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Old 11-08-2019, 08:47 PM
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Decimus (Richard)
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Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: Hobart TAS
Posts: 267
Quote:
Originally Posted by gregbradley View Post
Fornax Lightrack ii is quite good. It needs a 12 volt power supply. I found usb cables that have a built in 12 volt step up circuit in them cheaply on ebay. So I use a USB power pack and this cable to power it.

A few oddities about it to get used to. One is if the power is interrupted when you turn it back on it defaults to northern hemisphere and you have to reselect southern hemisphere. That wrecked a few images. But luckily I check my images routinely anyway to check focus, tracking etc is working. Also the USB power pack has blue lights in it and I could see that lighting up the foreground a bit in some subs! Masking tape should fix that.

Its quite accurate. Smartphone compass and an inclinometer is good enough to get tight stars 1 minute at 14mm. I have a Polemaster that fits it to get accurate polar alignment. I am not sure it will handle the Redcat 51 lens, perhaps with accurate polar alignment.

Polarie tracker is very good too. I've pimped mine up to include some accessories and a counterweight shaft. Lightrack though is the mount I am using at the moment. I recommend it overall. I am using the Star Adventurer wedge which is cheap but a tad lightweight but strong enough for lens imaging and it adjusts quite easily.

Greg.
Thanks for the great info, Greg. I am tempted to get a tracker for nightscapes, although a dedicated Astro camera is first priority (still tyre kicking about it, despite having a shortlist of 3). Those FLI Proline cameras certainly deliver brilliant image quality....Wish I could afford one of those.

Your advice on the 'Autocolour' tool in PS was spot on. I have attached a tiny copy of the rejigged image. Much less magenta and more realistic colour. Thanks for that!
Attached Thumbnails
Click for full-size image (Milky Way Edit in LR and PS 8 Aug 2019 Autocolour Version Aug 10 Compressed (Large).jpg)
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