After 5 months no telescope I setup.....

[Garbz]

So here we are, clouds are gone, I'm back from China. Last week I weeded the observatory (someone forgot to put the floor in before going to China for a few months). On the weekend I threw my mount in the observatory, did a little bit of making sure it's pointing south and that's about it.

Today was first light for the year, or rather since summer. So I slew to A Crux.....

Dead on smack bang in the middle of the frame, and perfectly in focus. :eyepop:

I actually did a quick check to see if there wasn't another binary star near ACrux. This is literally the first time I have ever put my scope out where it hit a target first go without syncing or using that weird spiral motion command in EQMOD.

I was on such a high I just started imaging. Mind you I didn't drift align so my guiding graph looks like the Rocky Mountains during an earthquake but hey we can't win them all right :lol:.

[LewisM]

I too imaged last night.... had all sorts of troubles though.

My polar alignment was REALLY good (I leave the mount out covered) - 2 SECONDS out in Az, and 4 secs out in Alt. Good enough - each slew was bang on like yours.

But then guiding.... MaxIM told me that the star moved less than 5 pixels so wouldn't calibrate...then I realised I hadn't plugged in the cable!!!!!!!!!!!!!! D'OH!

So,started again... MaxIm was good enough, but I wanted to try PHD2, so fired it up and it locked on and stayed locked (I always watch 3 frames - 20 min exposures each, so an hour - to make sure the guiding is solid), and went to bed, with an auto run set for 5 hours worth.

Got up before dawn, put it all away. Whilst taking the cam off the drawtube, I realised that the focus lock was NOT engaged.... I feared the worst, and my fears came true - it had slipped JUST enough to render 80% of images out of focus. 5 hours down the drain.

And now it is nigh on perfect tonight and I have no stamina to do it tonight (even after an hours tweaking the mount today)

Ah, imaging...who needs it :) :P :)

[Eratosthenes]

Chris, the last time I visited China (2008) i was amazed at how rare the sun is visible in the sky. The pollution is so thick. I cant image a telescope would be of much use in around the major city centers.

maybe head for the hills, or the deserts in Mongolia and the Coby somewhere

I remember when I returned to Melbourne I couldnt believe how blue and bright the sky was...

[rmuhlack]

Chris - good on you for getting out there. Always good to be back out under the stars :)

Lewis - I feel your pain. I must admit that I have (on more than one occasion) lost an entire night's worth of potential data because I have left the bahtinov mask on the scope :doh:

[Dealy]

Phew

I thought I was the only one that did silly things like that

[Wavytone]

Well I'll confess to having done some subterranean observing - I set up my scope in my basement - it's two levels below ground - and propped up one of Patrick Moore's books at the other end some 50 metres away.

The seeing was bloody good, rock steady and the resolution was rather better than my aperture implies :screwy: - and no tracking problems either at 600X :eyepop:

Could even resolve the individual drops of ink :lol:

[Garbz]

Yeah I was in Zhuhai, apparently one of the cleanest cities. Lets just say that doesn't say much for the other cities. I think I had 2 clear days the entire time I was there and on those nights I could make out Sirius and that was it. It's a city of light pollution. On the upside the building next to my hotel shone lights into the sky and acted as a suburban lighthouse so I could always find my way home :rofl:.



It wasn't silly as much as me just not giving a ****. I was just stoked that it all worked. Tomorrow I'll try sequence generator to screw my workflow and drift align as well. Maybe by new moon I'll get a decent image.



Some people spend a lot of money on artificial stars. :lol:

[Wavytone]

Chris next time in China you should go to Shangri La. 3000 metres and excellent skies, I even took some photos showing Andromeda nicely when I was there. Lijiang isn't bad either, especially if you can travel out into the countryside.