asa ddm 85 arrival

[Takahashi]

Am I alone in thinking, that for the phone-number-costs involved, you'd pretty much expect this kit to be delivered by scantily-clad dames, all with years of experience in observatory-grade mount assembly, paving your driveway with gold and diamonds as they approach? From Olly's (initial) tales of woe with his EM2(?) mount, to this admittedly gorgeous piece of technology seemingly being thrown into a box and sent in the direction of the buyer, it almost makes me glad to have to "suffer" my "down-market" NEQ6.

[Erwin Kats]

well the **** keeps going on with asa, how many versions of the mount has been released, electrical specifications and much more are still not availble.......

at the moment i am in southern france trying to get ''the best'' out of the mount but at the moment clouded out

[Erwin Kats]

so last night a very clear night, the seeing was outstanding!

near 20:00 i started with the pointing file that is needed to make your polar alingment.

to get the best polar alingment i did the same procedure 3 times.

you go to a star in the sky when the mount is synched, then you have to set the star in the center of the ccd or eyepiece, and confirm this with around 5 other stars.

then you have to calculate the differences and you can then press a button in the autoslew software to do the polar alingment.

the polar alingment is about the same as polaraling max.

after that i did an automated pointing file, and when that was done i had to do the plate solving to show the disturbtion of the stars.

done that and the mount was amazingly pointing accurate again , this time also on the west side of the meridian.

i was able to take up to 20 minute unguided exposures on the east and west side of the meridian.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Pity about all the trouble, but the mount looks as if you could mount something MASSIVE on it. Hope it keeps working well.

[Beyond_Vision]

Lovely looking mount, lets hope it lives up to it's promise

Regards

Kevin

[Erwin Kats]

here a raw stack from 5x15 minutes.

I reduced the resolution and did auto tone in photoshop.

further processing will be done if i made darks.

ow, and i got a wrong spacer between my qsi and the baader mpcc, so the stars are a bit fat because the corrector is not on the good place.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

No tracking error apparent, just some coma.

[Erwin Kats]

so here a post again with some .... results. from france

but first, ASA, since a few weeks, maybe 2 months asa is having much better support now.

politiciens can say '' sorry '' and its good, i think that beside this mount i will not buy anything anymore from asa unless there will change alot.

there is still information missing in the ddm 85 manual, especially about the kinds of ddm 85 that are releases in the mean while, i can count up 4 different ddm 85 models , changing from internal servo drivers to other sensors.... very bad i think, because the version that is after mine is a bit easier in use.

now the images again, to bad nothing special, i was having some problems, i forgot a spacer for the ccd lol, so the stars are not round

but all tracked without the usage of autoguiding

the wall in ngc 7000 2x 15 min with 7nm baader Ha and qsi 583 ws

8 darks for all

pelican nebula 5x15 min

same as above.

ngc 8722 8x15 min

same as above

picture of the setup.

[Erwin Kats]

To keep you guys posted, here some more info.

My mount has been back to asa (for upgrade), this time awesome support, and great communication.

Walter from ASA speaks very good english on the phone, and in e-mail contact.

Soon i will post new pictures of the mount, what has been renewed etc.

but i also add a new photo, made with this mount.

I still use my broken vixen r200ss, so the stars are not perfect.

(waiting for new toys )

9x1200 seconds (without autoguiding )

a pieace of nebula between is5070 and ngc7000

50%

http://www.astro-land.net/wp-content/gallery/astrophotography/tussenic5070enngc7000-m.jpg

ASA also made a rough polar alingment laser inside the mount.

Soon more !