First EAA session in 12 months

[RobertI]

After two house moves in 6 months, I finally managed to unpack my EAA gear and have a 'shake down' session. It did not go terribly well, it took ages to set up, and gotos did not seem to find anything - I think I must have chosen an incorrect alignment star under the strong moonlight, but could also have been to do with the fact that I could only use stars east of the meridian - so I had to slew manually to the objects. Also the scope/camera was only operating at F6.8 when I put it together, so I had to adjust it down to more like F4.5 which has yielded ok results in the past (although sometimes the demon of coma appears for no apparent reason). Anyway after much effort I did manage to get the images below to prove that the setup is at least working. I hope I'll get back into the groove, but the whole setting up thing seemed to take a long time and so many things can and do go wrong, it's not filled me with enthusiasm for the next session.

All captures with a RC6, Meade 3.3 reducer, Lodestar mono, Starlight Live, and RGBHa filter wheel.

M103 in mono:

M103 using the RGB filters:

M42 just rising over roof tops:

 

[AKB]

That looks OK to me!  After a six month hiatus then I think you're doing just fine.  We all have off days... only today, I discovered that my imaging train has had a rogue 10mm spacer that I had (unaccountably) not previously counted, so that explains why my coma corrector didn't quite live up to its name!

Come back soon and show us your next.

Tony

[RobertI]

Thanks for the encouragement Tony. I think part of the problem is lack of available time and clear skies to hone my skills and tweak the equipment. When there is a clear night I just want to just go and observe (using EAA). I think an observatory is the answer but sadly I just dont have the room, so will have to work on ways to speed up my setup. You have some very nice equipment by the way, I assume you use the Hyperstar with the Ultrastar (colour or mono)?