The Southern Pier rises!/ Lagoon test

[graham.hobart (Graham stevens)]

Greetings,, after having several kittens and bag's full of spiders, I have finally got my pier up and standing. It's the through deck type. God help those folks who buy this house if we move- there is a lot of concrete under the deck and a big blue steel tube sticking up through the deck. Actually as the hazy Sunlight went down tonight and I had my mount on the the top of the 'column;' it did look quite avant garde sculptor type thingy.
Anyhoo- got the thing together finally and took some test shots.
Tonight was a condensation meeting at my house as well, I think a big conference. Even before I had finished the setting up there were beads of moisture on the table top, so apart from the water dripping everywhere, and my daughter puking in her own hair so she looked like Bob Marley, all was good.
I could walk around and even jump around, and no change in the camera. -I have spent four years starting an exposure then either freezing (totally still and also cold) or leaning over the stairs from the deck and pressing go, then not going on the deck for a few hours) so this is big for me.
Sorry, gob****e.
anyway here is NGC 6523 from my humble pier......
graz

[MrB (Simon)]

Nice Grahame, something funky going on with the colour, but looking good for a test shot.
Was this the 60Da? What scope?
Got a pic of the pier?

[graham.hobart (Graham stevens)]

Yep 60da through a Tak TSA 120 , colour was me trying to match it with some on line pics (after no sleep and some decent French birthday wine-woo hoo!)
Maybe my rods and cones are palsied after the daughter vomitfest then the wine? Gotta say though a petit chablis with some olives really makes the Tak look fantastic!!
I sometimes think i am not serious enough for this forum.

[Rex]

Nice Shot Graham. What exposure time was this and guiding? I feel for you with the drama's of life and trying to work our hobby around it. Makes life so much more interesting

[graham.hobart (Graham stevens)]

As this was a test run, and I had only just aligned the baby*- it was 2 minute subs x 30 at 1600 iso guided with a SSAG in a modified finderscope.
I sort of miscalculated the final height, and I am 5ft 10", so my head is level with the bottom of the finderscope. That's ok until I have to put the covers on.
Roll on my dome is what I say!
By the way, to check the resonance, if anyone is interested, I did the Jurassic Park test- glass of water (or Matilda Bay Big Helga lager in my case) on the top of the mount. Then jump up and down like an approaching large reptile. No movement at all.
You don't know how cool this is to me, after years of setting PHD to calibrate, then running away till it does lest my sneeze or perish the thought- a brassy tone from the "ramparts of the old canal" (as Norman Mailer put it in Ancient Evenings) ruin the thing then have to do it again.
Scope is a Takahashi TSA 120- purchased second hand from IIS.
I know people love the G11's and above. But I adore my CGEM.
Does the job for me.
Bugger- forgot about my teabag!, gotta go. * (by Baby I mean telescope and mount NOT child!)

[Ross G]

Nice shot Graham.

Good luck.

Ross.

[adman (Adam)]

Very nice graham - picture and pier!

From an oh&s point of view you might want to make a cover for the hole at the bottom of the pier so you don't put a foot down it when you are concentrating on something else....

Adam

[Marke (Mark)]

Glad to see you have it all up and running now plenty more images to come

[graham.hobart (Graham stevens)]

Good tips Adam, thanks Marke- will put a bit of deck back over the hole now I have it sorted. Since the pic was taken have had gale force winds and rain so no second light yet. At least it didn't blow over like my tripod did once!
Now for some serious cable management attempts.
Graz