On or about 2006-04-02,
Pete Lawrence illuminated us with:
On Sun, 02 Apr 2006 12:07:39 GMT, Mark Ayliffe wrote:

Thought I'd try pointing the new toy skywards on its own given the
disappointment of finding that it isn't really practical to put it on the
ETX-105 :-(

What's the problem with putting it on the ETX-105 Mark?

Well I went into Green Witch yesterday and was told that the camera is too
heavy for the ETX 105 and there isn't a proper way of counterbalancing it. I
guess I could cobble something together using lead strip around the top end
of the tube or somesuch, but I'm a little worried about putting too much
weight on the bearings & driveshaft of the ETX. Probably a matter of my
working up enough courage to give it a go. It's not as trivial as I was
hoping it would be.

The chap[1] at Green Witch suggested supporting the camera on another tripod
and "pointing it" at the ETX, but then it's not exactly going to track too
well, which rather defeats the object IMHO.

OTOH I have a 50mm F1.8 lens which I took a few widefield shots with last
night and I reckon that a remote shutter release and the mirror locked up
might produce some interesting results which can be stacked. As I said in
the first post, the shake with manual release & probably the mirror movement
even on a tripod is too much, everything looks rather oval!. And I think I'd
like to try the telephoto lenses in full darkness too, having played with
Registaxx, that might also be interesting.

[1] Lee, who usually is pretty reliable on such things I think.
--
Mark
Real email address | In the land of the blind,
is mark at | the one eyed man is king.
ayliffe dot org