I CAN find Mars!

[Moonshed]

After recently purchasing a ZWO ASI224MC colour camera I had awful problems trying to find Mars, very frustrating considering that's the main reason why I bought it. Placing Mars in the centre of my Telrad reticle was a waste of time and effort, as was using the usually trusty GOTO, I could easily spend 45 mins to no avail. So, as I always do in these situations, I came on here and asked what other members do.

There were a number of useful  suggestions but the one that most appealed to me was the flip mirror, quick and easy and didn’t need a YouTube tutorial! I ordered one from Amazon, an Omegon Syncfocus  flip-mirror for £60 and it arrived today. Unbelievable the sky tonight was clear and the Milky Way looked wonderful so I couldn’t resist trying it out and maybe capturing some more videos of Mars. OMG! It was amazing! After spending around 30 minutes getting it set up correctly I was ready to give it a try. I manually swung the ‘scope around until it more or less lined up on Mars, centred it in the Telrad then went to the flip-mirror eyepiece I had put in. I could see Mars nice and sharp but off centre, so with a few dabs on the buttons I had it centred, flipped the mirror back to camera and checked FireCapture on the screen. There was Mars dead centre, I couldn’t believe it. I even moved the scope away and brought it back to Mars and it was again centred in a few seconds!

Yet again many thanks to all of you that replied to my thread “I have a problem finding Mars” and gave your recommendations. All I need now is to discover I took amazing images of Mars and I will be even happier, if that’s possible  😄

Edited November 10, 2020 by Moonshed

[Sunshine]

Those flip mirrors are flipping handy!