127 Mak M56

[JamesF]

Last one for today. Quite a small glob compared with the ones I've imaged so far. I was planning on M10, but Nick (cotterless45) I think posted about M56 so I decided to try that instead.

60 subs of 45 seconds, unmodded 450D and unguided 127 Mak, stacked with darks in DSS.

James

[ilove1995]

Nice work James. Did you use your EQ3 for this?

[JamesF]

I have to admit that I have given up with the EQ3-2. Mine is quite old (it's actually one of the Skyscan 2001 models) and has been really struggling to track well recently and in fact has been getting worse and worse. Having tweaked it as much as possible I still couldn't really get it as good as I wanted, so I decided it had to be replaced. Tempting as it was to get a newer version of the same mount I decided my needs were better met by a HEQ5 Pro and that is what was used for this image. Might have to stick a few things on "the bay" to pay for it, but there you go.

This M13 was with the EQ3-2 though:

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/186974-mak-m13/

I feel slightly saddened by its passing, I have to admit. I've done a lot of imaging with that mount and learnt an enormous amount in the process. I may well now strip it back to the component parts and rebuild it, replace the motor gearboxes with single gears that I cut myself to get rid of the hideous amount of backlash and give it new life as a DSLR widefield platform. Perhaps even make a table-top stand for it

James

[robbie c]

it might be a small glob James but its a cracking image