Astrotrac first light

[Crunchard]

At last I got a nice clear night and decided to put the Astrotrac through it's paces

Astrotrac first-light report (not counting my few minutes the other night)...

Overall Set-up - Ridiculously easy!

Polar alignment - not easy. I've found the stars in the polar scope are blurred and I cannot get them in to focus (despite turning the focuser). Also stars move dependent on what angle you look in to it - so if my head is slightly to one side then the pole star shifts left/right. Going to ring Astrotract about it.

Manfrotto geared head - You don't actually use this much once the whole thing is aligned, but I have found the adjustment in one direction is stiff going one way, and slips going the other. Going to see if I can adjust this somehow, or see if it just new.

Manfrotto ball head - initially a real PITA but finally got the hang of it.

Astrotrac - smooth, lovely piece of kit.

Manfrotto tripod - solid, the only trouble being I found it easy to knock and had to align 4 times owing to this ... must learn to watch my feet! A telescope tripod doesn't move when you knock it - this does.

M42 300mm lens - won't quite reach focus owing to the M42-EOS adapter, but stopping down seems to do the trick on focus, as my stars looked pretty good.

M42 50mm lens - suffers with lack of flat field (as you would expect)

Tracking was good, but with my dodgy alignment I got star trails (albeit very small ones) after 90s at 300mm - not bad for a first attempt, and at 50mm it was fine for 180s (didn't go any longer).

The manual mentions drift alignment, so I may have to have a look at that.

Now ... finding your targets was an absolute pain! I really need to sort out some sort of finder. Have seen some sort of DSLR hot-shoe mount, so will be looking into that.

I also need a lens in between 50mm and 200mm, the jump is just too great.

So slightly frustrating, missed all my targets, and had some difficulties with the kit. Hopefully not long-term problems!

Any advice greatly appreciated

[Psychobilly]

I'm just starting out on my astrotrac journey as well...

I already had the Manfrotto 055XPROB tripod and the larger 488RC2 Ballhead and because of some of the lenses I might want to use on it I went for the larger 405 Gearhead but it's twice the price but will be usefull for other photography that I do...

I picked up a long bungee fitted with Karabiner's for £1 in the bargain shop and use one of those screw in dog tethers under the tripod and then bungee the tripod to it...

The view through polarscope is nice an crisp...I use an elastic band to stop the polarscope falling out...

Peter...

[Crunchard]

Nice set-up.

The geared head is fine, and I've been testing it off and on all day - so it must have been to do with angle/weight or something. Will make a note to polar align before I attach the DSLR with the 300mm lens on it

The polar scope was out of focus, but after a quick internet trawl, I have now got it in focus - or at least I can now read the car number plate from down the road, and the bushes on the hills a few miles away no longer look like green blurry sheep!

I have now resolved the lack of finding things (or I hope so) as I now have this on top of my camera Made the amendments to my old ST80 RDF at lunchtime.

Here is my set-up (pre-RDF and with the stock 18-55mm lens on it), including the dual-mount bar that I intend to use for guiding at some point (just realised I don't have the polar scope in this pic).

Going to try again tonight from a darker location, fingers crossed

[Crunchard]

Much better second light

Polar scope now properly focused, was able to get 4 minutes subs at 200mm with no obvious star trailing (focus is another matter )

The RDF in the DSLR hot shoe mount worked a dream.

It is necessary to check the polar alignment whenever you do things, such as change the camera lens. When I switched to the 300mm star trails were obvious - quick check and it was out of alignment, so easy to knock, but just as easy to rectify.

Once I get somewhere dark(ish) I'll push the exposure times with the shorter lenses (50mm, 28mm), to see what I can get.

And who ordered the clouds?

[m.tweedy]

if you have a problem moving the tripod get one of these

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Metal-Screw-In-Dog-Lead-Stake/dp/B001A2XG7G/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1370896394&sr=8-2&keywords=dog+tether

and ratchet it down.

at dalby starcamp i first tried this and it was SOLID (rained all the time so did not get used) or hang something heavy (like a counterweight that you will not be using) under the tripod

I ditched the ball head (too fiddly and kept drooping (for want of a better word)

in the end I went for the Astrotrac head (but relpaced the TS screw head with an ADM non marring head)

here is the ultimate astrotrac set up