Just been given a telescope with EQ mount and despite reading the manual it's had me scratching my head trying to figure out how to set it up. This is exactly the tutorial I need to clarify what I need to do. Thank you.
Never seen any tutorials on these mounts. I just bought a celestron Astrometer 130 and after watching this tutorial once and never having owned a mount like this before I assembled mine right first time. Thanks for the basic video. It is just what I needed and I am going to look at a bright half moon tonight. 👍😉😊😎
You all prolly dont care at all but does anybody know a tool to get back into an instagram account..? I stupidly lost my login password. I love any help you can give me.
@Roger Trace Thanks so much for your reply. I found the site thru google and im in the hacking process atm. Seems to take quite some time so I will reply here later with my results.
Love this for a refresher! Just found two Japanese made scopes (New and In the box) both came with EQ mounts. The first was an orange tube Celestron "comet catcher" and the second a Tasco 911 TR. Both were sealed from the factory. The Celestron mirrors appear to be much higher quality. Weird focuser however and probably will tinker with the Tasco to get reacauinted after years of GOTO garbage scopes.
Great explanation, thanks Bill. I just bought a second hand reflector scope, the mount was in a weird position, after watched the video, I realised the previous owner had configured the mount wrongly all over the years.😮😮
Truly helped me understand setup, knobs, and polarization for me in Upstate NY @42*N even if I had to invert all directions for your latitude in Australia! #samesky
Thank you very much good sir, I had recently bought a Celestron Astromaster 130EQ Motor Drive and I was having a lot of problem tracking objects using the motor without polar alignment and all the tutorial videos on youtube were about mounts with a polar finder scope. This really helped me.
@@harmannmultani6305 yes, it is, or the motor will move the telescope the wrong way. It you haven't got an accurate alignment, but you're close, the star will drift out of view much slower than if the scope wasn't moving at all. So a rough polar alignment is better than no polar alignment.
@@harmannmultani6305 well, yes, it's possible to get a good polar alignment, but the EQ1 and EQ2 mounts aren't really designed for astrophotography, but more for visual astronomy. This means that accurate tracking isn't all that important, so the adjustment methods that are designed into the mount don't need to be very fine, and the speed of the motor doesn't need to be exactly sidereal or consistent. Visual astronomers won't notice a slight wobble in the target, or even if it very slowly drifts. Getting these adjustments very accurate (like on an HEQ5-pro or an Advanced VX) takes more engineering and design, making the mounts more expensive.
Finally decided to properly set up my EQ mount and this video is perfect! This provides easy and direct instructions and is incredibly helpful! Thank you so much!!
Great video. Bought my first telescope. It came with this mount. Unbelievable in how difficult it is to find useful resources. It's an Orion. They should just package it with a link to this video. EDIT: Actually, while I'm here. What are the other two measured dials--the RA one and I guess the declination one? What are they for and is there a similar video explaining how to use them? Also, I hope they don't need to be factory-set, because since unboxing, mine have spun more or less freely. Thinking I may have to set them back to default somehow at some point. Yikes.
Fantastic video and I bought my telescope from you guys, I’m just waiting on delivery. I’m in a suburb of Mittagong NSW, the 34°21’31”S, do I set my angle to 34° to polar align?
Great, thanks for taking the time to make this. Just trying to work out why exactly you need to polar align and is this something you 100% need to do every time?
The polar aligning process is about getting the main axis (the one I point to at 10:51) parallel with the axis that the Earth spins on. If you do this , then you can keep any star in the view simply by turning the RA (that's the large silver wheel - and it normally has a slow-motion control hanging off it so you can turn it while watching the star). If you've got a motor on that axis, you turn on the motor and it'll keep the star in your view for you. If you don't get the polar alignment correct, the star will drift north or south while you watch it and you'll have to move the declination axis to keep the star in view. That's OK if you're viewing for a short time, but if you're watching for a long time it gets irritation. Worse, if you're photographing, inaccurate polar alignment will ruin your shots because the stars will turn into spaghetti. For visual observations, you don't need to be very accurate with polar alignment, but you should give it a go very time you set up - even if it's rough. It'll make your observation much more enjoyable.
@@hazeldupont7100 If you're in the UK, you'll be able to use Polaris as a hint as to where the North Celestial Pole is. Point the main axis of the mount right at Polaris and you won't be far off.
Because you're in the Northern Hemisphere, you'll be pointing the axis NORTH and 32° above the horizon. It should be pointed at the star called Polaris. But personally I don't believe that the Northern Hemisphere exists. People who say they're from this place called "the United States" are clearly paid actors trying to support a conspiracy that the world is round. Ha ha, as if! :-)
These EQ2 mounts can instantly be converted to Alt-Az movement by loosening the latitude lock (not the adjuster shown here), and lifting the polar alignment to straight up 90 degrees, then locking again. To go back to normal equatorial movement, just move the polar alignment back to where the adjuster pin catches it, and you're good to go, set up for your latitude. Handy for temporary daytime terrestrial use.
It's going to be a challenge at 1°N, but yes, you point the RA axis due north and 1° above the horizon. It might be difficult getting the mount into this position, as the counterweights are going to be pointed nearly straight down. An alt-azimuth mount might be a better solution here, especially if you fudge the system slightly by setting it up so it's in a 1° slope upwards to the North. To be honest I really don't know how that would work, although it sounds like a good idea.
I have a powerseeker 127eq with a very similar mount. I have an issue with the lower slow motion control. It will move one way, but not very well, and not at all the other way. Is there some sort of lubrication i csn use, or is it messed up?
Yes, it's the same mount. I use that white lithium grease you can get from bicycle shops. Don't use too much, but instead get a little and see if you can wind the slow-motion backwards and forwards to distribute it evenly. It's not easy to get the grease to the worm gears, though. If you think the thread has patches with no grease you can apply a bit more, but having blobs of grease hanging off the thread isn't going to do much good. Apart from lubrication, occasionally mounts do get snagged, and I've found it's often to do with the setting of locking nuts in the slow-motion controls.
Thanks for this great tutorial. I've just got a very similar scope and am trying to set it up and have a question in case someone here has an answer. At about the 12:50 mark in the video you show how it rocks back and forth and then you adjust the altitude with the pin. Is there any way to lock the altitude so it no longer rocks? I find it's ok up to about 70 degrees, but if i try and aim it higher than that, eg to look at Jupiter at the moment, the weight of the scope then pulls it all the way back to 90 degrees - even when i have the counter weight fully extended - and I can't work out how to hold it in place somewhere between those ranges, hopefully my question makes sense.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean here. If you're trying to adjust the altitude of the telescope so you can look at something directly above you, you're making the wrong adjustment. The axis that we're adjusting here has to point to the Celestial Pole and never anything else. Once that axis is set, then you can turn the telescope (and not the axis) so the telescope points at Jupiter without the axis we've set ever moving. You can point the telescope at anywhere in the sky while that axis that points at the Celestial Pole never moves. Does that help?
@@OpticsCentralAustralia :D yes, sorry I'm a bit of an amateur and was trying to point it upwards just using that axis, i can see now how i can just adjust the RA and DEC to point any direction i want, so all good - thanks for that
@@chrisbland3613 we're all amateurs. No matter who you are there's someone further up the learning curve. It doesn't mean they're better than you, just maybe older. Enjoy!
Weird watching from the UK and everything is the other way round. I have a motor but I have to set it to S instead of N which must be a mistake in the factory.
Oh I thought I better check my angle after what you said and it was out by a lot. I used a spirit level and a builders angle gauge. You can set them to what angle you need and sit it on the spirit level and then place it against the telescope side when it pointing 90 degrees.
I’ve done all this but is there anyway to get it to track more accurately? The best I’ve gotten is about 1 arc second of movement every second. It’s ok but still not enough for my dslr on the planets. How can I go about tracking better? (I have the motor)
A couple of things, first, I don't think that you'll get better than this using this method. You can increase accuracy using the "drift align" method, but it's time-consuming. But the second thing is that if you're taking photos of the planets, you won't need good polar alignment. Planets are really bright. The exposure time you'll need on a planet will be something like 1/50 of a second. If your camera is set on automatic exposure, it might be telling you you're going to need 30 seconds or so. If it's doing this, that's probably because it's looking at a picture that's mainly black, so it's trying to boost the exposure. If you take a photo on auto exposure, the planet will be badly overexposed. Put your camera on manual setting, tell it to use something like 1/50s and then take the photo. See what it looks like and adjust from there.
