[xelasnave]

Or maybe the title should be ...a horrible unproductive error filled night.

So with so much cloud and rain since I arrived here the opportunity of photographing under Moonlight did not put me off.

So having aligned the mount a week or more ago I put on the camera and started with a 30 second run at 800 iso whilst I recovered from setting up because my legs were on fire and the mozzies nevertheless content to eat them...hot food I expect.

This was the night to get the auto guide running not that there was much chance of long exposures so Moonlight would be good to see what I was doing.

So after more than 30 minutes I check...oh no star trails..trash that lot.

The mount had settled such that the little bubble was nestling the edge of its cage.
Take scope off and counter weight so I could level it.

Leveled up everything back on but polar is way out it seems.

SO I spend ages doing time exposures to get what I believed to be a decent alignment.

Finally the stars are making circular pattens so I set it ticking at 30 seconds and now 1600 iso ...and I rotate the camera nicely rather than it sitting at the funny angle I had to start with getting the flattner the required distance from the sensor.

A look at the first frame seems real nice.

So set it running. Really needed a rest off my feet

And of course now the clouds roll in but hey I at least get 17 frames at 30 seconds of Eta...and its late but I have something to play with.

So do the stack this morning with 12 dark frames and when it appeared after the stack looks nice.

But as the curser glides over pixels to my absolute horror I have perhaps the longest star trails ever...and only 30 seconds.

And so I thought well if this is not worth a winge I dont know what is.

I am confused as I would have thought polar was not too bad and certainly with the eight inch and this method and 30 seconds it worked well.

The trails look like really bad polar alignment and unless the mount is sinking or something I think the adjusting of the camera must be the problem...I dont know.


I post the photo only because it hinted at being reasonable for such a short exposure time under Moonlight.


alex
alex