Tag Archives: EQ3-2

A new mount clutch lever

On my EQ3-2 mount I wanted to mess around with the shape of the DEC clutch lever a little to give more clearance for hardware on the mount. I don’t want to damage the supplied (metal) lever however, so I … Continue reading

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Astro EQ conversion of EQ3-2 (part 5)

Once the RA motor mounting was sorted I started on the DEC bracket which is somewhat simpler, being made from a section of 4mm thick aluminium angle. Again there’s only one bolt for fixing to the mount, so the bracket … Continue reading

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Astro EQ conversion of EQ3-2 (part 4)

My new drills have arrived and I’ve now drilled all the holes for the RA motor mount. It looks a bit like a Swiss cheese. This is the “outside” face, with holes for the motor flange, the four mounting screws, … Continue reading

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Astro EQ conversion of EQ3-2 (part 3)

My pulleys and drive belts arrived today. I removed the grub screws and drilled out the 48-tooth pulleys to 6mm (from 5mm) in the lathe to fit the worm spindles and the 16-tooth pulleys to 5mm (from 3mm) to fit … Continue reading

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Astro EQ conversion of EQ3-2 (part 2)

I ordered some aluminium channel (1″x2″x1/8″) to make up the RA motor mount which arrived yesterday. I chose this size because there’s only one mounting hole for each of the normal aftermarket motors on the EQ3-2 and this would give … Continue reading

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Astro EQ conversion of EQ3-2

I decided today that it’s about time I extracted a digit and got on with converting my old EQ3-2 “Sky Scan 2001” mount to GOTO using Tom Carpenter’s rather nice AstroEQ box. Although I already have the aftermarket motors fitted, … Continue reading

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Retiring the EQ3-2

Having come to the conclusion that the EQ3-2 just wasn’t up to the demands I was making of it, I’ve finally bitten the bullet and bought a HEQ5 Pro. I’m hopeful this will allow me to make more progress with … Continue reading

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Oh, go on then, just a couple more…

Yes, two more Messier globular clusters to add to the collection. These, M10 and M14, are the last for the time being. I have a few other things I want to try out now.

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Another crack at M3 and M5

The same details as my previous attempt the day before, but I think these ones are a little better. Focus is sharper, I think, and the colours have come through better.

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Widefield Bootes and Hercules

The night preceeding my M3 and M5 efforts I managed a couple of widefield images of the constellations Bootes and Hercules using just the 450D with the stock 18-55mm lens focused at around 25mm focal length according to the EXIF … Continue reading

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