Optics Central thanks, yes but even with 1/50 of a second exposure Saturn rings are very slightly burred. And id also like to do 30 second exposures to see the moons of saturn
@@plane9182 brother, with 30 second, you might as well photograph deepsky objects. With 30 second of exposure, the planet's brightness will wash out the moons. You should use 1/50 second exposure as this man said.
Ha, yes, this method is certainly good enough for visual alignment. If you're into astrophotography, you need to get a whole lot more accurate. There are lots of methods, but I use my main imaging camera, my main scope (a short 560mm focal length) and a free computer program SharpCap 2.9. With a bit of care, and good atmospheric conditions, I can get my NEQ6 within 3 arcseconds of the pole.
@@OpticsCentralAustralia Question; so I have a manual equatorial mount exactly like the one in this video. I've looked into motor drives for it, and the ones I'm looking at appear to be just for keeping the stars in frame, which is plenty good for my needs, but, are there any motors that can also align the scope onto targets? That would just be icing, definitely not required haha
@@bravo4104 yes, the motor that goes onto this type of mount is really just for stopping the apparent motion of the stars - that is, to keep them in view. If you want to have a scope that moves to find the star for you, you need to get a "go-to", or computerised mount such as a Sky-Watcher HEQ5 or Celestron Advanced VX. These are way cleverer - but consequently more expensive.
Nice video brother! Im getting the motor drive next weeks for my EQ3-II! Do you think I can do good astrophotography with my DSLR through my 150/750 newton reflector??
Yes you can. An EQ3 is a nice mount with the motor drive, but it'll need good polar alignment. Try 30 second exposures and stack them using Deep Sky Stacker, but remember to shoot in RAW, not JPG. If you have trouble getting focus with the DSLR you might need a Barlow. See my article at www.thescruffyastronomer.com/2020/01/taking-photo-using-dslr-and-small.html for more details.
Polarex - otherwise known as Unitron - was the best scope at my Astronomy club back in the 1970s. Probably very dated now, as glass has improved considerably. So not a lot of monetary value, but lots of educational value. Might be a usable guide scope.
This one was in the standard compass app that came with my iPhone 6, but if you search the app store (or Google play) for "inclinometer" you will find several of them.
Just been given a telescope with EQ mount and despite reading the manual it's had me scratching my head trying to figure out how to set it up. This is exactly the tutorial I need to clarify what I need to do. Thank you.
Never seen any tutorials on these mounts. I just bought a celestron Astrometer 130 and after watching this tutorial once and never having owned a mount like this before I assembled mine right first time. Thanks for the basic video. It is just what I needed and I am going to look at a bright half moon tonight. 👍😉😊😎
You all prolly dont care at all but does anybody know a tool to get back into an instagram account..?
I stupidly lost my login password. I love any help you can give me.
@Javier Cristiano instablaster :)
@Roger Trace Thanks so much for your reply. I found the site thru google and im in the hacking process atm.
Seems to take quite some time so I will reply here later with my results.
@Roger Trace It did the trick and I actually got access to my account again. I'm so happy!
Thank you so much, you saved my account :D
@Javier Cristiano Glad I could help :)
Best tutorial I've seen on how to set up EQ mounts. Great job.
Love this for a refresher! Just found two Japanese made scopes (New and In the box) both came with EQ mounts. The first was an orange tube Celestron "comet catcher" and the second a Tasco 911 TR. Both were sealed from the factory. The Celestron mirrors appear to be much higher quality. Weird focuser however and probably will tinker with the Tasco to get reacauinted after years of GOTO garbage scopes.
Thanks for this video.I have a visual telescope and i everytime use it i do a rough polar alignment and it works pretty well.Thanks.
Great explanation, thanks Bill. I just bought a second hand reflector scope, the mount was in a weird position, after watched the video, I realised the previous owner had configured the mount wrongly all over the years.😮😮
Gifted a telescope for my birthday and this was helpful, had a similar setup
The better tutorial that I ever seen on TH-cam. I love it, thanks so much
Truly helped me understand setup, knobs, and polarization for me in Upstate NY @42*N even if I had to invert all directions for your latitude in Australia!
