astrophotography recommendations

[sejanus (Gavin)]

the eq6 with the v3 software and the 80mm should arrive tomorrow but I have double weddings this weekend so I told bintel I'll get it monday instead.

Been doing a bit of looking around at reader reports of this mount. It looks like I may end up going the celestron route on the SCT side when I get one
as they are a bit lighter than the meades which should help with this mounts capabilities.

[sejanus (Gavin)]

heres the finished product. i expect it to remain cloudy for ages now

http://www.gavincato.com/tmp/scope.jpg

[RB (Andrew)]

Looks like a great setup Gav, no wonder Kulnura is clouded out tonight.
Can't wait to see it in action.

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Mmmmmm....new Toys ...Arrggggggg!!!!




You will eventually get to appreciate the rain, even if it is only in a philosophical way

[sejanus (Gavin)]

well i just had a first crack at it, predictably i couldn't get it polar aligned and nor could my wife (and she's the brainy one!) and as I'm dead tired from being up last night for the f1 I'll have to leave it for another night. I did manually slew it around a bit and to be honest I really wasn't that impressed, it wasn't anything like i had seen through a friends scope but i will give it more time. kinda wondering if i should have bought that big SCT after all!

cheers

Gav

[sejanus (Gavin)]

just went outside with the good old binoculars and my star chart and stuffed if I can locate octans should it be visible from most places? sorry for dummy questions.

[h0ughy (David)]

Originally Posted by sejanus

well i just had a first crack at it, predictably i couldn't get it polar aligned and nor could my wife (and she's the brainy one!) and as I'm dead tired from being up last night for the f1 I'll have to leave it for another night. I did manually slew it around a bit and to be honest I really wasn't that impressed, it wasn't anything like i had seen through a friends scope but i will give it more time. kinda wondering if i should have bought that big SCT after all!

cheers

Gav

Persevere, you wont regret it. I haven't got the hang of my setup yet either and I have two eq6's!! Because your just new, well for that matter, even if you are old it doesn't matter, if you can learn by your mistakes then it will make you a better imager, scope setteruperer etc. you can only learn by stuffing up, its traditional. you get that frustrated that you want to put an axe through it to polar align it. but mate when you get it together and it works, look out, you wont sleep the whole night! between slewing to objects and then trying to image them you will look back on your erroneous nights and remember the moments of wanting to give up. You never will after you achieve the smallest milestone - knowing your equipment.

ask ponders about my setup at duckadang this year, I tried to drift align for hours without success, then along comes Mr I can fix it in a jiffy, and the bugger did too, in less than 10 minutes. I was close and didn't even realise it. If you can Gav rope someone off the site who lives near you to come over one night and run through the setup with them, maybe they could help identify what you need to learn or show you what to do. With octans it is very faint, under a full moon or light polluted areas forget it. go a compass, point south then go 10 degrees or so towards east and line up the mount in that direction and make sure its level. Then read up on all the drift alignment threads (1ponders in in most) and try it out. but just do that for the whole night until you can get it down pat! then show us the results with a few stunners mate of globs, nebs and widefields ( oh no more girlie links, my wife thinks I am over exercising the optic nerve)

[Lee]

Keep chipping at it - I think I have one little win each time I go out, am VERY slowly getting there.... once you get the thing polar aligned - have a look at rogerg's site for some good help - then mark the position of the tripod legs (I use spray paint on the grass!) - will speed things up 10 fold next trip.....
Good luck!

[sejanus (Gavin)]

thanks for the tips mate. I'll try your 10 degree trick.

Are you guys heading up to your kulnurra place this saturday?

Originally Posted by h0ughy

Persevere, you wont regret it. I haven't got the hang of my setup yet either and I have two eq6's!! Because your just new, well for that matter, even if you are old it doesn't matter, if you can learn by your mistakes then it will make you a better imager, scope setteruperer etc. you can only learn by stuffing up, its traditional. you get that frustrated that you want to put an axe through it to polar align it. but mate when you get it together and it works, look out, you wont sleep the whole night! between slewing to objects and then trying to image them you will look back on your erroneous nights and remember the moments of wanting to give up. You never will after you achieve the smallest milestone - knowing your equipment.

ask ponders about my setup at duckadang this year, I tried to drift align for hours without success, then along comes Mr I can fix it in a jiffy, and the bugger did too, in less than 10 minutes. I was close and didn't even realise it. If you can Gav rope someone off the site who lives near you to come over one night and run through the setup with them, maybe they could help identify what you need to learn or show you what to do. With octans it is very faint, under a full moon or light polluted areas forget it. go a compass, point south then go 10 degrees or so towards east and line up the mount in that direction and make sure its level. Then read up on all the drift alignment threads (1ponders in in most) and try it out. but just do that for the whole night until you can get it down pat! then show us the results with a few stunners mate of globs, nebs and widefields ( oh no more girlie links, my wife thinks I am over exercising the optic nerve)

[sejanus (Gavin)]

spray paint on the grass If I ever get it aligned

Originally Posted by plasmodium

Keep chipping at it - I think I have one little win each time I go out, am VERY slowly getting there.... once you get the thing polar aligned - have a look at rogerg's site for some good help - then mark the position of the tripod legs (I use spray paint on the grass!) - will speed things up 10 fold next trip.....
Good luck!

[RB (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by sejanus

thanks for the tips mate. I'll try your 10 degree trick.

Are you guys heading up to your kulnurra place this saturday?

Yes mate, if the weather agrees.
Are you coming?

[sejanus (Gavin)]

I'd love to if it's ok. it's my last saturday free for about 7-8 weeks i think.

Could I twist someones arm to show a idiot how to polar align?