Not a good night

[jgs001]

AARRGGGHHH!!!!

This hobby can be so frustrating...

After the rubbish skies of Saturday, by about 10pm the sky was clear as a bell here last night. I setup. I now have an Ambubble level for leveling the mount, so it was pretty damn level last night. I polar aligned, with the setting circles set correctly. Focused the camera and balanced the mount. Then went looking for M67. I found M44 easily enough, moved the scope in the right direction. Can't find it, fired a test shot, nothing. Rechecked and adjusted position. Went for a longer exposure, 90s (not that long really) and the stars were noticeably trailed. WTH thought I, I've managed 2.5 minutes without any problems without levelling.

I swung back around, checked the level, rechecked polar alignment, tried again, this time trying for M81 and M82. I used the Konus as a finder scope as well as the RDF. Couldn't find them, I shot a few test frames and nothing.

I went back around to Leo and went for the triplet, again, knowing where this is, you'd think I'd be able to find it. But no. Nothing in the Konus finder, tried a test exposure and there was something there, but everything was trailed.

All this faffing about took about 1.5 hours, by which point I was cold, frustrated and there were clouds along the northern horizon. So I gave up.

The up side, I tested out EQMod and my TTL cable afterwards, and I can fully control the mount from the PC. Works a charm too. Next step, I guess is to setup a game pad so I can control the mount using that, the camera for guiding, and get some alignment done. Then I won't have to be unable to find anything

One odd thing I did notice, the drives seemed a little noisier last night than normal, and there was some motor vibration being transmitted through the scope tube. I don't know why, I balanced up pretty carefully and with the clutches in free mode, the tubes didn't move about any axis. Any ideas ?

[Doc]

Sorry to hear this John. It's so frustrating when you spends hours outside and see nothing new or image nothing.

Are you sure the skies were as clear as you thought.

[John]

Sorry to hear of your troubles John. I think your post sums up why I have not been tempted to try imaging - visual observing can be frustrating but with imaging there are a whole set of other issues that can beset you.

Mind you it must make it especially sweet when you do achieve some satisfying results

John

[jgs001]

One of those things Mick, bit of a pain but... I'm a little concerned about the vibration from the motors and the vibration noise though. Apart from adding the Ambubble and testing EQMod and cable, nothing else has happened, that I know of. The Ambubble shouldn't cause anything, unless I guess it's bouncing a little with the motor vibration which it might be. Hmm...

That it does John.

[Psychobilly]

Sorry to hear you had some issues John but I am sure you'll sort it... then once you do you'll add the guidecam and autoguiding into the mix as well...

I didnt bother going into the obs lastnight as I couldnt see anything below Cassiopea in the "NW" which was the direction that the cloud was moving...

Had my frustrating night on Saturday...

Billy...

[jgs001]

Thanks Peter, I think I may have found it. I'd tightened up the mount bolt to the point I couldn't adjust the altitude for polar aligning, just checked it and I'd loosened it too much, not enough to cause major issues like risking the mount fall off or anything like that, but enough so that there was a little play in the mount head on the tripod. Although there's still a little vibration noise in the tube.

[Reggie]

I had a rubbish night on saturday night too, I had cabling issues rectified with a soldering iron after 3 attempts at alignment, then I had lots of guiding issues as well, all in all a lot of trail filled carp. I've recently got myself a celstron 80ED from FLO and am using that as the guider, not quite mastered the balance on a dual mount bar as the dovetails for both scopes aren't really right for the job. I've since rebalanced as best I can, so hopefully tonight I'll get to setup again and test everything.

[ngc2403]

i have had nights like that and my first port of call is check to see if i am tracking and check that i am polar aligned on Polaris.

sounds silly i know but if you don't check you never know, plus when you setup late at night it can be hard to decide which star is polaris even with the red LED on.

hope you get it sorted out

ally

[Sam]

John,

It can certainly be frustrating when the evening doesn't go very smoothly. Quite often I given up and just grabbed the Lightbridge and spent ages observing - can be very relaxing!

Sam

[jgs001]

Good luck Reggie. Thanks Ally. I've had a play, the noise I can hear through the tube isn't caused by the ambubble, it's there all the time. Perhaps it was always there, and I just never heard it before... I did find a loose nut on the piggy back dovetail, where it joins to the main scope ring, that's been sorted with the addition of a sprung washer.

[jgs001]

I probably should have done just that Sam, and swapped the camera for the diagonal and an ep or two...

[rawhead]

You sometimes get the feeling it's all going t*ts up early on and there seems very little you can do about it....

One good night and it's all forgotten

Cheers

Jon

[jgs001]

Last night was just one of those. I've tightened some loose bits, got my camera safety harness at least partially rigged up. Actually found a target tonight, that always helps, although I didn't need my 24x80 finder. And I'm getting 90 seconds and no trailling... phew. I've also realised what I did wrong trying to find M67 last night. I moved in the wrong direction. To much thinking in Alt Az for you... DOH!!!