#samesky
Thank you very much good sir,
I had recently bought a Celestron Astromaster 130EQ Motor Drive and I was having a lot of problem tracking objects using the motor without polar alignment and all the tutorial videos on youtube were about mounts with a polar finder scope. This really helped me.
Thank you, I'm glad the video was helpful!
@@OpticsCentralAustralia Is polar alignment necessary for the motor to track objects as they move?
@@harmannmultani6305 yes, it is, or the motor will move the telescope the wrong way. It you haven't got an accurate alignment, but you're close, the star will drift out of view much slower than if the scope wasn't moving at all. So a rough polar alignment is better than no polar alignment.
@@OpticsCentralAustralia It's not possible to get an accurate polar alignment with an EQ-1 or EQ-2 mount?
@@harmannmultani6305 well, yes, it's possible to get a good polar alignment, but the EQ1 and EQ2 mounts aren't really designed for astrophotography, but more for visual astronomy. This means that accurate tracking isn't all that important, so the adjustment methods that are designed into the mount don't need to be very fine, and the speed of the motor doesn't need to be exactly sidereal or consistent. Visual astronomers won't notice a slight wobble in the target, or even if it very slowly drifts.
Getting these adjustments very accurate (like on an HEQ5-pro or an Advanced VX) takes more engineering and design, making the mounts more expensive.
Thank you for this. Going to give it a try tonight.
Thanks for the straight forward explanation.
Finally decided to properly set up my EQ mount and this video is perfect! This provides easy and direct instructions and is incredibly helpful! Thank you so much!!
That's so cool! I wish I had an Equatorial mount!
Thanks for this amazing video from Sydney!
Fabulous video thank you!! Exactly what I needed, this will help me immensely!
Finally, I found the tutorial I need!
Thank you sir, i have successfully set up my telescope
Great video. Bought my first telescope. It came with this mount. Unbelievable in how difficult it is to find useful resources. It's an Orion. They should just package it with a link to this video.
EDIT: Actually, while I'm here. What are the other two measured dials--the RA one and I guess the declination one? What are they for and is there a similar video explaining how to use them? Also, I hope they don't need to be factory-set, because since unboxing, mine have spun more or less freely. Thinking I may have to set them back to default somehow at some point. Yikes.
Thank You , that was a really good introduction for this total beginner :-) .
Why do you need slow-motion control for declination? Isn't that rather for tracking right ascension?
Fantastic , just exactly what I was looking for . Thank you
You're welcome! I had fun making it.
Great vid. Does the earth rotate around the magnetic north south for polar alignment with a good common compass?
Fantastic video and I bought my telescope from you guys, I’m just waiting on delivery.
I’m in a suburb of Mittagong NSW, the 34°21’31”S, do I set my angle to 34° to polar align?
Great, thanks for taking the time to make this. Just trying to work out why exactly you need to polar align and is this something you 100% need to do every time?
The polar aligning process is about getting the main axis (the one I point to at 10:51) parallel with the axis that the Earth spins on. If you do this , then you can keep any star in the view simply by turning the RA (that's the large silver wheel - and it normally has a slow-motion control hanging off it so you can turn it while watching the star). If you've got a motor on that axis, you turn on the motor and it'll keep the star in your view for you.
If you don't get the polar alignment correct, the star will drift north or south while you watch it and you'll have to move the declination axis to keep the star in view. That's OK if you're viewing for a short time, but if you're watching for a long time it gets irritation. Worse, if you're photographing, inaccurate polar alignment will ruin your shots because the stars will turn into spaghetti.
For visual observations, you don't need to be very accurate with polar alignment, but you should give it a go very time you set up - even if it's rough. It'll make your observation much more enjoyable.
@@OpticsCentralAustralia that is fantastic, thank you. Looking forward to the sky clearing here in the UK and using my new telescope!
@@hazeldupont7100 If you're in the UK, you'll be able to use Polaris as a hint as to where the North Celestial Pole is. Point the main axis of the mount right at Polaris and you won't be far off.
Mines got a funny dangling bit near the silver wheel (I’m a newbie)…can you tell me what it does??
Can the pole star be observed after making an alignment?
Great video! I am in California. I point south or north? I am at 32 deg on the dec.
Because you're in the Northern Hemisphere, you'll be pointing the axis NORTH and 32° above the horizon. It should be pointed at the star called Polaris.
