The Milky Way I took at the IISAC with a modded 40D with stock 55mm lens and a modded EQ3 guided with an ED80 and QHY5.
15 off 5 min exposures.
I didnt expect much, it was just for fun to see if it was possible and it came out OK (just dont zoom in
). There was no framing as such, just point and go.
What supprised me was guiding the EQ3. I fitted a standard option motor drive kit to it, and simply wired a guide lead to the 4 handbox nudge buttons, nothing else. Plugged it into the QHY5 and bingo, guiding
.
Theres something wrong with the EQ3, the both axis are as stiff as hell with the gears disengaged, and the clutches make no difference, on or off, but I kind of think this helped guide smoothness. The motors are geared right down (there is essentially no slew function) so they are almost impossible to stall, even running on the 4 D batteries
(which lasted 3 days and are still fine). This allowed me to put the balance way out so that the motors always drove, to avoid huge backlash, and infact I set single direction guide correction, to make sure, and it was fine.
After some tuning, I managed to get guide error down to 10 arc secs P/P or so, which is amazing for such a cheap mount, and fine for very wide field (ugg, I did that
).
I considered healing out the stars for a starless image, but figured that would probably take about 3 weeks, so I didnt.