Brian Dorey.com

After getting some good photos with the new telescope kit purchased in October, we thought it would be good to be able to make use of the tracking facilities of the HEQ5 PRO mount with the normal camera and wider lenses to get general astronomy wide field photographs. I purchased a dovetail bracket, camera quick release plate and mount and extra mounting bracket for my finder scope and using an alloy block and some custom brackets, made the following mount for the camera with the finderscope attached to setup the alignment and point at the stars to check alignment.

Parts Used:

• SkyWatcher 9x50 Sky-Watcher Finderscope with mounting bracket
• Manfrotto quick release mount
• Dovetail mount to fit HEQ5 PRO
• Alloy machines to fit mounts and brackets

Front view of the mount

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jupiter and moons, a photo by brian-dorey on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
First attempt at photos of a different planet taken in the back garden with Skywatcher EXPLORER-200PDS on a HEQ5 PRO mount. Camera connected directly to telescope. Waiting for a book on astrophotography to be delivered now so i can learn more before going out in the cold again!