First use of EQ mount

I spent the day cobbling a wooden adaptor for my C5 to the CG5 mount, and
the finderscope to the C5; both a boodge, but have to start somewhere, it
won't be cloudy for ever.

Not a very clear night, Polaris invisible, so I pointed the big N on the
tripod at my best guesstimate for North and had cranked 51-ish deg on the
base.

I'd lined up the finder on a treetop about 50 yards away during the day.

The results were awesome - I found Sirius with the finder, it was in the
32mm eyepiece, so I centred it, realigned the finder, and worked down to
12.5 centering and adjusting the finder.

There was a bit of confusion over which knob to turn, but it didn't last
long.

I was then able to get Sirius in my 4.8mm finder, and track it dead easy,
in spite of the lack of setting up. I could even hang on to it well
enough to finally zero in the finder crosshairs.

I've never been able to get an object in that eyepiece before.

I then found Mwossname in Orion's sword in the finder, and it was right
there in the scope. In the short eyepiece too, though it didn't do it
justice.

And all on a pretty manky night.

The scope stayed where I put it, but still allowed hauling round the sky,
and the final tweaking in on the slomo knobs was a doddle. It stayed put
while I changed eyepieces.

If I lost the object due to leaving it too long, I only had to tweak one
knob to find it again.

Goto-ing was never like this!

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

mike

Nice one Mike!!

Gaz

"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

"Chris Taylor" wrote in
news
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!

Nice pic Chris.

Shouldn't you mount it on an eq wedge for long exposures, as although the
altaz mount cant hold position, it slowly twists relative to the universe
if running relative to the earth

(just a thought - the seller warned me it was no good for long
astrophotography; he forgot to tell me it wasn't much good for eyeballing
as well)

mike

"mike ring" wrote in message
. 1.4...
"Chris Taylor" wrote in
news

Shouldn't you mount it on an eq wedge for long exposures, as although the
altaz mount cant hold position, it slowly twists relative to the universe
if running relative to the earth

Hi Mike

Field rotation isn 't really an issue so long as its not prevalent in any
one frame. The stacking software I use takes care of the rotation whan
aligning by using two stars against which to align.

The tracking errors of the goto mount move the image more than a few pixels
over about 15 to 20 seconds causing star trails. My LX90 is good for about
30 to 60 secs without field rotation (depending where you aim) and a few
minutes when polar aligned.

Regards

Chris

"Chris Taylor" wrote in
:

Shouldn't you mount it on an eq wedge for long exposures, as although
the altaz mount cant hold position, it slowly twists relative to the
universe if running relative to the earth

Hi Mike

Field rotation isn 't really an issue so long as its not prevalent in
any one frame. The stacking software I use takes care of the rotation
whan aligning by using two stars against which to align.

The tracking errors of the goto mount move the image more than a few
pixels over about 15 to 20 seconds causing star trails. My LX90 is
good for about 30 to 60 secs without field rotation (depending where
you aim) and a few minutes when polar aligned.

Wow, it was even worse than I thought!

I'm well happy, just need a couple of bits of ally to make prarper
adaptors, I reckon they'll be as good as store-bought.

The only prob would be balancing the scope front to back, but I don't think
the mount realises there's a scope on at all.

Now I can use the short eyepiece I might try some "real" collimation!

mike