Barn door tracker progress

[Viewmaster]

Progress so far on type 3 Barn door tracker with aluminium tubular stand in various stages of construction. 6 struts bolted onto Wickes slabs. Because of the problem in alighning up the tracker's hinges with NCP, I have put in 4 adjustable set screws as piccy shows. Using these I can get home made polar scope (using a plastic Wickes toilet pipe ) within 6 inches on a house 1000 ft away which equates to an error on the hinge axis of 2 minutes of arc so that should help in eventual alignment with NCP. Also added is a mini Eq mount ( and old cine camera pan and tilt head) with 2 digital angular readouts for DEC and RA. . Richard

[iamjulian]

Looks good, please post your results when you are done. I have recently finished mine too.

[Viewmaster]

Looks good, please post your results when you are done. I have recently finished mine too.

Hope yousr is working OK.  Tell us about it.

This is my first DSO I attempted recently. M45. 

 Just a single 5 minute jpeg exposure taken with a cheap 200mm Chinon lens on a Canon 450d.

Taken before it was really dark hence the bright image.

The star distortion is caused by slight camera arm movement and needs attention.

Frigged around with the image in FastStone and trimmed it. 

I was pleased to get some nebulosity out of that bright image.

So we slowly progress.

[nytecam]

Blackho.. l.....e - that's a very impressive M45 - well done :-)

[Viewmaster]

Thanks nytecam.

I used to live in the  London suburbs too many years ago too, so I was impressed to see, just now, your own collection

of DSO  images.