Well, I've never done one of these before, so could be a disaster ... not that that has ever stopped me trying anything before:). Just starting with my first 'proper' ccd camera, so thought keeping a record of my experiences might be interesting, maybe even helpful to someone else embarking on the same journey.

So, after the appalling conditions we have had for most of this month, I finally got out to give it an initial test run last night (24/02/11). Started off having problems getting my 102slt to work, so swapped to the 6se. As most of my imaging has been done with the 102 any comparisons are a bit academic, but I just wanted to 'have a go'.

My thoughts before trying it were that the focus would be roughly the same as my canon, so plugged that in and centred Sirius. Then swapped cameras, and Sirius formed a donut roughly the size of the screen! What's that all about? Anyway, used the 'continuous shooting' mode to get the focus right. Then headed off to M41.

Now I was aware that I would not get the entire cluster on the chip, but I have to say I was somewhat disappointed with the result. Even at 30 seconds, all I was getting was 3 faint stars. Even if I did not have the cluster totally centred (always a possibility) I was expecting more than that. Have not been able to find anything corresponding to an ISO setting yet, so maybe that was the problem.

SO MUCH TO LEARN.

I then decided to have a go at seeing 'the Pup', using an X-mask to produce some nice diffraction spikes. Well, I got the diffraction spikes, but no sign of the pup.

All in all, a somewhat inauspicious start. But then, it is easy to forget how long it took to start getting reasonable results with any new piece of kit. You get used to it, and you begin to think that the next piece of kit will now be easy.

Terrible forecast for tonight, but looks as if it might be clear again tomorrow night, so the plan will be to give it a go with the 102 and see if that produces better results.