What a night

[Mukv]

Greetings

Sad discovery tonight!!!
with the clear but slightly hazy skies calling me to let loose with the big black star canon I rolled back the roof to point heavenward, with temperature perfect for still air and no distortion of the great images that await I fired up the computer connected the cameras and awoke the mount, this is going to be a great night!!!!
at this point those that know me will guess that there will be an issue in the works...........
the computer burst into life with the message loading drivers as the mount connected and swung to the home position waiting to be commanded to find the first star.... then the camera reported in all is well and ready to capture the photons of light ........ getting good this aint it !!!!
the new 90mm scope now sporting the planetary camera comes online reporting ready and promptly displays a slightly out of focus star field easily sorted! PHD guiding then comes to life with all the onscreen controls waiting to be activated.... This is going to be an epic night of imaging!!!!!!!!
The scope swings to the first of three stars to get it's bearings and after the third slew an accurate swing to the first target! dead centre of the camera screen is what I've been waiting to finish from weeks ago M42 Orion nebula! Exposure plan is programed into the capture software and with a swift click of the left mouse button it begins!!!
OK so far!!! good aint it !!!!!
then 30 seconds later the first image appears on screen!
did my super accurate configuration go awry at some point?????? What appeared on screen was not M42 it was moor like the street light 21m away.... I rushed slowly outside and checked mirrors for fogging or dew ,, they were clear but I powered up the heaters on low just to be sure, then the camera sensor and filter was given the same treatment, nothing seemed to be wrong with the gear! This was puzzling so I restarted the image capture program and waited for the first image to appear....
You all knew something was going to happen didn't you!
After another 45 mins of re checking all my gear and finding everything as it should be I placed a 28mm eye piece in the scope just to satisfy myself that the tube was ok......... the view was horrible it was terror in the eye piece a zombie with broken limbs walking into the obsy would be less of a shock it was THE SNOW ! with the street light pollution from the adjacent street reflecting from every white surface on this side of the planet focused on my little bit of garden I slowly put all my toys back in their box and reached for a cold can the started my next letter to the notts street lighting department!

Dear Chris Ashley..... 

Andy ( Mansfield Nottingham )

[Steve789]

At least it wasn't anything you did wrong. So far tonight I've spent an hour trying to get the heart nebula framed properly (in the end I gave up, really need Live View and GOTO), I've left the Bahtinov mask on twice and shot for 30mins in Jpeg instead of RAW.

[Gina]

I'm awaiting a replacement for my dead EQDir adapter cable   Two or three clear nights after weeks of cloud and I can't use them - grrrr