Hello, everyone!
At the moment I am looking into finally buying my first real equatorial mount.
To date I have always relied on my star adventurer v1 which has allowed me to approach the astrophotographic world without having to spend an enormous amount of money.
I also recently bought my first refractor a Sky Watcher Evostar 72ED (420mm-72mm) and replaced my mirrorless with an astromodified dslr.
I am realising, however, that I have reached the physical limit of the star adventurer, both in terms of weight and tracking accuracy. In fact, it only takes a minimum to lose polar alignment and no longer be able to track for more than 2 minutes.
(Side note: against all odds, I managed to track for over 3 minutes without autoguiding at over 400mm focal length. Provided, however, excellent polar alignment with sharpcap and perfect balancing of the ota)
Getting to the point: I had my eye on the heq5 which seems a fantastic compromise in terms of stability and weight of the mount. The problem is that it is really difficult to find used ones and they cost far too much (~1200 euros) when new. In terms of performance, from what I understand, it would really be perfect: with the range it has, it would allow me to have plenty of margin with my current equipment and would allow me in the future to approach a medium focal length (~700mm), perhaps with a small newton.
To overcome the above problems I was also considering a downgrade to a normal eq5 synscan or even an eqm35 pro.
Are the latter two so much inferior to a heq5? In your opinion does it make sense to buy them or should I hold out and go straight for a heq5?
Do you notice any real differences in everyday use, or is it just a matter of stability?
Thank you very much and clear skies!!!
F.T.
At the moment I am looking into finally buying my first real equatorial mount.
To date I have always relied on my star adventurer v1 which has allowed me to approach the astrophotographic world without having to spend an enormous amount of money.
I also recently bought my first refractor a Sky Watcher Evostar 72ED (420mm-72mm) and replaced my mirrorless with an astromodified dslr.
I am realising, however, that I have reached the physical limit of the star adventurer, both in terms of weight and tracking accuracy. In fact, it only takes a minimum to lose polar alignment and no longer be able to track for more than 2 minutes.
(Side note: against all odds, I managed to track for over 3 minutes without autoguiding at over 400mm focal length. Provided, however, excellent polar alignment with sharpcap and perfect balancing of the ota)
Getting to the point: I had my eye on the heq5 which seems a fantastic compromise in terms of stability and weight of the mount. The problem is that it is really difficult to find used ones and they cost far too much (~1200 euros) when new. In terms of performance, from what I understand, it would really be perfect: with the range it has, it would allow me to have plenty of margin with my current equipment and would allow me in the future to approach a medium focal length (~700mm), perhaps with a small newton.
To overcome the above problems I was also considering a downgrade to a normal eq5 synscan or even an eqm35 pro.
Are the latter two so much inferior to a heq5? In your opinion does it make sense to buy them or should I hold out and go straight for a heq5?
Do you notice any real differences in everyday use, or is it just a matter of stability?
Thank you very much and clear skies!!!
F.T.
