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Old 30-04-2006, 11:33 AM
[1ponders]'s Avatar
[1ponders] (Paul)
Retired, damn no pension

[1ponders] is offline
 
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Obi Obi, Qld
Posts: 18,778
Hi Shelly and to the site.

I have an almost identical mount though with a refractor on top. I find it a great mount for quick setup as well as a good pack and go mount. I also have the Single Axis Drive with the handcontoller. For visual work it does a great job but I wouldn't want to try to do long exposure through your telescope with it. The weight of the reflector will more than likely be at the upper weight limit of the mount. I have successfully used that mount (after accurate drift aligning) to take widefield shots and piggyback shots with both SLR and DSLR cameras.

Can you tell us a bit more about your camera. How long can your exposures go? 5 sec, 15 sec 30+ sec? You should be able to take single afocal (shots through an eyepiece) of the major planets, moon and sun, fairly easily with your camera.

Does it have a video mode? If it does and you can fix it in front of an eyepiece, you could be able to get videos of the major planets, the moon and the sun (with suitable solar film) and process them using a program called Registax. This will give you a much better image than single images alone. Tracking will help immensely here.

Enjoy the site and ask as many questions as you need.
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