I splurged and got myself a new HEQ5. I already had the tripod and I found a local vendor near my town who had a HEQ5 in stock and was willing to unbundle it. So combined with me selling my SkyTee2 I got the mount for about 500 EUR.
The first use was disappointing. I realized I had to adjust the wormgears for backslash and the motor gears needed grease. Now it works decently - I get 0.6" RMS mostly but it occasionally still spikes to 3" and after dithering the RA sometimes oscillates nastily. But I'll work out those kinks.
This is my first image. Used my 20 EUR Sigma lens for it. I built myself a motorfocus for it (
https://www.printables.com/model/130686-motor-focus-for-sigma-apo-70-300mm-lens-ardufocus-) which is very convenient. Previously I have only used the lens at 200mm where it's quite decent when stopped down to f/6.3 - at 300mm it's not so nice anymore. I will continue to use it at 200mm during summer for narrowband with a duoband filter.
The color fringing is from the lens. The weird cores are my bad from using ArcSinH stretch (but I like the result anyways).
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