im doomed

[brrttpaul]

Been waiting two months to use my scope/cam  tonight of all nights its clear lol, the plan was to set up using my DSLR and do a star alignment with the handset and BYN then change over to the ccd, only gone and left the god dam t ring in the car (which is now 70 miles away). So I have had to start straight off with th ccd and straight away how do you star align when you have no viewfinder? I tried using maxim but obviously if it aint in the field of view you have no idea whether to go up down left or right. I suppose I need a finder scope for an equinox 80 but cant say I have seen any HAPPY NEW YEAR

[ollypenrice]

Sight carefully along the the shoulder of the tube rings onto the alignment star. You should be able to get a guide star on the chip that way. (I do it every night!  )

Olly

[laser_jock99]

The humble 10x50 finder scope is still a useful accessory. Wouldn't be without mine!

[Eri]

i'm out hoping for little to no fireworks nearby HAH little to no chance of that lol but till they start its clear skies till supposedly 2am good luck with the alignments

[DaveS]

Clear here but not quite as transparent as I'd like, still I'm managing to get some 10 min subs of the Rosette for the first time since last Feb, and the first decent imaging run for months, possibly September.

[Uranium235]

I used to use the finderguider view in PHD when I was without the finderscope. In fact, tonight I had to use the feedback in Artemis becuase I stupidly left the RDF switched on from the last session and the battery is now flat... doh!  Fortunately my scope/camera combination give a fairly wide FOV.

[brrttpaul]

well I,m pleased to say I got a picture nothing special or fantastic but groundbreaking for me lol. I managed to stack some subs together in maxim then play with them in PS before tweaking in lightroom. white balance is prob all wrong but just happy to have a photo at last

[Eri]

nothing mindblowing like M42 but then i'd still say that is special, nice amount of stars with no trailing with some nice colouring there too. I'm currently sitting out an hour and a halfs imaging of an active galaxy hoping the clouds stay away long enough

[Uranium235]

Jobs a good un! Im detecting a slight hint of green, so if you use Ps - try to get your hands on the HLVG (Hasta la vista green) plugin, its free:

http://www.deepskycolors.com/archivo/2010/04/26/hasta-La-Vista-green.html

[Pompey Monkey]

I have got 2 1/2 hours rgb from a light polluted suburban site tonight. Just trying some 20 minute Ha subs and got this on my guide graph half way through the first. I hope it works out!:

HAPPY NEW YEAR to all at SGL! !!!       

Edit. Again, but in the other direction????

Another edit: I think it's RA backlash...

[brrttpaul]

I will get it right one day lol, seriously enjoyed myself, I find my polar aligning is now only a few minutes instead of an hour , just gutted i couldnt find that T ring, still got bags to learn but thats the fun of it

[carastro]

I used to use the finderguider view in PHD when I was without the finderscope.

I do the same as Rob, it's better than a finderscope as you don't have to bend or crouch into awkward positions.

Carole 

[brrttpaul]

I have been looking at the finderscope I have on my skywatcher 150 reflector and had a look to see if it fits, I got it on but it has two holes whereas the equinox only has one hole (Im pretty sure i can drill a hole in the shoe to screw it in central and has got to be better than nothing maybe a dab of superglue on the shoe?. While Im here I was wondering is anyone experiencing the same trouble with the forum that im having? the main page dont load just a white screen and even when it does load it freezes tried refreashing etc cleared the caches, run malware  but still the same problem sometimes i can get on other times nothing, im on google chrome but its fine on my laptop