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Thanks for the kind words chaps. The black and white images are with a Gstar-EX, and the colour with Meade DSI III colour (except for Jupiter which was with a ToUCam). So nothing exotic and very little post processing. It really demonstrates how easy it is to image!
The main issue that I have had is actually in the tracking of servocat. It actually does an incredible job, and together with Peter’s precision engineering, an object will remain in my 17mm Nagler forever. But these ccd chips have a tiny field of view, so the miniscule mount misalignments make a big difference to imaging and the image ‘wanders’ as well as rotates which reduces the maximum exposure to a few seconds.
The TPAS routine that Garry has written for ArgoNavis is superb – it means that I can slew to an object and for it to be on-chip most of the time. Stunningly impressive, but unfortunately, after the slew, the more simplistic tracking routine from servocat kicks in.
Don’t get me wrong – Servocat is brilliant, and the best available – it just wasn’t designed to do what I have been asking it to! I have got autoguiding working with servocat which actually fixes the tracking issue, but I haven’t really used it much. I don’t image very much…
As for scope changes – I lopped about 30mm off the poles and upped the secondary to a 3.5” (I think!). I didn’t reset the blocks as the difference is easily accommodated by the flex in the poles, and the Feathertouch required no changes. I actually prefer the visual view with the larger secondary – I can clearly see the better illumination in my favourite nagler.
I had thought about one of those dual axis platforms, but one of the biggest imaging issues with a big-un is the wind! It’s is only possible in dead-calm and I guessed that if I caught the bug, I would have to go and get a 5m dome next!
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