FilmGuy

Well John - looks like you got away with this one. Thankfully Pentax still makes a tough camera. That SMC 200 lens is one of the best from Pentax and should be tac sharp. Looks like some drift in those pix - but some are good. You are going to have to spend some time to gain experience before the really good results come forth - unless you drop the outfit again. What a shock to the system that must have been. Get the camera tuned up - don't leave anything to chance. Good luck Igor

Exceptional effort. I love HA - and NB work. Worthy of a print to be sure. Maybe printed on some kind of plastic and mounted with a backlight? That would be something you could hang in an art gallery.

That is a very interesting hobby site there. Visiting often - and great stuff. I'd love to do the RC thing. More later.

You can drive that jeep around - and change gears manually, you should be able to guide. Burning at the stake was not an art - it was a past time. Monty Python proved that.

I almost got to Pike's Peak but the peanut wore out just before I reached the top. Burning a steak on the barbecue is my favourite past time.It was many years ago when I was there - going up was one thing - coming back down with brake fade was another matter.

Yes - no problem. I did it for two seasons although with a longer f/11 scope. But the ST-80 should work fine as long as you barlow. I used two cheap barlows 2x each with a short scope when conditions were good. This gave more accurate guiding.You need to learn not to chase the seeing, as with average conditions the star will bounce around quite a bit. You will adjust to keep up, only to find it suddenly back where you started. Practise when the moon is up. Once you get good at it - do a Pec training run, and turn Pec on with manual guiding - much easier tracking. Practise makes perfect

Thank you. You also have some nice work on Flickr - enjoyed them.igor

The Nightfly and myself have been doing film for astro and landscape forever. Many do not understand that film is still very capable, especially for wide field work with lenses.

If you like to go light - minimum of equipment - there is a lost art called Manual Guiding. Use a regular guide scope - insert a 2x barlow then illuminated reticle. Centre a suitable brighter star and use the hand controller to keep the star in the crosshairs. This is how it was done until auto guiders became available and are ideal for the really long exposures. If your mount is well polar aligned or better yet - drift aligned and you have a good Pec training run you will find that manual guiding becomes quite easy without a lot of adjustments. This is where the 80mm f/11.4 guide scope

Jim you taught me a lot - I just cannot remember anything after a pint or two of the black stuff.

I love narrowband imaging. This is wonderful work. igor

Not bad for a guy that taught me everything he knows - and I still know nothing. Nice work Jim - Love the Spotty. Hope it encourages others to bring out their old friend once in awhile. igor

A frame taken with my Tec 140 and Pentax 67 camera and E200 film. A 90 minute exposure auto guided. Full sized version - scroll to bottom of image and select Original or Large view. Exposure details there as well. http://www.pbase.com...799836����Click on the image to reduce size and see thumbnails of other posted frames. Click on it to enlarge. A wide field view of the area taken with the 400 edif lens and Pentax 67. http://www.pbase.com...image/140156626

I would suggest white lithium is OK but there are far better lubricants out there, especially the full synthetic. Much more expensive for a tube - but being where I am I get temperature extremes. Hot summers in an enclosed observatory - very little run off. Cold winter temps - I'm not that crazy - but around -10 c the lube lets the bearings and bushings turn freely. During the fall months it can go from a +25 during the day to 0 in the middle of the night. It works. Checking the worm and pinion gear on my mount after 3 months of use after the summer heat - still there. A dab on the worm

Spending money on the EQ5 at this point in time? My experience, and many others, is that the level of frustration working with an undersized mount is not worth the spending money on it. It will not advance your imaging skills either, but rather hinder them. Every possible thing that can go wrong in an evening will happen during the learning curve. Put the money towards a good robust mount that will last you for years. Get the best mount you can afford. Then go from there.