First trial of the almost complete Scotch mount

[middy]

Hi everyone,

I finally got my Scotch mount to a workable state. I am still trying to source a ball mount for the camera, so for this shot the camera was mounted flat onto the top board.

I was quite pleased with the results given that I only roughly aligned it with the SCP. My camera only has a maximum exposure of 64 seconds anyway so I won't be doing any loooong exposure shots.

This pic is 6 x 64 sec images stacked in Registax @ ISO200. I couldn't get a dark frame because the batteries went flat in the camera :(

Can anyone help me identify the stars/constellations in this pic. I fired up Cartes du Ciel afterwards and spent ages trying to pick out exactly what I had in the frame.

The view is SSE at ~11pm last night from Brisbane. The Southern Cross was off the top right of the frame and was almost at its highest point. I thought I might be able to find the 'Squashed X' group of stars just below and to the left of the centre of the frame using Cartes du Ciel, but I couldn't work out what it was.

cheers,
Andrew

[fringe_dweller]

Hi Andrew! Nice job there mate - scotch mount is working a treat!:)
you have imaged Pavo there - heres snp screenshot - the 'squashed x' has star HIP92024 in centre

[vespine]

Wow that's a great shot! Stars look "spot on", well done:)

I've been working up to make a scotch mount for myself too.
So far I'm thinking motorised isosceles scotch mount on an equatorial wedge. Would you like to share the details of your mount? How long has it taken and cost you so far? is it motorised? What design did you use, etc? I'd be very interested to hear your experience.

[middy]

Thanks for that Fringe Dweller. :thumbsup: I can see it on the maps now that you have pointed it out. That means that the faint little smudge in the lower left corner is the globular cluster NGC 6752 :D

I really must get my act together and source a ball and socket mount, then I can image some more interesting areas of sky.

[middy]

I based it loosely on this design ....
http://www.astunit.com/tonkinsastro/atm/projects/handscotch.htm

At the moment it is hand-driven. I do have some old stepper motors lying around waiting for a project though, so one day I might motorise it. If you had all the pieces ready in front of you, you could easily knock it up in a day. I have been doing it bit by bit over a month.

I already had the wood in my offcut pile. The hinge, bolts, nuts, washers and other bits and pieces wouldn't have been more than $20 from the local hardware shop. I suspect the most expensive part will be the ball and socket mount for the camera.

When I get time I will attempt to take some pics of it and post them. It is not exactly the most precisely built scotch mount on the planet. The hinge has a bit of sideways play in it and an error in the bolt mounting hardware turned it from a tangential drive into a semi-isoceles drive.

I am going to try and do some imaging with the video camera on the scotch mount tonight instead of the digital camera to see how they turn out.

Andrew

[fringe_dweller]

the famous Pavo Glob :-)
I see you got down to easy high 9's magnitude wise stars, not bad at all especially for near horizon in the city :thumbsup:
look forward to seeing pics of your setup in the future :)

[Lester]

Good one Andrew.

[RAJAH235]

Nice first pic. Andrew. :thumbsup:
FWIW, The best hinges to buy/use are brass ones. They have no play in them. I used 2 x 3" on mine. Solid as...... :D L.
ps. A 4 or 6 X, rifle telescopic sight works well as a SCP finder too.

[iceman]

Great job Andrew!

Did you do any processing of the images afterwards (apart from stacking)?

[middy]

I just follow the basics in David's Registax tutorial with some histogram stretching and a bit of wavelets 3,4 & 5 at the end.

I don't have the time to sit down and experiment too much with Registax and other tools.

Now if I could just get my wife into image processing then I could do my imaging at night and leave her to process them all the next day while I am at work. :P

Somehow I don't see that happening ..... not in this known universe anyway.

[middy]

Thanks for the tip. I will look for brass hinges when it is time for its first upgrade.

[iceman]

What camera do you use?

[middy]

Kodak Z730

It was a compromise between me wanting a full on DSLR with all the bells and whistles and my wife wanting a small point and shoot camera.

I made sure the one we did get had manual mode and could do a reasonably long exposure time (64 secs max).

[middy]

I posted some pics of the StarTracker for all who are interested. You can find them in the ATM & DIY forum under the topic 'Scotch Mount (StarTracker)'. Enjoy.....