Learning Astrophotography

An Astro-photographer “Wanna Be”

New Telescope

After months of research it’s finally the big day !!! My brand new Celestron 8SE arrived on my doorstep. Wow!!! It sure was nice of the UPS man to leave two huge boxes with “TELECOPE” in giant bold letters right there in plain view on my doorstep for me (and anyone passing by).

I unpack the boxes, and being such a “girl”, I dive into the manual and start reading. Oh, oh. Need a dictionary here. I have no idea what RA is and there are a whole bunch of other terms I don’t recognize. This looks really complicated. I’ll just start with the “quick setup” guide and come back to the manual later.

The scope is now set up in the living room, and I try the auto star align. This is the best part. It sounds pretty easy, like even an idiot could do this. I align my three imaginary stars, and it WORKS the first time; right there in my living room. First clear night, I’m headed outside.

First Light

Well, it certainly was a lot harder than I thought it would be to haul all that stuff outside and reassemble it in the dark. Here we go with that three star auto align that I’ve been practicing.

Hmmmmph. “Align Failure?”. It certainly didn’t do THAT in my living. Try again and it fails again. It was a lot easier reading that manual inside the house.

Well if I can’t align the scope using stars, I’ll just align it using the moon. I already aligned my finder-scope to my scope per my instruction manual. This should be easy and after all the moon is huge, won’t have any trouble there. My scope slews to the moon. Or where it “thinks” the moon is. Nice try. A bit of research on the internet, indicates I probably have the Daylight Savings time or Location setting wrong. Rechecked everything. It did pretty good on the second try, and is pointing in the general direction of the moon, but I can’t see it through the scope. I move the scope with the buttons to line it up in my view finder.

There’s a Big Bright Moon Up There (some where)

Okay, where the *)#$@*)% is that moon? I mean seriously, why can I not see the moon through this scope? I mean the moon is HUGE. I can see it through my view finder, but not the scope. Fifteen minutes (okay, maybe it was 30 minutes but who is counting), whew “there it is”. Yikes! My eyes! My eyes !!! Wow, that moon is BRIGHT! It’s beautiful though.

Okay, now that the detective in me managed to hunt down the largest viewable night object in the sky, let’s adjust that finder scope a bit better so that it points to what I’m looking at and see if I can’t find something else. Of course I’m going to have to wait until I can see again after staring at that big beautiful moon.

Finally, I’ve finally got this scope alignment process down as long as I align on a solar system object. I don’t seem to be able to do the “for dummies” three star alignment though which is shaking my confidence a smidgen.

Planets

Saturn is gorgeous !!! OMG. Pictures do not do it justice. I’ve spent the last few nights staring at Saturn. My husband came out to check it out and went back in to watch TV. Somehow he thought it would be bigger and isn’t nearly as impressed as I thought he should be. Oh well, he doesn’t have any competition for the TV remote, and it appears I’ll have no competition for time at the eye-piece. It’s a win-win situation. A marriage made in heaven.

Although, it would have been nice if he hadn’t locked me out of the house when he went to bed !

Got a spare key made for the house that I now take out with my gear when observing.

Astrophotography – Tiny Bite

Hmmmm, this scope is really just a giant camera lens. I “need” to order a t-ring and attachment for it.

Brrrr – It’s Cold

Now, I can’t read my hand-controller. What is going on with that? All the letters are overwriting each other into a gibberish. Onto the internet. Well it appears the hand controller doesn’t like the cold. Got a “sock” for my hand controller.

Everything was beautiful but now I can’t see a thing through my scope. Now what? It was clear as anything and now it’s like it clouded over, but there aren’t any clouds. I can’t see a thing. It looks like my telescope fogged over. Wonder what I “need” to do about that.

Off to the internet. Oh, looks like I “need” a dew shield. It’s on order now along with my T-ring & adapter to connect to my canon. At the same time, ordered some hand-warmers for my hand-controller and my hands. Brrrr.

