Show us your set up in action at night.

[iPeace]

Out through the sliding door for a quick session behind the house

 

[wimvb]

7 minutes ago, iPeace said:

Out through the sliding door for a quick session behind the house

 

That's about as grab 'n go as it gets. I like this simple setup.

[Astro Imp]

16 hours ago, adder001 said:

Heres mine. A bit pathetic really when compared to some of the scopes on show here but when you add in an enthusiatic 9 year old and it's brilliant. This was looking at Saturn under a really dark sky and it was fantastic.

That's terrific, it's not about the gear but the observing experience.

Good to see another young enthusiast enjoying the night.

[Paz]

Here's the ST120 and VX14 in action.

[Sirius Starwatcher]

First time in weeks a clear sky is forecast. Decided to set up early. RACI and RDF zeroed in so now it's down to the weather forcast and I'm hoping that for a change its accurate.

[DaveS]

This was from last night taken just before it got properly dark

TV has manuals, CduC and Maxim, the laptop has Autoslew and Sequence.

[ChrisLX200]

57 minutes ago, DaveS said:

This was from last night taken just before it got properly dark

 

TV has manuals, CduC and Maxim, the laptop has Autoslew and Sequence.

Looks a neat setup for this time of year - not so great during a long cold Winter night though! It is exaclty what I used to do a few years back

ChrisH

[DaveS]

Yes, I'll have to see how things hold up come winter. Assuming that is we actually *get* a winter and not another grey, mild, damp mess.

I'm finding that having two monitors makes a big difference to the usability of the rig, as windows aren't so constricted or overlapping each other. Even when I no longer have to have the manuals open, there's still CduC, Autoslew, Sequence and Maxim DL, with the camera control sub-window of Maxim also open.

[Guest]

Night hasn't quite arrived but it is falling :-)

The SCT is cooling down and the Star Adventurer is polar aligned ....and waiting for me to re-attach the dslr when I'm done taking night-astro equipment pics :-)

  

Edited August 16, 2016 by Guest

[Dave_D]

[Davey-T]

Should be imaging by now but forgot to put the power pack on charge 

Dave

[DaveS]

The sky's rubbish here, high cloud and contrails, hope you manage to get something Dave.

No imaging, but running more PA routines. The images I've been getting have shown how rubbish the conditions are. Only just good enough for modeling.

[Davey-T]

3 hours ago, DaveS said:

The sky's rubbish here, high cloud and contrails, hope you manage to get something Dave.

No imaging, but running more PA routines. The images I've been getting have shown how rubbish the conditions are. Only just good enough for modeling.

Rubbish sky here as well, seems to be a lot of dew in the air, but done a model with 50 good points and an RMS of 5.89 and a PA error of 000.00.11 

Just doing a 20min HA sub of the Heart Nebula as it's on the opposite side of the sky to the Moon.

Dave

 

Edited August 17, 2016 by Davey-T

[L8-Nite]

Moon is all I see, not a star visible; time for some shut eye.

[wimvb]

Finally! First time with the AZ EQ6, that is.

It's just about getting dark enough "up here" to think about dragging my scope out.

This night was first light for my AZ EQ6, bought in june (!). Tried setting up a few nights ago, but during PA, polaris suddenly disappeared. Behind clouds.

But tonight clouds thinned out enough for some observing, and a quick imaging session.

PA through synscan routine. GoTo worked like a charm, targets on both sides of the meridian came in view of a 17 mm eyepiece without exception. I hopped from M13 to M27, M57, M31, M29, M39 and M81, with a couple of NGCs thrown in for good measure.

I really love this mount. Compared to my old mount (EQ3 Pro), polar alignment is a breeze. There's still some backlash in the dec axis, but that should be easy to fix. RA axis is free of backlash after some adjustment of the worm gear.

Here's an image of the rig after the action

BTW, here's a shot of my old setup (same scope)

 

[StuartJPP]

From the night of Friday the 26th August 2016...I was imaging in a t-shirt...look at all that LP!

 

[Beulah]

Lovely image Stuart. I was out observing last night - nice to be warm...but not nice for seeing/transparency.

[Roy Challen]

43 minutes ago, StuartJPP said:

From the night of Friday the 26th August 2016...I was imaging in a t-shirt...look at all that LP!

 

Blimey! You can read by that light! But you can also see the Milky Way, so it's not that bad

[Roy Challen]

4 minutes ago, Beulah said:

Lovely image Stuart. I was out observing last night - nice to be warm...but not nice for seeing/transparency.

Friday night was clear for me, but seeing wasn't as good as it could be. 

[StuartJPP]

4 minutes ago, Roy Challen said:

Friday night was clear for me, but seeing wasn't as good as it could be. 

Yep, seeing wasn't great but better than I have had for a long time...

6 minutes ago, Roy Challen said:

Blimey! You can read by that light! But you can also see the Milky Way, so it's not that bad

As long as the light doesn't reflect off the top of the lens hood it is okay (i.e. facing away form the light). This image was a ~30 second exposure at ISO3200 at f/4 so it is way exaggerated as to what the eyeball sees...enough light to not trip over things but definitely too dark to read anything.

[Bart]

Here's one of my 16" amongst many others at the recent Skellig Star Party in Kerry 

[Dave Lloyd]

Just a couple of Skywatcher achros. The garden can be very dark after about 11 p.m due to judicious placement of hedges, sheds etc. Most of the light illuminating the scopes is actually from our little led solar lamps, my own worst enemy me.

[Jonk]

Just found this on the mobile. Testing the frac I recently bought from Derek (DRT) a couple of weeks ago.

[iPeace]

In action! Dew will not take us this night!

 

[ArmyAirForce]

Evostar 80ED and Explorer 200PDS, in my "Fold/Roll Off" observatory.