More equipment needed!

[dmahon]

I have, over the last few months, being buying stuff froim scratch so that I can carry out some astrophotography. I bought a mount, scope, powertank, EPs, guidecam, RDF, camera, filter, field flattener - the list goes on!

Anyway, last night I thought I had it all cracked. I even thought I had been clever by buying a 12 metre active USB extension cable that ends in a 4 port hub, so that I could trail the wire back into our house and not get too cold. Well, it appeared to work fantastically well! Using live view and/or some 5 second exposures, I could see exactly where the scope had slewed to and make adjustments in CdC as necessary to frame my subject. I set it guiding, and left it for an hour taking shots with APT. Then I came backed, slewed somewhere else and did the same again. I did think that the guidecam was having a bit of difficulty. When I came to pack away several hours later after the camera battery had died, unfortunately I found that my guidescope (a 50mm finderscope) was completely iced over! My main scope (an 80mm Equinox) was a bit better, though it does have its own sliding dew shield.

The pictures are not great. Not bad actually, just not as good as the single shots I took a few days ago just to test my camera. I guess I need to buy a dew heater - what is recommended to fit my 50mm guidescope and 80mm Equinox?