First guided picture with NEXguide- M27

[Fraunhoffer]

Tried out the NexGuider for the first time yesterday.
After about an hour patiently finding the focus and settings I plugged it into the Exos 2 with the SW Eq5 goto adaptation.
Interesting to hear the normal 'thrum' of the motors interrupted from time to time.
Very pleased with the result. I would previously only risk going to 45s before star trails become evident.

10x 90s exposures on an old Sony NEX5 mirrorless dslr  in the back of a c8 with focal reducer, ISO 800, followed by a quick and dirty stretch in DSS.
Then I created an artificial flat using gaussian blur with Paintshop and blended using difference mode to remove some slight gradients and applied some white balance.

Im not quite sure what some of the settings - like aggressiveness - do on the NEXguide - some of the previous forum threads look useful 🙂

 

Edited September 20, 2019 by Fraunhoffer

[Rob]

That looks good!. Nice

Rob

[Stu Wilson]

keep pressing the same buttons lol, looks ok to me.

just taken several shots of thid little wonder tonight. ill post up when I get a chance to look through them 🙂

 

[Fraunhoffer]

Thank for the comments.
I had read that taking some time to set up the focus was the key to using this so I only set myself the objective of doing that and leaving the tracking to another day.
My 'parfocal' eyepiece (an old 25mm Plossl) was only about 5mm out of the diagonal so I used the little extension piece and parfocal ring to set that up.  
Having done that and it was 'only' 10:30, I thought it would be a shame not to press a few more buttons and see what it did - lock star auto - and it worked.
Then throwing caution to the wind I pressed guiding > auto cal and watched it do its little calibration routine and start guiding.
As everything was set up - I slewed over to M27. Fortunately a star was within the field of the nexguide and it found it straight away - so pressed the same buttons again - guiding started.

Loaded the camera in the back of the c8 and guiding continued to cope with my fiddling with the scope and there we are.
I used a diagonal to get the nexguide in a nice visible orientation visible from the side rather than facing the floor.

The skies are getting more and more horrible near when I live so this will be ideal for my short ventures to darker places.

The only changes I can think of at the moment are to tidy up my wiring now and find somewhere for the little handcontroller to hang out of the way.
Ill also have a rummage for an old  9 or 10mm eyepiece so that Ive some better idea of what will be 'in field' of the nexguide when locating suitable guide stars.