But personally I don't believe that the Northern Hemisphere exists. People who say they're from this place called "the United States" are clearly paid actors trying to support a conspiracy that the world is round. Ha ha, as if!
:-)
These EQ2 mounts can instantly be converted to Alt-Az movement by loosening the latitude lock (not the adjuster shown here), and lifting the polar alignment to straight up 90 degrees, then locking again. To go back to normal equatorial movement, just move the polar alignment back to where the adjuster pin catches it, and you're good to go, set up for your latitude. Handy for temporary daytime terrestrial use.
... so the counterweight it straight out, or straight down?
Optics Central counterweight arm ends up horizontal.
Thank you, sir. Great content!
My RA dial scale rotates when i move it with my hands, in melbourne how do i get a RA alligned? Im confused
Video explains much clearer than the instruction manual. I have a problem though. Being on the equator, 1°N, do I point due North?
It's going to be a challenge at 1°N, but yes, you point the RA axis due north and 1° above the horizon. It might be difficult getting the mount into this position, as the counterweights are going to be pointed nearly straight down. An alt-azimuth mount might be a better solution here, especially if you fudge the system slightly by setting it up so it's in a 1° slope upwards to the North. To be honest I really don't know how that would work, although it sounds like a good idea.
1° north? You might just as well use your Alt az mount and align it with the equator. Then move it up slowly and slowly to track.
how should I know if my scope rings are too tight or loose?
I have a powerseeker 127eq with a very similar mount. I have an issue with the lower slow motion control. It will move one way, but not very well, and not at all the other way. Is there some sort of lubrication i csn use, or is it messed up?
Yes, it's the same mount.
I use that white lithium grease you can get from bicycle shops. Don't use too much, but instead get a little and see if you can wind the slow-motion backwards and forwards to distribute it evenly. It's not easy to get the grease to the worm gears, though. If you think the thread has patches with no grease you can apply a bit more, but having blobs of grease hanging off the thread isn't going to do much good.
Apart from lubrication, occasionally mounts do get snagged, and I've found it's often to do with the setting of locking nuts in the slow-motion controls.
@@OpticsCentralAustralia i messed around with the nuts and found an adjustment that works. Thank you so much for the help!!!!
@@SmoopyGablooy Awesome!
Thank you very much sir for this informative tutorial.
You're most welcome!
Very well explained
Thanks for this great tutorial. I've just got a very similar scope and am trying to set it up and have a question in case someone here has an answer. At about the 12:50 mark in the video you show how it rocks back and forth and then you adjust the altitude with the pin. Is there any way to lock the altitude so it no longer rocks? I find it's ok up to about 70 degrees, but if i try and aim it higher than that, eg to look at Jupiter at the moment, the weight of the scope then pulls it all the way back to 90 degrees - even when i have the counter weight fully extended - and I can't work out how to hold it in place somewhere between those ranges, hopefully my question makes sense.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean here. If you're trying to adjust the altitude of the telescope so you can look at something directly above you, you're making the wrong adjustment. The axis that we're adjusting here has to point to the Celestial Pole and never anything else. Once that axis is set, then you can turn the telescope (and not the axis) so the telescope points at Jupiter without the axis we've set ever moving. You can point the telescope at anywhere in the sky while that axis that points at the Celestial Pole never moves.
Does that help?
@@OpticsCentralAustralia :D yes, sorry I'm a bit of an amateur and was trying to point it upwards just using that axis, i can see now how i can just adjust the RA and DEC to point any direction i want, so all good - thanks for that
@@chrisbland3613 we're all amateurs. No matter who you are there's someone further up the learning curve. It doesn't mean they're better than you, just maybe older. Enjoy!
Absolutely lovely explanation...thank you sir 🙏
You're welcome!
Best video about this that I´ve found so far! Thanks =)
Thanks!
So for us Northerners we Face towards True north right?
@dhruvparapurath4057: Yes. TRUE North, not MAGNETIC North.
Weird watching from the UK and everything is the other way round. I have a motor but I have to set it to S instead of N which must be a mistake in the factory.
Oh I thought I better check my angle after what you said and it was out by a lot. I used a spirit level and a builders angle gauge. You can set them to what angle you need and sit it on the spirit level and then place it against the telescope side when it pointing 90 degrees.
