G'Day Merlin,
Yes, I've managed to have a play with the camera in long exposure mode once! I set up, drift aligned using K3CCD tools and then managed to capture M42 and M45 (what else for a 1st attempt?).
I captured M42 on 60 sec exposures, and I noticed some field rotation between frames, so I suspect my OTA isn't parallel with my RA axis... need to spend some time working that out.
I played around with a few different exposures on the Pleiades down to about 15 seconds, trying to see how long I could go without the main stars blooming... they still bloomed at 15 seconds, so maybe I've got to play about with gain and brightness a bit more.
BTW I was using the ToUcam piggybacked to my C8 with a Zuiko 50mm f1.8 lens. FOV about the right size for the whole of Orion's sword.
Unfortunately it was a work night, so I had to pack up and come home
... there was no sign of dew... it would've been nice to stay up a bit later and try some other things but I pushed it as far as I could I think.
Interestingly, I've struck a problem when processing the files in Registax when using a dark frame... the resulting image ends up all psychdelic colours and I get an error when I try to go to the wavelet page... ??? I'll post an example in another thread and see if anyone can tell me what I'm doing wrong
. I haven't had this happen before with photos from my C5060WZ.
Al.