Surely I am accursed!

[Stub Mandrel]

Finally did everything properly and got flats, darks and lots of 1 minute subs without any trailing of M31, using my ancient 400mm lens that can fit it all in.

In getting the lens ready i found it had gone 'floppy' so I needed to dis-assemble it and tighten up some internal screws. When I put it back together I must have engaged the multi-start thread wrongly as it wasn't quite reaching focus, so all my effort was wasted:

Well not entirely, at least now I know I can get a batch of decent subs, just some experimentation needed to get that lens working right...

[KY Cygni]

keep at it, thats the only way to lift the curse

[Purplehayze104]

pity about the focusing being out, but from wot I see you have round stars so that's always good  hope you sort it out.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Pity indeed about focus. Hope it gets sorted

[laudropb]

As the old saying goes......If at first you don't succeed try, try again. Best of luck.

[JamesF]

There's even a slight hint of the dust lanes there.  Just needs more exposure time.

James

[Stub Mandrel]

Plot thickens - said 400mm lens wouldn't quite focus on pylons 1/2 a mile away, whatever I did.

It never was quite up to scratch, but a few months ago I noticed that the final lens element had a bloom on it so I took it out and cleaned it.

Remembering my back to front wide angle adaptor debacle I reversed the element and put the lens back together... now I can get a nice sharp pic of pylon, and chose an assembly for the focus that gives me another 1/16" of travel so hopefully OK...