Surreydocker

I use 3 star alignment on my AZ GTi because I read somewhere that it was better than 2 star but after reading the posts in this thread I'm beginning to have doubts - what are your thoughts ?

Thanks for your kind comments. I'm sure others here, more experienced than me, can give better advice but I use a Bahtinov mask to focus. If you don't have one handy, I have also found that you can aim at a bright star and set the camera exposure time to a short interval (1 - 2 secs) and then tweak the focus and watch the results on screen. It's then trial and error to get the best focus.

Lower rated fuses for each circuit are a very good idea but I would keep the 20A fuse (as close to the battery terminal as possible) as a safety back up.

+1 I'm fairly new to astronomy but I'm really pleased with mine.

3 months ago, I didn't own a telescope so I'm absolutely delighted with the results I got last night. On the first night with the camera (Monday), I couldn't get Sharpcap to recognise any stars so it wouldn't stack. Last night I tweaked a few settings and it all started working. I spent quite a bit of time experimenting with different settings on the camera and histogram and eventually got something I liked. At this stage, I'm not concerned with getting perfect quality so much as being able to view things that I can't otherwise see in my Bortle 9 skies (and horrendous street and amenity lighting). I am using an Altair Ascent 102 ED f7, Altair 294C Pro, Altair Tri band filter and SW AZ Gti. It's all mounted on a homemade bracket that clamps to my balcony handrail. I am really impressed with the AZ Gti, it finds and tracks really well for visual and EAA. If your scope weighs 5kg or less, it's well worth considering. Ian

Thanks for all your responses - very helpful. I'll be back with more questions, I'm sure !

Having done some more research, I'm going to have a go at answering my own question......... the answer is, generally, no you don't need to guide. The question of which mount is probably down to budget and personal choice as I see people are successfully doing EEVA with a wide variety of mounts.

I'm a complete novice with a 102mm F7 refractor and by chance, I had a go at this on Wednesday night at 100X and failed. Yesterday, a 4mm Nirvana arrived though the post and last night, at 180X I could clearly split both pairs, so I went back to 100X and I could see that they might be doubles but couldn't honestly split them. I put it down to inexperience and old eyes !

I'm starting to daydream about EEVA. Do you need a guided mount or will unguided work ? I suppose the answer will depend on what you are trying to view but I live in Bortle 9 and it's all new to me so almost anything is a bonus (although I think it would be great if I could see some DSOs) If unguided works OK, is it just a question of picking a mount with sufficient payload capacity for the rig plus a margin of safety ? Thanks in advance

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Thanks for that, much appreciated. I'm very much looking forward to first light !

After much research and deliberation I pulled the trigger on the same scope earlier so it's very gratifying to read your report. I ordered a red dot finder but I would like to get a RACI finderscope - is that the SW you are using ?

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Thanks very much for the swift response