Scorpius (part)

[TrevorW]

First try with the new mount set up was not crash hot tracking bit off for photography includes M7

please remember to click fit to window

:doh:

[theodog]

Mmmmmmmm,
Truth be known we all have similar hidded in our data storage.
But it gets better with fiddling.

[Alchemy]

gday trevor, good on you for trying, how did you go with the setting up of the gear, (pole alignment , tracking etc ....the more detail the better) if you give us a bit of info we might be able to help you get it all working efficiently

cheers clive

[TrevorW]

Clive

I thought I had it pointing magnetic South reasonably well but when I did a three star alignment the first star I chose was Alpha Centauri it slewed towards Alpha Centauri but did not centre it in the EP needed a fair bit of adjustment to center it.

The latitude hear is 31.58 and it just so happens the mount was preset to that when I picked it up (near enough hard to tell sometimes). I levelled the tripod as good as I could before putting the head on. I must admit I did not try for a polar alignment. Visually objects where staying pretty well dead centre and tracking OK although until I get a IREP I can't check exactly for drift etc although trying exposures more than 15-20 seconds produced star trails so obviously something was afoot.

I'll probably need more time setting up instead of rushing when I get home from work trying to squeeze in a couple of hours imaging etc.

These images as from a stack of 11 each exposures roughly 10 seconds each no lights or darks. Stacked in DSS adjusted for levels etc in PS

Imaged the moon and Alpha Centauri (Rigel Kent) as well.

Cheers

[Tandum]

I spent the first night with my new HEQ5 doing drift alignment with an illuminated eyepiece. Once I had it tracking OK for nearly 15minutes I marked the tripod position. I soon got sick of carrying everything outdoors and I just left it out there and covered it :)

[Alchemy]

AH ha. right first of all magnetic south is NOT polar south, the first task we must get a control of is getting the mountpolar aligned, dont know what an IREP is ? get out your star map whatever it is and become familiar with how to find sigma octans.... use binoculars go out and find it. you then have to set up the scope so that you can put the required stars in the polar finder..... til this can be mastered , you cant get to the next bits. if you dont have a polar finder ...buy one.

this could be a bit painful to do through this thread step by step so feel free to pm me and we can get you through.

to give you an idea of what you need to cover its these things as a basic

1. polar alignment
2. focus
3. Colimation ...if its a newt
4. guiding... setting up some sort of guiding system
5. camera settings and exposures
6. once you can capture reasonable length exposures... simple processing