AstroTrac Part 2

[simon84]

Well still waiting for first light but I have now bought all the mounting equipment that I will need.

First up I bought the Manfrotto 410 Junior Geared Head from here on SGL, this unit is fantastic. With the ability to move in all three directions with either a quick release for rough positioning and then use the fine tuning knobs to get it exactly where you want it. I have adapted my pier to take 3/8" equipment so I can either mount it on my pier or on the tripod. It sits lovely at 51 degrees and using my Wixy I can fine tune the polar alignment.

I then purchased the Manfrotto 055 XPROB tripod which came with the Manfrotto 498RC2 ball and socket head. Managed to get both of these on ebay for £189 which was quite a bit cheaper than buying them seperately on Warehouse Express. Both are really solid and very well made as you would expect from Manfrotto. I've currently got it all setup in the lounge and am letting the AstroTrac go through its 2 hours of guiding just to see if it anything moves or isnt happy.

Lastly I wanted to be able to mount multiple cameras and or finder/guider so Kevin (BeyondVision) showed me a picture of his setup that used a 4 head bar that he aquired from Astro Developments, after giving John Rose a call at Astro Developments he confirmed for me all the details regarding the Konig 4 Head bar so I promptly placed an order. Its very solidly made and may not have the look of the Manfrotto equivalent but it does the job nicely and about £50 delivered was a much cheaper alternative.

John has now teamed up with Steve at Stayfocused and asked me to mention the 4 head bar as a Stayfocused product should anybody want to make any enquiries about it.

So as you can see from the pictures its all up and running with the 170-500 APO lens on the astro modded 300D and the 70-300 APO lens on the 1000D. I still have two spots left on the end of the 4 head bar to add a finder/guider if I want to increase the accuracy of the RA drive.

Its a clear night out there tonight but some silly wally forgot to order a new Compact Flash card for the 300D as I dont have any......one is on its way now as we speak but probably wont get here until Monday. I could have had a go with the 1000D but its not modded and I really wanted to try the 300D out.

Part 2 was meant to include first light but that looks like that will have to be Part 3.

[madjohn]

Hi Simon,

Like the look of the setup, I'm doing something very similar using a Borg 45ED and a Canon 18-55 EF-S lens.

Do you operate both cameras at the same time using a single laptop or are you using cable remotes?

If you are using the laptop to control the cameras I would be interested in what programmes your using.

looking forward to reading part three....

John

[Psychobilly]

Yoddha's APT....

[simon84]

Thats the one, you can run as many instances of it as you have cameras.

If I'm using a single camera I use my timer remote as its just more portable.

I've now added a 3/8 bolt to my pier so I can now mount the manfrotto 410 head and have it all on the pier. The 055XPROB tripod did cope with everything on it but I imagine the exposure times would be shorter because of it.

I'll be getting a wedge on my pier soon which will then allow me to go upto 15kg.