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Auto Guiding the first time

ngc2403

By ngc2403
in The Astro Lounge

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ngc2403

ngc2403

Posted
Posted

After a long weekend of freezing fog and cloud i noticed the sky was very clear come 5pm on sunday.

staying in a flat in glasgow is not the best thing for an astronomy hobby but i was at home in the country with all my kit so i thought hmm guiding tonight?

as it started to get dark i noticed that the atomsphere was poor, stars were moving all over the place and that the sky was very bright :laugh: but i pressed on setting up the HEQ5, 10'' then 80mm then 350D then in can some cloud :D i went in side had a cup of coffee and on coming back out found the cloud was gone! ! ! ! :)

i put the guider on and started to attach all the cables all 9 of them, followed by a long extention to power a hair drier which i was going to need alot!

set up the mount focused up the 350D then focus guider, i thought M45 would be good choice so started turning the focus three adapter later focus found.

next select a stars and press the magic button to guide :hello1:

nothing but an error message to tell me that i couldn't calibrate because the star hasn't moved!

check the mount connection set up, tryed all the different ones i could, knowing that i should be the on board one cause it's an orion starshoot autoguider and connects straight to the mount?

did this for an hour then got thin cloud coming over so i unplugged hand controller and try one last time.

:laugh: it works! it's moving! calibration done :shock:

during the following seconds there was much laughing shouting and general running about with a :p

once it was done i did 5min subs on M45 and then 10mins on M42 however the M42 subs were cut short by the weather cloud came in at 1ish and stopped play

However i will never forget the first night i autoguided a telescope and how close to complete my setup is :clouds1::clouds2: :clouds2: :clouds2: :clouds2:

i thought that i was the best night i had had for a while but then it's the first i have used the telescope since august!

ally

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ngc2403

ngc2403

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i may post image over the weekend but i must say that they were taken under less that good seeing condictions i.e. no milky way visible at all which is the first time that has happened to me in a long time!

Peter i was thinking the was thing as i waited but i think i may just stay indoors and keep warm as guided exposures are a long and cold process

ally

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ngc2403

ngc2403

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hello,

though i would post an image or two to show the progress i have made with imaging

10788_normal.jpeg

(click to enlarge)

that is the set up minus the cameras and two miles of cabling!

10789_normal.jpeg

(click to enlarge)

this was taken last year year with the HEQ5 and a 5'' achro i really liked it at the time though now it doesn't look so good :D when compared to the new one

10790_normal.jpeg

(click to enlarge)

this i took last night and for just four 2 minute subs am very happy with the result. their would of been five but i started to demist the mirror before the 5th was done and used a torch to check if it was clear :crybaby: the image had 20sec to go :crybaby: :crybaby: :crybaby: :crybaby:

anyway this is the first proper image i have taken using the guiding and i need to get something to flatten the Field and sort the collimation as it was not good as i found out this morning when i was putting it away.

thanks for looking

ally

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