[kosh]

Originally Posted by acropolite

Live on the edge.... She doesn't have to know.!!!!!

Starshoot autoguider and mini guidescope package is affordable.

Actually she is pretty good about it all, but looking at it, things like auto guiders aren't too expensive on their own, it's just I spend 2 grand in the last month on astro-photography equipment. Lucky I already had the camera. Besides, it will be good to get some old-school skills behind me before I go further.

Originally Posted by cometcatcher

Your eye? Get a small guide scope + illuminated reticle eyepiece and guide manually. Saves mucking about with computers but hurts the neck.

Kevin, what is this "manually" of which you speak? This concept is unfamiliar to me
I think I will get the illuminated reticle eyepiece though . I need it for drift aligning right?

Originally Posted by Rex

Hi Kosh, mate what you have captured is about right for am unmodded camera. I took some images of M42 a couple of weeks ago. Generally with M42 you take atleast two sets of exposures, one set much shorter than the other so you can combine the two and have the detail in the nebula of the longer exposure and the detail of the core from the short exposure. Anyway the point to telling you all that was my short exposure was made up of 10x60sec and I didn't get much more than what you have shown.

Nice first image by the way. The learning curve is steep but a lot of fun and we are all here to help where we can. Keep them coming.

Thanks for the encouragement Rex, I will post some more once the weather clears. It's almost like we moved Melbourne to the U.k. The last couple of months with all this cloud and rain...