Isn't it nice when things just work?

[rogerg (Roger)]

I've been having a lot of troubles lately with various pieces of equipment, mainly centering around my portable setup which comprises of a Losmandy GM8, WO Megrez & zillions of cables, batteries, etc. Quite a few things have been new to me - the Losmandy that I only received in late June last year and haven't really got used to yet, and the 350D being new this month. So still getting it all working nicely.

On the weekend just gone I went to the ASWA astro camp (twice-a-year event here in WA) and thank goodness after a week of preparing hard, reading manuals, getting advice from helpful people here in IIS and calibrating things it all just worked! A rare event. Using the Gemini's alignment assist and correction functions I managed to get my polar alignment almost spot on, then using PEC I correted for a little drift (balance slightly off) and PE, and then using the TVC setting removed all backlash in DEC... all done in good time leaving the rest of the time for photography. I just left it taking blocks of 50 minutes of exposures as I joined in viewing through other scopes around the field.

Very happy.

Now I just need to simplify the setup to remove some unnecessary batteries and cables. The car was a little too full. Of course allways improvements to be made. But at least the weekend wasn't a waste with respect to astro photography achievments like it sometimes has been for me.

Shame I didn't think to take a photo of the setup, it could've been the last time I ever see it all working nicely together.

Roger.

[JohnG (John)]

Onya Roger, glad it all worked.

JohnG

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Good onya Roger glad to hear it all came together for you. I'm looking forward to seeing what you've produced.