First light with a C8

[Prathab]

Picked up an old used C8 over the weekend. This is my first telescope. I have been shooting with DSLR lenses so far. Had a clear night yesterday with good seeing. Took all of 5 mins to Collimate. But I was having tracking issues. My guiding error was twice that of my normal. My 600mm lens had no issues in 20mph gusts. But this is twice the FL and atleast 3 times the surface area. I also think I can improve on balancing by adding some additional weight and moving it up the CW shaft. Yesterday I had to stick to shorter subs and still had to throw away over 50%. I will keep tinkering with my mount and guide setup to improve performance. Anyways, I'm chuffed to get some results on a night that I wrote off for setting up and testing new gear.

1. M13 - 34 mins

2. M27 - 48 mins

Image train - C8 + 0.63 FR, Lpro Filter, Altair 533c

[Roy Foreman]

That's a good first result. Well done

[FaB-Bo-Peep]

New equipment and the chance to use it straight away, that's unheard of!  Absolutely fantastic and a most promising first light. 🙂

[Prathab]

1 hour ago, Roy Foreman said:

That's a good first result. Well done

Thank you!

[Prathab]

6 minutes ago, FaB-Bo-Peep said:

New equipment and the chance to use it straight away, that's unheard of!  Absolutely fantastic and a most promising first light. 🙂

Thank you, for a change the box did not include clouds 😀

[newbie alert]

Keep at it,  luv imaging with my sct but I don't throw any subs away unless they're spoiled by clouds