Viewmaster

Yes, you will find plenty of Grrr nights. Plenty of Grrrrrrrrr nights too in this astro lark.

Cometh the third runway?

I zoomed in on them and watched them in Stellarium !!..........no clouds.

"A clock threw seconds at me, which I lazily dropped and they fell into the past, lost forever."

Althouigh my mount is small it is inside a plastic cocoon. 40 watts of heating inside at the bottom keeps it free from any damp or condensation. So much so, that I keep an expensive Canon lens inside there as well. Temp has never gone below 60 F.

Long nights = Longer cloud cover.

The other thing you will need is lots of patience, especially when the clouds roll in.

Thanks for all that, both of you. As PHD2 has the save data built in it should work OK, without any changes as you said, Thalestris. Pity there isn't multi save/entry cal data for various parts of the sky. If there were one would only need to calibrate once. I suppose one could have a few PC's with different sets of data saved. One PC for each section of the sky.

Does anybody save their calibration data in PHD2 and reloaded it next time when imaging the same part of the sky? If so, are the results as good as a fresh calibration ? Are there any ways to save multiple versions of the calibration data for many parts on the sky in PHD2?

I made a short tube out of black card board to slide over my guidescope. Then a few 240 ohm resistors across 12v around the inside painted black. Total cost £2.

As your wife wishes to get involved if you got yourself binoculars you might put your heads very close together each using one eyepiece. You would then see the same things to discuss. Would also make for a very cosy and intimate astronomical relationship.

You can also get a fair focus check on a far away building or trees etc when it is nearly dark if the moon is not up.

Just bought a 900mm f8 mirror lens to experiment with DSOs. As wxsat said f8 is very slow so maybe less subs to save imaging time. A higher ISO with noise reduction software might put me in a usable ballpark. I am spoilt at present with my existing f2.8 200m fastie, used at f2.8 ! Have put a fine adjusting screw on my mirror lens to get fine focus at infinity but the lens barrel might move even so when the camera is pointed up at various angles. We shall see.

Peter, I just rushed to edit my stupid post and you have beaten me to it. I must have had a brain storm arguing as I did in error. Sorry to have wasted your time. Of course f6 to f12 is a quarter exposure.