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Old 31-01-2017, 02:41 PM
Poz (Pauline)
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Location: Penrith, Nsw
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Poz - New member intro

Hi All,

I'm Poz from Penrith, I've been looking upwards since I was about 7 when my oldies got me an old Tasco from Tandys. I was gifted a 6" Newt and just purchased a second hand 10" Dobsonian which has been great. I have dabbled in a camera/tripod set up for a while now, whilst enjoying being an observer from the scopes.

I'm about to take a big leap forward and will be purchasing a few more tools to keep me going. I was introduced to ICEINSPACE by a lovely lady (whom I have forgotten your name, so sorry) who was helping out at Bintel before Christmas - Thanks for the suggestion!

I was suggested a SW Black Diamond ED80 and a HEQ5 Pro mount, which would do just fine I believe. However, looking into the future, I'm interested in the AZEQ6GT and SW Esprit 80. I have a Nikon D7200 camera, and will hopefully one day have enough savings to buy a CCD camera.

Anyhow - thanks for having me!
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  #2  
Old 31-01-2017, 04:25 PM
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Atmos (Colin)
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Location: Melbourne
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Welcome Pauline !

It looks like you've done your homework, the second one you suggest would definitely be a nice place to start. The Esprit range are very well build and great performers. Bintel should also have an adapter for your Nikon to the flattener that comes with the Esprit
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Old 01-02-2017, 01:02 PM
Poz (Pauline)
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Location: Penrith, Nsw
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Cheers!

Thanks Colin!

I do have a question that is bugging me - my backyard faces NW mostly, I have a decent view of west, my house tends to block S and SW and I have no view of NE and N due to house, trees and neighbours.

At the moment I have to wait until about 10pm to get a glimpse of the southern cross as it crosses over my roof. I have a feeling that I won't be able to align with the SCP in my backyard. Is this going to be a massive problem? Is there another way?

I have read that Synscan has an alignment function, would this overcome my issue?

I would rather know now before I plunge in the deep end only to find out it will never work!

Poz
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Old 01-02-2017, 01:15 PM
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Atmos (Colin)
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Location: Melbourne
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If you have a view of the South Celestial Pole (37° above the horizon and 11° East of magnetic south from Melbourne) you can get a QHY Polemaster which can get you very close to polar aligned within minutes.

When using the Synscan hand controller you can do 2-Star Polar Alignment routine using random bright stars across the sky. At the end of each successful alignment it will tell you your polar alignment offset. Slowly making adjustments and doing that again and again, you'll get a pretty accurate PA.

Other methods are using Drift Alignment in PHD2 or another polar alignment routine in Sharpcap (haven't used it myself). In short, you don't need o be able to have a view of south to do accurate polar alignment
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Old 01-02-2017, 02:11 PM
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FlashDrive (Poppy)
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Welcome aboard .... lots of info here to help you.


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Old 01-02-2017, 09:06 PM
willilamwgn (William)
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Location: Sydney, Australia
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Welcome Pauline.

I have similar problem, the South Celestial Pole is not visible from my backyard being block by the roof. I setup up the mount using a magnetic compass to estimate the true South and then use 2 star alignment. Once that is done I am able to locate most objects from the hand controller.
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Old 03-02-2017, 06:06 PM
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ZeroID (Brent)
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If you can put a few marks on the ground in a place in your yard where you will regularly setup your scope you can be very close to SCp alignment from getgo.
Use a plumbbob at solar noon to give you a Nth\Sth shadow line, far more accurate than a compass that can be deviated by local anomalies.
Then with a bit of simple triangular geometry you can get an accurate East\West line across it.
I painted the lines on my driveway. Then placed the north pointing tripod leg on the N\S line and the other two straddling it on the E\W line. Level the tripod and adjust the dec angle with a phone app. Should get you pretty close to begin with.
Fine tune your alignment and when you have it right spot mark the foot spots for next time. I could put my scope away in the garage without altering the legs settings so it was just an easy job to lug it out, put it on the spots and maybe fine tune it a bit.
The solar noon line is the key to it all.
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