Alignment Issues

Re-read the manual on three star alignment. It works every time in my living room, but when I point it at real stars at night, it doesn’t work at all.

I haven’t been able to align to Saturn for a few days, and just have to slew there. Wonder what’s up with that?

Oops. Apparently you need to align those index markers on the mount before mounting the telescope. I’ve been mounting it on backwards for the past couple days. I thought it was suddenly easier to attach the telescope to the mount. Maybe now it will be able to three star align.

Another “Alignment Failure”. Okay this idiot proof stuff is not all it’s cracked up to be. I just can’t get this thing to do a three star align. I’ve tried focusing the stars into large doughnuts as recommended on the internet to get the stars centered and that doesn’t work either. At least now I aligned those index markers so that I get the scope on the right way.

I really need a Celestron Go To Alignment “for Dummies” book, and there’d be no point pretending it was written for those dummies and just a “reference guide” for the rest of us. I’m clearly one of the “dummies”.

STILL won’t align?

Back to the internet (again) to figure out how to align this puppy. Looks like other people are having problems with that auto-three star align and still others say it NEVER fails. Darn. Looks like now I “need” a reticle in addition to everything else. It’s on the way.

Reticle arrived. I’m not sure what all those markings are on it, but it does have cross hairs, and lights up. I still can’t get that stupid three star idiot proof alignment to work. Back to the internet. Someone recommends trying the two star alignment. Found a couple of stars that I can identify (thank goodness for Stellarium) and I’ll be darned it aligns right up first time. I’m keeping the reticle, because I think it helps out to really center those stars a bit better than trying to center the doughnut stars.

Bought some new batteries for my reticle. I have to be careful with the reticle switch when putting it away or it will “turn on” and wear down the batteries.

Astrophotography – The Addiction Begins

The UPS guy brought my t-ring & adapter. Figured out how to hook camera up to scope. The Celestron ring won’t tighten on camera and twists around and would let the camera drop right off if I’m not very careful. Rather than risk that I dug out old ring from my old scope than I never used, and it works on my canon and connects to the t-ring just fine. Thank goodness my old ring was made in Taiwan so it actually attaches tightly to my camera and won’t drop my camera on the ground.

As a distraction, I spent a couple weeks figuring out how to hook my point & shoot Nikon onto my scope and use the 2xbarlow. Works okay, not what I had hoped for, but now I’ve got an adapter I’ll never use for anything. Back to my DSLR.

My photos of Saturn were okay, but it appears that people use video cameras for Planet photography. My moon photos look great, but to get any detail in planets, it appears I now “need” a different type of camera. My new NexImage is on its way to my house right now.

What’s with All the Clouds?

Eastern Washington is usually not to cloudy. For some reason every time the UPS guy stops at my house, it seems like it clouds up for a week or so. I’ve noticed other people saying the same thing on the Astronomy forum. What I really “need” is one of those cloud filters, but that’s not going to be something I can just charge on the master-card, darn it. Heh heh heh, I mentioned those “cloud filters” to someone at work and she asked me where you could get a set.

Astrophotography – Continues

I’m starting to look at photographing DSOs (Deep Space Objects). Drat, my camera is limited to 30-second exposures and to get around that I “need” a camera remote.

Camera remote arrives, ready to take long exposures. Can’t use it because of clouds.

Backyard EOS

Found backyard EOS and downloaded the trial version. This is actually what I “needed” instead of that stupid camera remote. Paid for a license for Backyard EOS. Oh well, I can still use the remote for my regular photography, although it seems to have been quite a while since I took a photo in the daytime.

I spotted a smudge in the sky and wondered if that was M42. It was!!! Now, how cool is that? My scope is about 2000 mm and it appears I “need” a corrector for my scope if I want to get much of M42 in a photo. Really I “need” to have purchased a different scope, but am not willing to go that route just yet.

My photo of M42 looks like a great start.

Where’s my Cash?

