I suppose its a case of 'cant help myself'. Its the end of summer and its all Eta Carina and NGC3372 for me atm. With the new setup I had to try Eta Carina again after catching half an hours worth a few nights ago.
After a long period of astronomical despair, SE Qld has been lucky enough to catch a few brief moments of clear air over the past couple of weeks. Nothing to really write home about but enough to get out and rotate the worm and gear a few times. It culminated last night with a beautifully clear and reasonably steady night until stumps around 3:00. I managed over 3 1/2 hours all up of image, only to loose a more third due to flexure, slippage and some dodgy focus. The final image was 2 hours of Ha in reasonable seeing and a recollimated scope.
NGC3372: Meade 8" SCT (gps style ota), SXVF-H9 and Astronomik Ha filter. 2 hrs 8 min. (16*8min)
thanks guys, yep I'm reasonably happy with it Rob . This long focal length stuff is going to get pretty addictive. Its opened up a whole world of new stuff to shoot , once the moon and clouds nick off. I've still got a bit to do on collimation as well, but I'm getting the hang of it.
Well you know what its like Dennis, migrating up to that sort of FL. I remember some of the frustrations you had trying to find out where all the movement was coming from. I'll follow in your lead, persistence and perseverance. Moving up from around 600mm is a big jump and all those little things that I once thought,"yep that's good enough" just isn't cutting the mustard these days. All that stuff that has just the minutest amount of play all add up now.
>snip
Well you know what its like Dennis, migrating up to that sort of FL. I remember some of the frustrations you had trying to find out where all the movement was coming from. I'll follow in your lead, persistence and perseverance. Moving up from around 600mm is a big jump and all those little things that I once thought,"yep that's good enough" just isn't cutting the mustard these days. All that stuff that has just the minutest amount of play all add up now.
Hi Paul
I think that a lot of my guiding issues were based on my unreasonable expectations that a Tak mount would be perfect out of the box and immune to focal length!
My best results at the 2160mm native fl of the Mewlon 180 have been with the SBIG 2000XM with TC237 guide chip. I still haven’t had much success using side by side auto guiding, so I may explore the option of OTA rings and mount the guide scope on the rings.
The Eta Carina shot was a bit of a lucky series of exposures; everything just seemed to work well during that session. I hope the luck continues for the next clear night…whenever that may be… smack bang in the middle of La Nina!
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, once the moon and clouds nick off. I've still got a bit to do on collimation as well, but I'm getting the hang of it.
He keeps it covered with a blue sheet emblazoned with love hearts. It's more than sad. 
