Frustratingly frustrating

[Sarge (Rod)]

Decided tonight was the night.

Been practicing with EQmod, NEQ6 mount, laptop and Alignmaster. Everything works perfectly in the lounge room.
Checked weather forecast last night and again this afternoon - clear skies over Melbourne predicted by all sites - first time in a week - yeah, time to get set up.
Set up mount, levelled, rough polar alignment, mounted scope, balanced, attached all leads switched on the computer, loaded EQmod, Stellarium scope and Stellarium, plugged in scope and turned it on - great, scope and mount recognised. Everything is working perfectly, I'm happy.
Started Alignmaster. Picked two stars for the alignment, checked Stellarium, yep both visible and not obstructed. This is the first time using Alignmaster so the going is slow. Slew to both stars and centered, Alignmaster computed the error in Alz and Alt. Adjusted for Alz error, went to adjust for Alt error - clouds started to roll in. Wait a while, went to move Alt manually to correct error - front leg of mount shortens - hadn't tighened up the leg properly. Now the mount is no longer level.
Dismount everything. Re-level mount - this time tightened all legs. Now I'm really ready.
Connect all leads and start up all programs again, again pick two stars for Alignmaster (strange list of stars has changed!), check Stellarium - yep can do. Slew to first star - clouds. Where did they come from?. Okay cancel that one, wait a while, skies are clearing. Start again - clouds swoop back in again. Cancel, check satellite pic - strange no cloud. Okay, wait another while, sky is clearing again, lets go. Got the first star , slew to second - clouds - I give up - I'm sure they deliberately came back!

Okay, maybe not the night for Alignmaster intro for me. I'll just do a single star alignment with SynScan on the scope and have a look around the sky for a while. SynScan says Sirius is good, yep I can see it, clouds are not in the way. Slew to Sirius, start to adjust for error - clouds AGAIN. This time they roll right across the sky, 100% cover - I give up.

Tonight is not the night. Pack everything up, go inside and have a nice cup of tea.

There is always tomorrow.

Clear skies - not

Rod

[keni (Ken)]

Sarge I feel your pain..the same thing has happened to me numerous times.
Go through the motion of setting everything up,start alignment process.
Hey where did that star go it should be really bright.Quick check of the sky...oh bugger clouds rolling in.
Wait for awhile...NBG* take everything back inside...sob uncontrollably.
As you said always tomorrow.
Cheers,
Ken.
*NBG: No Bl00dy Good.

[Octane (Humayun)]

Welcome to astrophotography.

I've not imaged since October.

H

[bmitchell82 (Brendan)]

.... least its still nearly full moon and you only had to drag your telescope back 15m

Wait till you have travelled 300km set up just about to take the first shot........... and that happens

oooorrrr. you get out there and the wind is blowing at about 4000km/h FKKKKKKING....

[barx1963 (Malcolm)]

Or today I had a 30 minute window to test my new home made white light solar filter on the DSLR,
Got it out, set it all up, figured out some settings, checked the sun was in the FOV then zoom it out to 400mm to get a decent image scale (all thsi took about 15mins) then thought why has the sun disappeared from the view finder?
Sure enough there was 1 tiny cloud and guess where it decided to sit for the next 10 mins!!!

Malcolm

[Sarge (Rod)]

Yeah, great night last night.
Nearly perfectly clear skies (till midnight anyway). Set up early, plugged everything in, switched it on and started aligning. Got it first time. Thought it was too easy, so aligned again - it was easy.
Picked up a little Wixey digital angle gauge - really helps a lot setting the Alt.
Spent nearly 5 hours touring the skies. Using my cheap modifiied webcam took a few snaps of Saturn and the moon. Will play around with them to see what I can get.
Love this scope and mount.

Clear skies

Rod

[scagman (John)]

Hi Rod,

Its good to hear that you're getting things sorted.

Regards

[Sarge (Rod)]

Here is my first attempt at a quick stack of 15 photos using Registax.

Rod