My dew shield arrived. That gets me a bit more time viewing, but darn it I still got dew. Dragged the hair dryer outside with an extension cord to clear it off. There is just too much dew. What else can I “do about the dew”? Looks like they make “dew controllers”. Why am I not surprised? Now, that’s what I “need” and my new dew controller and a couple dew heater strips are on the way. And as a backup, so is my new 12volt hair dryer.

Dew problem solved. Took some photos, and wow, but what the *)%#&*)@% ??? Those stars look like jumping eggs. Noooo. I’ve got star trails.

More internet research turns up that to really do GOOD astrophotography you “need” an equatorial mount. I’m not even remotely surprised at this point. I didn’t even know I had an AZ mount, and exactly what on earth is an AZ mount anyway?

Not sure, but a it also appears I “need” a wedge if I have an AZ mount. It’s either a wedge or a different mount, because I’m now on a mission to learn astrophotography. A new mount is pretty expensive, so I think I’ll go with the less expensive wedge.

Researched wedges for about three weeks, and my brand new “Celestron Wedge” is headed to my house. Can’t wait !!!

Got the wedge today, but, that package weighed 39 lbs. Seriously, no wonder they left the weight off the specifications. One web-site said it weighed 39 lbs and another said it weighed 3.9 lbs, and the place I ordered it from left off the weight and it shipped for “free”. Like a dummy, I thought the 39 lbs HAD to be a mistake and that the 3.9 lbs was correct. I practically need a crane to lift that puppy onto my tripod. Ooops.

I just wasted about a month trying to get that stupid wedge to work. Actually about five weeks, because I could have shipped the darn thing back if I would have done it within a month and just been out the shipping cost although they probably would have dinged me on the postage going both ways. Oh well, sold the wedge on ebay. It sure is expensive shipping 39 lbs via UPS but now that wedge is someone else’s. Maybe they are smarter than me and can make it work. Adding 39 lbs to my (now what appears to be a wimpy) tripod didn’t exactly stabilize things.

As it turned out what I really “needed” all along was an equatorial mount and now it’s on the way. Now I am really excited.

Got my new CG-5 AT mount today, and did the whole telescope balancing thing. It appears I also “need” an extra weight for the mount and it too will be here in just a few short days!!! The good news is that I sold my AZ mount. Between the wedge and the AZ mount, I almost paid for the new Celestron CG-5 AT mount. The AT means “advanced technology”. That means it is smarter than me at this point.

Polar Aligning

I am trying to do a polar alignment, and really it doesn’t appear to be going well. I’ve read and read about it, but I’ve barely figured out the difference between Azimuth and Latitude. Okay, I’m not quite that bad, but admittedly I am starting to falter a bit here. A Wikepedia visit clarified the meanings of meridian, zenith and celestial equator, although I admit I had to read the descriptions a few times to get it.

It appears I “need” a polar scope, and once again Master Card to the rescue and I’ll have it in a few short days. Of course it would be nice if I didn’t have to clean out my cash stash every time that stupid Master Card bill arrives. This is one expensive hobby.

More (Constant) Alginment Woes

Spent hours aligning the polar scope to my mount. I did this in the daytime (in the rain). Not really sure how anyone thinks you ever could ever possibly align that polar scope with your mount without your tripod falling over. Seriously. The mount points high into the sky, like (duh) toward the “NORTH STAR” aka Polaris, and I’m supposed to pick something down here on earth and align with that. No church steeples or antenna towers around here. Well, it took me a few hours, but I finally got it “sort of” aligned to my mount. I had to pull the front screw out of the latitude adjustment and balance the tripod precariously. Notice, how words like latitude adjustment are starting to roll off my keyboard? Although, I am starting to hate the word “ALIGN”.

Now that I’ve got my scope aligned to the mount (sort of) I now realize that I can’t contort myself into position to see through the scope at night and see Polaris with polar scope anyway, let alone line up the big dipper.

