New Mammutt first light

[davesparx]

Hi there.

Having had the new mammut sitting on the coffee table for about three weeks, it was first light last night. I'm new to imaging and astronomy, even (1st year). I'd only used a converted lx webcam before this.

I finally set it all up on the patio....(dew heaters, laptop, etc., etc.) aligned up the mount and got everything working.

My only problems were the focus and the field of view. I tried for ages to get M81,82 and then M31...I just couldn't find them on the camera. I managed to focus on a nearby star and got the qhy5 guiding properly without too much trouble.

When I returned from 'Dubhe' to M81 I just couldn't get anything but stars.

My questions are:

If the mount is slightly out, with a small field of view, do you take the camera off and do another complete alignment and then attempt to refocus?

I have a 0.8x focal reducer (cheap one). Where would I put this? I have a manual filter wheel for the front of the mammut. Do I still put it on the front of the mammut? Will this affect inward focus distance?

Will this focal reducer still work behind a filter wheel?

I'm very excited about the clear skies tonight and so would love to finally bag my fist galaxy with this...

David

[sloz1664]

Hi David,

Can you expand on your imaging setup.. scope, guiding set-up software etc...

To determine your FOV download CCD Calc an excellent free programme.

The Mammut is not listed as a default camera but add the following details

Pixels 8.6 x 8.3 & Array 752 x 582.

cheers

Steve

[Steve Ward]

Hi David ,

I've just popped the chip details into the Ocular plug-in in Stellarium and it's a pretty tight FOv with my ED80 ( not sure what your scope is )

You'll need to make sure that the finder is bang on with the scope and that you have good mount alignment , I'd suggest getting things aligned using a 6 or 8mm EP visually and then swapping EP for camera .

Stellarium screenshot of Mammut, ED80 and Bode's.

Hope this helps ,

Steve.

[davesparx]

Hi there, Steve and Steve

Thanks ever so much. I will try both of those things. I hadn't thought of doing either. I had been trying to align with a 25mm eyepiece and with no focal reducer fitted on the camera I had a near impossible job of lining it up.

I will see what the field of view will be with those settings in the software, too

I am imaging with a skywatcher 200P on a synscan powered EQ5 using a QHY5 powered finder/guider.

The camera is the mammut brightstar mono with a filter wheel so it's all on a small budget at the moment, but a great kit to learn imaging on. The 12" dob is for visual but I'm really wanting to image on these fantastic clear nights that we will eventually have

Once again, many thanks,

Dave