My Equipment

[recall2005]

I think I'm going to go to bed in a minute, but a quick list of my equipment.

SkyWatcher 80T

EQ2 Equatorial Mount

Coxellis SC1.5 (from ebay, I was told these are good but can't work out how to do long exposures?)

Yashica SLR (want to see a picture of my cabbage patch?)

Looking to spend about 2k.

Steve B

[OXO]

Hello Steve,

Firstly i have the 80T too and the Coxellis SC1.5 toucam pro 2 webcam and there an excellent choice in my view having owned a fair few scope's and cameras in the past.

Secondly your Sc1.5 camera can do Longtime exposures with ease once you know what your doing(It can seem really hard at first we all know were your coming from). Do you have a Laptop or computer you can use with ya sc.1.5 camera in the garden? whilst out with your scope..

Software, i would reccomend getting K3CDTOOLS a free downloadable programe off the net that will control your camera and more importantly enable you to use the Long time exposures. Next get yourself Registax 3 again another free download this will be helpfull with whats called stacking your images i will explain this in detail tommorow(2.22am at the moment) or someone else will join in and let you know before myself:).

Do you have a serial socket on your computer or laptop? you will need one for the Long exp mode to work because you need it plugged in(serial lead coming off the webcam).

Lastly for now as my eyes are going is your mount motorised at all? this will be needed for following the motion of the stars and long time exp's......

James

[Ant]

Coxy's mod is switchless... So make sure that the Parallel lead is connected securely. Turn the gain right up and expose for maybe 5 seconds.

For the capture you can either use the Toucam software but I would suggest K3CCD - not overly difficult software, but the first time you use it will be frustrating...

Good Luck

Ant