"10 hrs this", "33 hrs that" and "5 hrs of the other"...... Have 24 minutes of the Pleiades!

[Mick J]

Tom, it is possible to hire equipment in La Palma,   AstroLaPlama,  I think are based in the capital, Santa Cruz.   Tours & things as well.

I have never used them and know nothing more than the adove. 

[Tommohawk]

Hi Mick and thanks for the heads up.

I did see that site, but the gear looks a bit limited and the rates are a bit vague. They have an HEQ5 apparently, rate is 30 euros... per day ... per week??

Also they have a small Mak and 2 dobbies, but no newts or fracs - not so good for DSOs. I wondered about a big dob for Jupiter, but never used one before and dont want a big learning curve when I'm on holiday!

Maybe someone else has used them?? I'll post separately re that - dont want to clutter the thread.

[DaveS]

Interesting site.

It's an EQ5 with GOTO rather than an HEQ5, but still could be useful. Given that the mount is likely to be the heaviest part of your imaging rig, then just bringing a short apo + cam could save a bundle on excess baggage. Enough, perhaps, to pay for the hire.

[Pompey Monkey]

5 hours ago, Tommohawk said:

Sorry - another (probably dumb) question - are you guiding? 

Indeed - the finder guider is on the left side of the scope. I have the focuser rotated 45 degrees as it makes the fine focus knob more accessible

[Pompey Monkey]

6 hours ago, StevieO said:

I got my Polemaster yesterday. 10 min out of the box in fairly poor conditions I was getting a PHD graph I could only have dreamed about before, and that included fitting to the mount. Next time it'll be 5 min. 

This has immediately become my favourite piece of kit, as my previous polar alignment routine was variable at best and produced correspondingly variable results, plus my knees are shot too. Can't wait to try it out in anger.

StevieO

I now only get sporadic DEC correction pulses, unless pointing to the zenith, or where there's stiction in the gear train somewhere! Before it was almost as frequent as the RA pulses.

5 hours ago, DaveS said:

I had a week on La Palma at the back-end of March / beginning of April, probably not that far from you, in a cottage affair near Jeday. Like you I found all the streetlights (Not that there were many near me!) to be full-cut-off designs, probably demanded by the observatory. Chickened out of going up to the telescopes when I saw the road on the map, having had a couple of minor incidents with the hire car that shook my confidence.

Only got one really clear night out of the week due to the clouds coming in off the Atlantic, and one night I was completely enveloped in low cloud which stayed until late morning. The winter Milky Way on the one clear night was pretty bright, even though it was getting late in the year for it, and the Rosette was very clear in my 7x50 bins. Didn't take anything more, which was probably wise. Seeing Canopus and the other southern stars was a real "wow" for me, I had a big grin on my face the whole time.

BTW, have you been down to Puerto Naos? They have a scale Solar System layed out along the promenade, and several astro related / themed hikes on a board.

We drove past Puerto Naos this afternoon, on the way back from the dolphin/whale safari. We didn't stop there as we didn't know!

As for the driving, most of the drivers here seem pretty sensible, but I always calculate for the idiot (and bus/lorry) coming around the next blind bend! That tactic has saved close calls at least twice this week already...

[swag72]

That's a great result

[Pompey Monkey]

1 hour ago, DaveS said:

Interesting site.

It's an EQ5 with GOTO rather than an HEQ5, but still could be useful. Given that the mount is likely to be the heaviest part of your imaging rig, then just bringing a short apo + cam could save a bundle on excess baggage. Enough, perhaps, to pay for the hire.

The excess baggage charge was £65 outbound for a two-legged flight. I guess it'll be similar going home. £130 to have use of my own mount for the week seems ok, especially as we have not done much else touristy and/or expensive this week

[Mick J]

You just need to get Paul to leave his kit somewhere Tom,  you can bring it back later - think of the savings 

[Tommohawk]

21 minutes ago, Mick J said:

You just need to get Paul to leave his kit somewhere Tom,  you can bring it back later - think of the savings 

Excellent!! Now that's really creative thinking!!

[Stub Mandrel]

Made me go back to my data, three times as much - it didn't come out as nice as yours but with something to aim for I think I got a better result this time around. I find seeing good RGB images really helpful as a guide to processing my own.