Planned imaging.. found my first light manually :D

[NickK]

I've not had the pleasure of doing some imaging since April time thanks to my laptop dying and not being able to replace it as my contract had come to and end..

Well I had a new perm position within the week (just finished the first week) and I have a replacement laptop.. and like the planetary alignment it so happens that my gf was off with family, timer7 predicted a clear night sky - time to get out there! Only slight snag of mornings this week being 6am...

So I lugged the kit out.. 3 trips later and about 80Kg of imaging kit moved, I set up and polar aligned but the mount was giving crazy locations for things. I know the big dipper when I see it and the direction it should be pointing wasn't under the car. An hour of increasing frustration.. I thought - the mount is polar aligned - I'll just manually find the target - M81. At least I can get one imaging session to add more data.

Alas the alignment of job, laptop, gf and cloudless sky wasn't in alignment with my ability to polar align tonight.. star trails and drift whilst attempting to focus the camera..

So off went the clutches. I know where the big dipper is.. follow the pointing stars out towards Polaris and drop down towards the horizon a little and bingo... my first light (and a favourite galaxy) M81 pops into view along with M82.

So I stay a while, as they move gracefully towards protection of a rather large local tree.

So the moral of this story - to err is human, to really mess things up use a computer.