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Moon adventures
Well, this was my second night out, so a brief status update on the issues that were so bothersome last time, and some new ones...
1. Mosquito's. Applied a fair amount of repellent today, as a result, a single bite and a computer room that reeks of the stuff, lol! Much happier night.
2. I set up much earlier, and had everything prepared well ahead of time.
3. I decided to try the "live view", so bought a small table from Bunnings for about $25 to hold a laptop. Works a treat! When I tried to rig it up however, EOS utilities gave me a "cannot recognise camera" error. Thus died the idea of using live update tonight. The rest of the laptop worked great, including KnightVision, which is terrific for giving you a nice night-vision friendly screen.
4. Had far better success tonight, because I knew the settings I was going to use, 100 ISO and a 1/100 setting.
5. Chose a single target, the moon. Trouble was the thing moved behind the trees constantly, and I had to keep shifting my tripod from one position to another. Determined next time to set up where I can easily see the whole field of movement.
6. Determining if you have focused correctly by looking through the 450D viewfinder upsidedown was horrible. I took about 15 shots, moving the focuser just a tiny bit each time so at least one 'hits' critical focus. Later picked the best image (below).
I later updated both the program and firmware (Camera to 1.01, I think it is?) and amazingly worked. Unfortunately, this was too late to be used tonight, so Liveview via laptop will wait for the next time!
At night the moon is even more incredible. Love it, and my BEST picture so far.
Next step, Live View, moving towards eventually using my NEQ6 mount for the first time, followed by Autoguiding... Stay tuned!
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