Mars after 30 months away from the scope

[the_laughing_crow]

Following the arrival of our daughter 2.5 years ago the telescope has been stored away waiting for a time when I don't need every single second of sleep and have more than a few minutes of free time.

Remembering how to do almost everything telescope related was a task in itself - I have forgotten so much. But I knew that going into the evening and set myself a low bar target of getting one video captured. The settings didnt matter, the quality didnt matter - just manage to get eveything set up and get the camera connected and working.

I went out with the scope at 1930 and had a very frustrating time with alignment/goto, then the spot were I set up was too windy for any imaging so I had to move. And then when everything was good to go I had the absolutley bewildering experience of opening firecapture for the first time in 30 months. Its not exagerating to say I have forgotten 100% of firecapture operation. Eventually after much trial and error and guessing I managed one short video with what seemed to be reasonable settings. So I headed indoors.

Pretty pleased with the result, its less than what the equipment and conditions were capable of but in astronomy its always nice when it the user is the limiting factor and not cloud/needing new expensive things.

[maw lod qan]

Very nice image. 

[Space Cowboy]

Well done! That's exactly how I felt the other night taking the scope out for first time in 18 months even though I started planetary imaging 10 years ago it was scary how much I'd forgotten but surprising how quickly it starts coming back! The cloud usually returns first 😉