ZeroID
27-09-2011, 05:01 AM
Up on the EQ6 and with camera mounted.
Cold (4 degrees !! ) clear night so setup out on the driveway with the DSLR on the accessory bar and tried some widefield. Finally shut down about 11:30pm, cold but happy and with about 127 20 sec frames of M7, Lagoon\Trifid and Tuc 47. They look reasonable and will give me some stuff to process and play with. Got alignment close but put in the 12mm reticule EP and was doing minor corrections during the later exposures. I've got to figure out this drift align procedure.
Rotating UTA is a big success from a comfort point of view. The abilty to put the EP somewhere accessible is magic.
Balanced it with the G Clamps and had no problems with erratic drive or slippage.
Had the scope pointing away from the garage doors at one stage and could not focus it. Lights from inside the garage were coming through the back of the minimalist mirror cell confusing the view. Trap for the unwary and an indicator of how easy it is to make mistakes.
I have acquired some thin rigid plastic so will cut a Hartmann mask and next time see if I can get the DSLR attached to the 10". Use the 80mm as a visual guide scope.
But discovered it is very hard to take photographs of black objects in the night. Poor little Fuji Camera struggled to see anything. (see below)
I'll try processing the frames and see what I come up with but technically I'm happy with the setup and the way it is working.
Cold (4 degrees !! ) clear night so setup out on the driveway with the DSLR on the accessory bar and tried some widefield. Finally shut down about 11:30pm, cold but happy and with about 127 20 sec frames of M7, Lagoon\Trifid and Tuc 47. They look reasonable and will give me some stuff to process and play with. Got alignment close but put in the 12mm reticule EP and was doing minor corrections during the later exposures. I've got to figure out this drift align procedure.
Rotating UTA is a big success from a comfort point of view. The abilty to put the EP somewhere accessible is magic.
Balanced it with the G Clamps and had no problems with erratic drive or slippage.
Had the scope pointing away from the garage doors at one stage and could not focus it. Lights from inside the garage were coming through the back of the minimalist mirror cell confusing the view. Trap for the unwary and an indicator of how easy it is to make mistakes.
I have acquired some thin rigid plastic so will cut a Hartmann mask and next time see if I can get the DSLR attached to the 10". Use the 80mm as a visual guide scope.
But discovered it is very hard to take photographs of black objects in the night. Poor little Fuji Camera struggled to see anything. (see below)
I'll try processing the frames and see what I come up with but technically I'm happy with the setup and the way it is working.