West Sussex Observing Group formed!

[hobsey]

Yep, I will be heading to Newlands Corner again as its only a 10 min drive.

[Christopher Davenport]

Yep, I will be heading to Newlands Corner again as its only a 10 min drive.

Just had a great hour of capture 12GB on Jupiter. Transparency was excellent. 

I am going to setup in my driveway for about 5:30 am through to sunrise to view and hopefully image Saturn.

Best of luck in the morning.

[hobsey]

I haven't got round to imaging yet which I should do soon.

Need to get a new battery for the laptop as I live in a flat and have to go elsewhere to use my scope and I need to get round to blacking out the LED on my modified webcam.

[bradfrankshaw]

Damn I missed the good sky as it was raining and cloudy in Horsham at about 6pm. What direction is Saturn at 5am?

How are people fixed for meeting pub wise sometime next week? Just so we can put more names to faces and discuss a bit more about hows and wheres?

Any mods out there - any chance of us getting a proper club social page??

[Christopher Davenport]

Woke at 5:30 to get Saturn, seeing was poor at first, but then got better towards sunrise.

My second run at about 6:30 has come out really well considering, the blue haze from the sun rising, the Orange street light and my cat out on a early morning adventure and kept triggering the neighbours security light!

I managed to get 78000 images over hour in two runs. I have had to discard my first run due to poor seeing.

It's still a bit blurry, but I rushed processing to get a image out.

Last nights Image of Jupiter @ about 25000 images over 300 seconds

I am well up for a drink in the pub get to meet some of you all.

[Christopher Davenport]

Damn I missed the good sky as it was raining and cloudy in Horsham at about 6pm. What direction is Saturn at 5am?

How are people fixed for meeting pub wise sometime next week? Just so we can put more names to faces and discuss a bit more about hows and wheres?

Any mods out there - any chance of us getting a proper club social page??

Saturn was due South this morning, only came out above the neighbours roof across the street at about 5:30 am

[Christopher Davenport]

I haven't got round to imaging yet which I should do soon.

Need to get a new battery for the laptop as I live in a flat and have to go elsewhere to use my scope and I need to get round to blacking out the LED on my modified webcam.

You can look at one of these 5-1 power sources as they have a inverter on them to power a laptop, mount and a battery power hair dryer

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Streetwize-SWPP5-Power-Pack/dp/B004ITAF72/ref=pd_sim_sbs_auto_2

I am going to buy one some time, don't need it just yet. 

PS: Use a red permanent marker on your webcam light, makes it night friendly!

[hobsey]

I had a terrible morning.

First time I had used my CG-5 GT mount, couldn't get used to the controls as unlike the AZ mount its not quite as easy as up and down. Decided to move the scope around by hand and still couldn't find anything as I left my finder scope at home and my eye pieces are to higher mag to find anything through. So, not very happy.

Good job on the images by the way.

[Christopher Davenport]

I had a terrible morning.

First time I had used my CG-5 GT mount, couldn't get used to the controls as unlike the AZ mount its not quite as easy as up and down. Decided to move the scope around by hand and still couldn't find anything as I left my finder scope at home and my eye pieces are to higher mag to find anything through. So, not very happy.

Good job on the images by the way.

Arrg, It took me a while to get used to my GEM, it can behave irrationally at odd angles.

A trick around not having a finder scope:

Setup as normal, polar align and all settings, then do a 1 star align and let the telescope slew to say Vega (you need a super bright object)

Now take out all EP so that you can see up the barrel, slew the scope so that the bright object is directly above and parallel to the top of the scope.

Take your focus all the way across the range until you see some light off to one side in the barrel, now slew towards the light until you see a star in barrel.

Now put you highest EP (lowest mag) and repeat the process, move through your focus until you see light towards one side and slew towards.

Then slowly reduce the size of the object using your focus until it is Centred now save object.

It is a bit tedious but it can get you out of a pickle. Better still keep your 30mm finderscope in your mounts bag just in case. (this is what I do.)

Well better luck next time. 

[hobsey]

Cheers for that, hopefully I won't forget it next time.

I'm also hoping the starsense will arrive soon so I won't have any need for a finder scope.