Cedsions..cedisions...

[Shelster1973]

At the moment, it looks like Tuesday is going to be a clear night, so will be able to get out and try out my nicely new flocked scope with 'Funky Foam' light shield fitted too.

The question is do I go back to one of the targets I went for the other night and get more data (and also some comparison data too) or do I go for a completely new target??  If a new one, any ideas as to what to go for?

One thing I am going to try is to try the Drift Align Method in PHD2.  Have been reading up and it seems fairly easy to get to grips with.  Initial PA will be done with Polar Scope that is fitted to my AVX.  As I understand I have to do initial align, slew scope round to a target star that is close to the Meridian / Equator intersect, calibrate PHD2 on this star then use the Drift Align function, making corrections as needed to my Az bolts to tweak the drift out.  I am guessing the closer to the intersect I can find a target the better?

[MattJenko]

Starting out, I went for multiple targets rather than lots of data on the same target, as it is all about practice practice practice. Revisiting the same target does pose its own set of challenges as well though, especially if you are a setup/teardown kind of guy like me.

As for the drift aligning, you will need to do a drift align close to the meridian and down south to the horizon as well as one over the east or west. The closer the better is indeed the case. I found I had to do a couple of iterations and actually for my imaging with my setup, I found it was a nice exercise, but not one I needed for the image scale of my images, so I don't bother at the moment. Your longer FL setup might beg to differ. If I had a more permanent setup on the other hand...