I’ve done all this but is there anyway to get it to track more accurately? The best I’ve gotten is about 1 arc second of movement every second. It’s ok but still not enough for my dslr on the planets. How can I go about tracking better? (I have the motor)
A couple of things, first, I don't think that you'll get better than this using this method. You can increase accuracy using the "drift align" method, but it's time-consuming.
But the second thing is that if you're taking photos of the planets, you won't need good polar alignment. Planets are really bright. The exposure time you'll need on a planet will be something like 1/50 of a second. If your camera is set on automatic exposure, it might be telling you you're going to need 30 seconds or so. If it's doing this, that's probably because it's looking at a picture that's mainly black, so it's trying to boost the exposure. If you take a photo on auto exposure, the planet will be badly overexposed. Put your camera on manual setting, tell it to use something like 1/50s and then take the photo. See what it looks like and adjust from there.
Optics Central thanks, yes but even with 1/50 of a second exposure Saturn rings are very slightly burred. And id also like to do 30 second exposures to see the moons of saturn
@@plane9182 brother, with 30 second, you might as well photograph deepsky objects. With 30 second of exposure, the planet's brightness will wash out the moons. You should use 1/50 second exposure as this man said.
Wow, thanks for that. I assume for astro-photography you need to align more accurately half way across from Hadar ?
Ha, yes, this method is certainly good enough for visual alignment.
If you're into astrophotography, you need to get a whole lot more accurate. There are lots of methods, but I use my main imaging camera, my main scope (a short 560mm focal length) and a free computer program SharpCap 2.9. With a bit of care, and good atmospheric conditions, I can get my NEQ6 within 3 arcseconds of the pole.
@@OpticsCentralAustralia Question; so I have a manual equatorial mount exactly like the one in this video. I've looked into motor drives for it, and the ones I'm looking at appear to be just for keeping the stars in frame, which is plenty good for my needs, but, are there any motors that can also align the scope onto targets? That would just be icing, definitely not required haha
@@bravo4104 yes, the motor that goes onto this type of mount is really just for stopping the apparent motion of the stars - that is, to keep them in view. If you want to have a scope that moves to find the star for you, you need to get a "go-to", or computerised mount such as a Sky-Watcher HEQ5 or Celestron Advanced VX. These are way cleverer - but consequently more expensive.
Incidentally if you'd like to see one of these mounts and how you align it, I've shown mine off at th-cam.com/video/s1SHhBI2Dek/w-d-xo.html
Nice video brother!
Im getting the motor drive next weeks for my EQ3-II! Do you think I can do good astrophotography with my DSLR through my 150/750 newton reflector??
Yes you can. An EQ3 is a nice mount with the motor drive, but it'll need good polar alignment. Try 30 second exposures and stack them using Deep Sky Stacker, but remember to shoot in RAW, not JPG.
If you have trouble getting focus with the DSLR you might need a Barlow. See my article at www.thescruffyastronomer.com/2020/01/taking-photo-using-dslr-and-small.html for more details.
@@OpticsCentralAustralia thank you very much!
I have a Polarex 50 700 telescope. Anyone have any idea of the potential value please?
Polarex - otherwise known as Unitron - was the best scope at my Astronomy club back in the 1970s. Probably very dated now, as glass has improved considerably. So not a lot of monetary value, but lots of educational value. Might be a usable guide scope.
Thanks sir for the explanation, I finally completed the setup of my telescope, can you tell us the app you used in the video for inclination
This one was in the standard compass app that came with my iPhone 6, but if you search the app store (or Google play) for "inclinometer" you will find several of them.
Great video thank you so much!!
No worries! It gave me something to do while stuck at home.
Mine has no tubes. Celestron Powerseeker 60eq
Do you mean tube rings? Those rings that hold the telescope to the mount? If that's it, there's no real difference in the setup.
Thank you :)
Thanks!!!
this tripod except rings is for 114/900 telescope
Wow, pretty basic, I’ve had one of these in a box for 30 plus years, mine even has a little motor drive unit on it, never used it, interesting.
Bit of advice- write a script and do a voiceover. This way they’ll be less oh and ahhs.
Don't give up the day job.
Er um um um um er um um ……real bad habit