Finding stuff!

[pook]

I'm having problems finding stuff once the camera is in place. Obviously, to get the best focus, I use a mask, focus on a bright star... lock off the focuser... and then.... well.. get frustrated because unless I remove the camera, put a EP back in I can't find anything!

The view through the camera's viewfinder is next to useless for all but teh brightest objects, and despite having a well aligned finderscope, it doesn't help with DSOs you can't see with the naked eye or finderscope. At the moment, I point the scope to where I think it should be... expose for a while, realise I haven't got it... move a little... expose... check.. move, expose... check... scream, want to give up and sell all my gear.

Is there an easier way?

[msinclairinork]

If you have got your finder aligned to your EP then when it comes to using the finder against the camera things are not the same.

My sudgestion is to align the finder to the camera on a far away object during the day. You can do this by looking through the camera's Veiwfinder.

Then at night your finder should be the same as your camera. Of course you might still need to take a few exposures and adjus for framing but you should be very close.

Recomended settings for finding/framing is ISO1600 or above and say around 30s exposures, I also use the smallest JPEG setting as my camera is USB 1.1 so it takes less time to download. But REMEMBER to set back to RAW once your ready!

Also somthing that took me a little by surprise on my first few sessions is that most DSO's are very faint, small and just hard to spot even on some longer exposures it is quite easy to miss them. So just take you time to have a good look at the image downloaded.

Good luck!

HTH

Michael