switched from synscan to ascom

[Dave_D]

So, i'm sat outside, nexus 7 in hand... not too cold and experimenting with ascom and alignmaster... looking VERY promising so far. Alignmaster is great, will definitely be forking out some money for this one. Normal polar alignment with polar finder was putting me half a degree out for some reason, sorted now so a big thumbs up to Methius (i think thats his name). Moon is just setting so time for some fainter stuff. Setting the synscan to pc mode seems to work and so far CdC and ascom is producing better gotos than synscan did. Pics to follow probably tomorrow, going to stay up most of the night to see if i can finally bag jupiter with eyepiece projection. Took a good few vids of the moon terminator so soon i'll have to figure out processing video files

[PhotoGav]

Well done Dave.

I've just made a similar transition from synscan to ascom and indeed it's pretty darn good. Alignmaster seems to be amazing, though I sometimes struggle to find good star pairs as my house is blocking Ursa Major from view... Cartes du Ciel works really well, though it's taking quite a bit of getting used to. I loaded astrotortilla onto the laptop this evening, which took hours, literally. Managed to get everything set up outside, finally the laptop was ready. All working perfectly, just got guiding to start shooting subs on m45 and the clouds rolled in... Damn!

Hope you have a long and productive session!

[Dave_D]

I have to wait a while for orion and jupiter as my house faces east/west so the eastern sky is blocked. Fortunately i have unrestricted views of north/west/south.

[red dwalf]

once you`ve used eqmod your very rairly going to use your handset again,

i too use cdc but find it not too user friendly so i keep going back to stellarium, much better to look at and use to it`s full potential for me although you do need to use it with stellarium scope as stellarium itself isn`t ascom compliant

[Dave_D]

once you`ve used eqmod your very rairly going to use your handset again,

i too use cdc but find it not too user friendly so i keep going back to stellarium, much better to look at and use to it`s full potential for me although you do need to use it with stellarium scope as stellarium itself isn`t ascom compliant

Yeah i prefer stellarium. I'll probably have a play with stellarium scope tomorrow. It's installed but thats about it at the moment. I just wish i'd known about how good ascom is before i forked out for the synscan upgrade. Still, you live and learn... shame this AP lark is such a drain on the wallet

[red dwalf]

real drain on the wallet thats for sure

[Dave_D]

Clouds rolled in briefly which gave me time to check some of the lights on the camera. Tracking seems to be so much better now. More cloud coming in, hope i can get jupiter. Its almost cleared the house.

[Dave_D]

Here's a couple of pics from last night... i was really impressed with alignmaster, i didn't lose any subs to tracking errors and CdC put objects right in the FOV:D

Messier 76

Messier 52

[red dwalf]

That looks cracking Dave, were the images taken using the canon 1100d

[Dave_D]

That looks cracking Dave, were the images taken using the canon 1100d

indeed they were... just waiting for my screwdriver to fall through the letter box so i can mod it. there's still a small tracking error on the original images but nowhere near as bad as previous. just a bit peeved because my autoguider arrived today but the spindle in the focuser is somehow bent so i'll have to wait even longer now for good pinpoint tracking :/

[red dwalf]

Look forward to seeing the final results Dave.

[PhotoGav]

Great pics! What length subs did you get, I presume unguided? You'll love guiding once up and running!

As for modding the camera, good luck, may the force be with you! I look forward to hearing the op was a success and to seeing some red results!

I'm poised with instruments ready to operate on my 60D... Trying to pluck up the courage to start...!