Somethings wrong - help?

[AstroJay]

Hi guys,

Complete beginner here, using a Canon 800D, WO Z73 with Field flatter, WO 50/200 with GP-Cam v1 for guiding on a HEQ5 mount. Last night was the first clear night in weeks where I am in the UK. I managed to polar align fine using Polemaster and then that's when my issues started..

First off I thought I'd check the Polar Alignment with sharp cap - no matter what I tried SharpCap could not resolve the plate even though it seemingly found upwards of 35 stars, I thought this could be a guide scope alignment issue, but from what I've read on the forums it shouldn't matter. After about an hour I gave up on SharpCap and thought i'd do a 2 star align on the SyncScan, using backyard EOS live view - here's where the second issue arose, no matter what the settings (ISO, Exposure, Frame and Focus to shooting, etc) I could not get an image with a single star in it - could it have been that bad out of focus that nothing shows up? I spent around 4 hours on this and it was such a clear night stars everywhere to the naked eye...

Any ideas/pointers? - I've attached a picture of my setup on my old EQ3 mount and a few of the pictures using various settings (jpg versions).. 

Thanks!

[tooth_dr]

Looks like you were really far out of focus, I’ve circled the two stars visible in your images. You can see the Bhatinov mask.

It might be that without some sort of extension tube you can’t get focus or maybe too much extension.

Focus on a distant object today in the daylight and that will get you close  

 

 

[AstroJay]

31 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

Looks like you were really far out of focus, I’ve circled the two stars visible in your images. You can see the Bhatinov mask.

It might be that without some sort of extension tube you can’t get focus or maybe too much extension.

Focus on a distant object today in the daylight and that will get you close  

 

 

Thanks - just did that with some clouds - had to move the focuser a lot to get focus, this surprised me. Hoping for a clean night so I can try again!

[tooth_dr]

38 minutes ago, AstroJay said:

Thanks - just did that with some clouds - had to move the focuser a lot to get focus, this surprised me. Hoping for a clean night so I can try again!

I’d say you are in business now Jay. It will be close enough to fine tune later. Post your results here 👍🏼