"mike ring" wrote in message
. 1.4...

Goto-ing was never like this!

Thanks for all assistance, no doubt I'll be back with more questions when
the dust has settled

Glad the finderscope worked for you. It seems we both got what we wanted?

I've finished mounting the 135mm lense and DSI to your old mount. Took a few
pictures of M31 and also of M81 (with M82 in same FOV). The mount will keep
an object in the FOV for over an hour but for imaging purposes the
tracking's only good for about 8 to 11 seconds. This means an increasingly
large number of images to stack. Each image is split into three files (one
for each colour) and each file is about 1.25 Mb. I'm now trolling through
over 3 Gig of files for the first nights imaging!

Here's M31 as a work in progress:
http://tinyurl.com/6kyxq

Aligning the arrangement was difficult without actually being able to see
through the lense with the DSI attached so I took it out again last night to
attach your old red-dot finder. This inevitably led to another 1.5 Gig worth
of images to sort. The red-dot finderscope works well and the setup and
alignment process now takes less than 5 minutes. Selected objects appear in
the FOV everytime (probably helps to have a massive 94' x 124' FOV on the
chip). I hope to post a few of the completed results when they're all
stacked............say about 2010.

Here's a pic of your GOTO old mount with the Lense, DSI and Finder attached:
http://tinyurl.com/6e3eg

I found a barlow that screwed directly into the DSI with the 1.25" adapter
removed. I then butchered the barlow and superglued to the bayonet flange on
the 135mm lense. The lense only cost £20 off eBay so, for £20, a disused
finderscope and star diagonal I've got a wide field 'telescope' for the DSI.

The lense was attached to a metal plate with some plumbing brackets and the
mount was tapped out for metric screws so the plate could be mounted to the
GOTO mount.. The red-dot finderscope is superglued onto the plumbing
bracket.

Catchya later

Chris