the settings constantly, the guiding error was below 1 arcsec reported in the PHD2 guide log.

Attached below is a really quick Pixinsight process of the two hours of integration while constantly messing with the mount. Nothing to be proud of for sure and it just was a target to test on, but I couldn't help messing with the data just to take a look.

This target really needs about 10 hours minimum. But, I am happy with it for 2 hours in Bortle 7 skies. The background is clipped a bit to hold the background noise back. The stars look good to me.

I will set up tonight to catch more data on NGC 7380 in hopes of a much better image. Maybe even trying a HOO version.

Happy with the HEQ5 Pro!

Thanks for reading!

[Thefatkitty]

Nice read Jim! Glad you're happy with it, and that your old AVX did you good and is still useful.

Now I have to be honest (not being an AP person except for the large targets; Sun and Moon), you totally lost me with this starting sentence:

I bought a direct cable from Amazon to work with EQMOD, but did not have any success setting it up

I have not really any clue as to what that means, but you do have my sympathies! Though I did get the built like a tank part

At least it seems like you're well on your way with it, and great image to boot, at least to me! I couldn't get something that good if I worked at it...

Good for you Jim, and look forward to hearing your progress with it. Big ear scratch for Jack

All the best,

[Juno16]

Nice read Jim! Glad you're happy with it, and that your old AVX did you good and is still useful.

Now I have to be honest (not being an AP person except for the large targets; Sun and Moon), you totally lost me with this starting sentence:

I bought a direct cable from Amazon to work with EQMOD, but did not have any success setting it up

I have not really any clue as to what that means, but you do have my sympathies! Though I did get the built like a tank part

At least it seems like you're well on your way with it, and great image to boot, at least to me! I couldn't get something that good if I worked at it...

Good for you Jim, and look forward to hearing your progress with it. Big ear scratch for Jack

All the best,

Thanks Mark!
I now have three scopes and two mounts. I need another spare room!

That cable I was talking about might be called a DirectEQ cable. Not sure. It is a cable that plugs into the mount in place of the HC. The opposite end goes to a pc where all of the mount's functions are performed. Sounds cool and I will keep working on it, but for now, the usb cable from the HC to the pc works just fine.

The image is just what I collected while hacking away at the guiding settings. Mainly trying to recover from dithers better. It looks better than I expected considering all of my adjustments, but it was just test data.

I am set up and raring to go tonight. Same target and I hope to get 4-5 more hours on it before it goes into the trees. Hopefully I can produce something worth looking at.

The temperature will dip into a nice cool 12C tonight. I know that is probably a "warm" night for you, but I am MUCH closer to the Equator and I really like the cool temps.

Jack gets lots of scratches! I just gave him another and told him it was from you! He is my main man.

I am not fostering pups right now with the new grandbaby, but hopefully things will slow down eventually and I can get back to it. I really enjoy helping these rescued pups find a nice home. I did transport one this weekend on his way to the northeast US to be fostered and adopted. He was a huge dog and could jump up and put his paws on my shoulders. Beautiful Labrador mix.

His name is Gabe.

Take care Mark and thanks for your nice comments!