[g__day (Matthew)]

Well tonight I'd thought I'd try to do some remote astrophotography. Given my focus seems reasonably good, tracking is stable, auto-guiding is getting better and the weather is getting colder, I thought here we go.

So whilst the scope and astrolab PC are busy snapping a 240 secs shot of M80, I'm sitting about 50 metres away upstairs and inisde watching progress where its nice and warm!

For remote control stage 1 I'm using Windows XP remote assistance, to control a dual screen PC in my astro lab. The lab's dome roof isn't automated, so there is still manual labour - but geeze I'm having fun!

The Astro lab has running Cartes Du Ceil + Celestron ASCOM drivers, PHD 1.5, JMI PC focus, DSLR Shutter, Canon Zoom Browser and Canon EOS Utility. I can see and control everything I need to right here as I type this.

My only bug bear is the screen has some streaks on it (so the signal may be going across the internet rather than my lan and getting a bit degraded).

So Just now I've slewed to M8, done a 60 second exposure, downloaded it from Camera to the astro lab PC on a shared drive, opened the RAW file on the PC here in CS Photoshop and done some processing , changed the guide interval and duration on PHD and DSLR shutter - and away I go again!

Anyone else played with this? This is fun and luxury!

Next I'm likely to try VNC and see how it stakes up!

PS

Oops - meant to put this in software sorry - thought there are obivious software and alot of equipment involved in all this!

Low quality jpg of this running from what I see inside where its warm: