tracking the moon

[tony69]

good evening proberly a daft question but is it possable to get my scope to track moon if i focues on it and set auto track to moon as at the moment iam unable to do an alignment from my back garden at yet another new house with bad viewing have a sky light in attick pointing south only ,i can manualy track but takeing photos i have to keep moveing scope and was hopeing some one may now the answer dont want to set it up for nothing any advice welcome please.

[Capricorn]

Bit confused but the basics are:

You will have tio set the scope up, align it and aim at the moon.

If you move the scope/mount then realignment is required.

The moon does not move at the same rate as the stars but it is damn close, so for visual just accespt a slight drift.

If photographing the moon then I thing you can get away with 1/250sec, f/4, even that may over expose the illuminated part and show the "dark side" a little.

The moon is bright, you do not need long exposures.

If you are using a web cam then align, aim scope at the moon and get an avi file, again as it is bright you will not need that many.

[Capricorn]

You will have to work out the spelling mistakes as I cannot edit the things out.

[tony69]

thankyou i was worried i might damage my scope as it is motor driven ,would you say it is ok to move it manualy by hand and best way to do this sorry for all the daft questions

[JamesF]

If you roughly align your mount with a compass and set the latitude then you could try drift aligning it. You don't need to see Polaris for that. If you get it reasonably close then despite the Moon's different apparent speed across the sky it will stay in frame long enough to do some reasonable imaging. My EQ3-2 is polar aligned by eye using the polar scope, but not drift aligned. That's good enough for me to take 120 exposures five seconds apart with only minimal drifting. If you drift align it will be better than that.

James

[JamesF]

thankyou i was worried i might damage my scope as it is motor driven ,would you say it is ok to move it manualy by hand and best way to do this sorry for all the daft questions

If you want to move it by hand you need to release the clutches on the mount and it will turn freely. Otherwise you have to use the buttons on the handset to move it.

James

[tony69]

as i can not see north from attick it is hard to align i have it set up on long and lat and compass set to north if i was to turn on tracking and programme moon in would it track it even if i had to ajust scope slightly ?

[JamesF]

as i can not see north from attick it is hard to align i have it set up on long and lat and compass set to north if i was to turn on tracking and programme moon in would it track it even if i had to ajust scope slightly ?

You can't get out in the garden at all? It would be a better place to image from.

James

[tony69]

the house i had before had the bigest wall it was unbalevable at least 80ft as i have been relocated the wall is behind me north and to my east with houses and trees to my west at the moment i only have the loft faceing south i will just have to unlock the clutches if noone got any more ideas thankyou for your help

[Astrosurf]

Your location sounds really tough. Why not join an astro society, or few, and go out with them observing? I do most of my observing with my group, and get loads of advice too!

Alexxx

[tony69]

hi alex thanks i have another problem i do not drive ?

[Astrosurf]

That's a real nuisance for you Tony. Maybe there's someone nearby who would be interested in going to a group too, or who already belongs to one, and could drive you?