First two nights with my wonderful SW150PDS

[Enceladus Dan]

My delivery came on the 8th June and as advertised on the box it came with clouds. But I had the opertunity to try it out on the 12th and 13th. The skies were crystal clear the only issue was my location. It was very limited as I was working, the opertunity to test it out and learn how to use it was here. 

The location has at best some servere lighting issues. 

I set my targets high in the sky to reduce the light as much as possible to I chose 

1. Vega, to collimate my guide scope. 

2. Epsilon Lyra, to try and photograph the split.

3. Ring nebula and 4. the Hercules cluster. 

Polar alignment went well, took me about 20 minutes with all the back and forth and crooked neck. I aimed it to vega to adjust the guide scope and wow...... with only the 28mm EP it looks amazing I wasn't expecting diffraction spikes visually I thought it was when imaging. 

So I took the opertunity to grab a few photos. Just to test my alignment, 30 seconds check. Then I thought how about 1 min... check. I was able to do 1 min 30 OK but above was leaving traces. I was only expecting 30 seconds on my first try. 

I moved over to find Epsilon, easy right it's just next door. Noooooo I was lost and could not work out which was I was going. How could this be I looking right up at it. Then it clicked the guide scope is inverted I was going the wrong way. 

I did try to locate the ring nebula but failed and was out of time before I had to work again. 

 

Night 2.

having hit the books (forums) I thought I would try the setting circles. They had baffled me when I put the tripod together as the RA was locked and didn't rotate. Taking off the grub screw allowed it to rotate but it dropped down because there was a gap between it and the polar scope date time scale which also spun and wasn't fixed to the polar scope. How can you use them if the drift and flop around. 

Reassured by my reading that all I need to do is centre on known star (vega again) turn dials to the known RA and Dec readings. Then move to the RA and Dec readings of the new target.......  failed. I don't know what went wrong, I think I need to read up more as I did not understand how the RA is turning with the tracking motor yet the reading for the star remains the same. So I went back to point aim and try to spot something on the screen that's familiar. With a lot of swaying back and forth taking 30 second exposures (of which I saw traces on the stars) I finally found it, this blue halo just popped onto the camera screen. I never thought at 30 seconds something so small in the frame would show up in 1 picture. 

Reducing the time to 15 seconds almost got rid of the tracking error. Can't believe my first go I could do 1 min 30 yet when I find my target I messed it up. 

I did manage to find hercules too before my break ended, but I definitely need to practice star hopping more.

I believe my alignment error was I used the wrong star. Before taking the tripod down I looked in the polarscope and the star had moved from top centre and was outside the circle to the right, I believe from what I've seen polaris moves anticlockwise. Lesson learned be extra carefull that I am looking at polaris. 

 

Regards

Danny

[AstroMuni]

1 hour ago, DannyST said:

I did manage to find hercules too before my break ended, but I definitely need to practice star

These are great images. What kit do you use besides the 150PDS? Is this a non-GOTO mount?

[Enceladus Dan]

I got the 150PDS OTA with a EQ5 mount with the enhanced tracking motors (Non goto ) the photos were taken with an eos M3 camera in prime. 
 

I did get a baader Hyperion 5mm and a 2” x2 Barlow for ep projection on planets but not tried that yet. I tried the Barlow in prime with the t ring but I can’t get focus. Trying it in daylight and I get a clear image if I extend the Barlow out the focuser by 20mm and use the supplied extender after the Barlow before the t ring. So I’m going to get some stopping rings. Maybe get a bigger image of the ring nebula in prime focus etc. 
 

I’ll be trying my setup again soon and hopefully get the alignment right. 

[Enceladus Dan]

Also I took 40 frames of each but didn't stack due to the bad alignment. I might have a go later even though it was bad just for practice. 

[Enceladus Dan]

so i had a quick go at stacking the 40 frames of both the ring nebula and Hercules cluster. I will defiantly get out and try again with the alignment as the 40x15 sec exposures were all showing signs of trails. 

but while its cloudy and wet outside i have had some practice at processing (just levels and curves at this stage)