Milky Way & Rho Ophiuchi

[rogerg (Roger)]

G'day all,

Quick snap from last night while doing some more mount testing. This is just 4 x 3 minute exposures. There was a 5th, but it was rudely interrupted by a BRIGHT METEOR!

Anyhow, the pic...
http://www.rogergroom.com/items/milky_way_rho_ophiuchi

Discovered my dew heater seems to have died, it was doing odd things like the power indicato turning off when a dew strap was plugged in to it .. so had to use the hair dryer in the 20 second gap I programmed in between each exposure.

Realised in the morning I had it on F/6.3 rather than F/4 too, so didn't quite get the data I was expecting.. doh.

Roger.

[h0ughy (David)]

looks pretty good.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Great shot - very sharp.

[dugnsuz (Doug)]

Very nice Roger - and I was intrigued to see that you've purchased an Astrotrac. The results in terms of tracking are translated in the quality of the images. Your other Astrotrac Milky Way images are of an equally high standard.
Doug

[luigi]

Excellent Roger!
How do you align the astrotac if I may ask you?

[rogerg (Roger)]

Originally Posted by h0ughy

looks pretty good.

Thanks houghy

Originally Posted by multiweb

Great shot - very sharp.

Thanks

Originally Posted by dugnsuz

Very nice Roger - and I was intrigued to see that you've purchased an Astrotrac. The results in terms of tracking are translated in the quality of the images. Your other Astrotrac Milky Way images are of an equally high standard.
Doug

Thanks. I have to say as much as I hear people bag the price of the AstroTrac, for me so far it has "just worked" and after my fair share of troubles with telescope mounts over the years that's worth real money to me. I'm keen to push the exposure times a little more to test it, I should have last night but didn't have time. This is even though my goal with it is wide field short exposures (no more than 3, maybe 5 mins).

Originally Posted by luigi

Excellent Roger!
How do you align the astrotac if I may ask you?

You can align it any way you would any other equatorial non-goto mount. The methods I have tried are:
1) Compass & Digital angle meter
2) Compass & bubble level & reading the altitude setting on the wedge
3) Polar Scope
4) Laser aligned with the pole (in place of the Polar Scope)
5) Drift alignment

Thanks

Roger.

[TheAstroGuy (Shane Ross)]

Nice Shot Rog,

Damn that rude flying piece of space rubble ruining your last frame, What was it thinking?? how Rude

shane

[luigi]

And which method has worked better with the AstroTac?

[rogerg (Roger)]

Originally Posted by TheAstroGuy

Nice Shot Rog,

Damn that rude flying piece of space rubble ruining your last frame, What was it thinking?? how Rude

shane

Yeah... space junk these days, just has no respect for us

Originally Posted by luigi

And which method has worked better with the AstroTac?

I haven't been using it long enough to know for sure. But so far for me it's a combination of leveling using the bubble level then N/S using the compass then fine tuning alignment using the laser.

Roger.