Being a long time serious photographer eventually I knew I'd be wanting to shoot some AstroPix. Tried to so some short exposure (6 secs) from a tripod but star trails were obvious. So I've been trying to build a 'Barn door' or equivalent to mount my KM 7D on. Picked up a $15.00 240v 1/10th RPM motor from local surplus bits store and pulled a couple of 1:1 nylon gears off an old Photocopier toner reclaim system. Lathed up a bearing or two to fit the gears to the worm drive on the 4.5" shaky EQM mount and got it all to work. Added a side plate to fit the camera on. Used Google Earth to get an accurate Nth Sth Alignment on a pathway in the backyard (20 degrees West offset exactly) and ran some timing tests to see how it went. Stunning clear night conveniently came along and I took some pix.
Here's the setup and here is a wide feild Orions Sword stacked over 10 frames, 4 secs, f5.6 160mm lens, 800 ISO. Lots more to do and I don't think I've quite got the hang of Registax but there is colour and shape.
The thing that impresses me though is the tracking ! Stars are round and even. I used the 10 sec delay on the camera to allow settling time. I only had to tweak the mount angle slightly to get SCP drift aligned. There are no flats or colour correction, not even sure if I got Registax to do it's thing properly. ( Gawd, it's complicated !
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So now I am on the slippery slope I think. A long way to go I know but just pleased to be able to take a pic or two. I have some more frames to work on and I'll rehash these as I learn Registax but I think Heath Robinson would be proud.