Polar Scope 101

Oh. The polar scope doesn’t actually line up with the big dipper, you are just supposed put the big dipper stars in the polar scope in the same direction the big dipper appears around Polaris and that will put the spot for Polaris in the right position on the polar scope. That concept was sure “lost” somewhere in the translation from Chinese to English. I was trying to align the big dipper up to those markings and turned the scope so far to refocus that it fell apart and then it got all greasy and I couldn’t get it clean enough to see Polaris anyway. As if I could “pretzel up” long enough to find Polaris through that polar scope.

Learned how to polar align using the software on the mount. That worked better than anything else I’ve done so far, and now I can maybe get photos of a minute or so without too many star trails. Okay, maybe only 30 seconds, so back to polar alignment 101.

Learning Curve – It never ends

Learned how to use Backyard EOS a bit better. Didn’t realize you could focus on stars using it, and that is helping my focusing skills.

Accidentally took my last and best focused shots of M42 for the season in JPG mode using the snapshot mode in BYEOS instead of raw mode. Dang it, those stars were even round(er) but there isn’t enough info to stack, because they were all small JPG files. Shoot. By the time the clouds go away it will be out of my field of view. There’s always next year.

Auto Guiding – the Myth of Push Here Dummy (well the Dummy part is right)

All my reading seems to indicate that I might “need” an auto-guider. Apparently that will solve my problems with trailing stars because I am just not getting this polar alignment.

Auto-guider arrives. Oh. Oh. The very first thing the manual says is you have to do a good polar alignment first. This wasn’t mentioned in the literature describing this magnificent guider. Well if I could actually DO a polar alignment in less than five stinking hours (okay, maybe never) I wouldn’t have bought a guider. Seriously, I have to do better research on this stuff. It appears I can’t mount the guider scope properly on my Celestron 8SE OTA, without a much “needed” SCT mount for the guider scope but in no time at all the Orion folks are sending me the proper adapter, after a small charge on my credit card.

Got the new mount for my auto-guider and the auto-guider mounted up, but can’t get the guider to work. It appears what I really “need” to do is to figure out how the *)&%#$&*)%$ to polar align this scope properly.

It took five different nights over three weeks between cloudy intervals to get the auto-guider to work. Surprise, once you “kind of get” polar aligned, the guider will actually stay on the star. It doesn’t help much with star trails, but once I figure it out, I’m sure it will be a big help.

Backlash Tuning

I read that I may need to fine-tune backlash and RA adjustments on my mount. Before I do that, I probably should figure out what they are and what the settings should be, rather than launch into tuning my settings. I am also going to have to work on Drift Alignment. It appears that once I can get my alignment to keep a star in the same spot for two to five minutes, then I’ll really be ready to use my brand new auto-guider. Maybe it’s just me, but I think if I could get my scope aligned that well, I probably wouldn’t “NEED” an auto-guider, but then on the other hand, when I get it all working I can hopefully take pictures of even dimmer DSO’s. (Ever the optimist.)

I am having to learn Photoshop as it applies to Astrophotography since it’s becoming obvious that editing an astro-photo appears to have virtually nothing in common with how you process a terrestrial photograph. Thank goodness I “needed” Photoshop for something else a few years ago, so I didn’t have to spend money on that.

It appears that before you photo-shop an astro-photo you “need” DSS. For once something I “need” is actually something that doesn’t require exercising a credit card!!! Downloaded DSS. Stacked my photos, but they are way too light. Back to the internet to figure out what to do. I just fiddled with DSS for about three days, and now I don’t know what I did, but it appears to be working a little bit better.

OUT OF COLLIMATION – OH OH! That Can’t Be Good

I just realized my scope is out of collimation. I don’t dare adjust those collimation screws in the dark that close to the front of my scope using a screw driver. Fortunately someone makes exactly what I “need” and a set of Bob’s Knobs are on their way. Without reading the helpful posts in the Astronomy Forum, I would have never figured out that my scope was out of alignment, and I would have certainly never thought of googling a phrase like “Bobs Knobs” to find what I needed.

My imaging the planets is coming along a bit better, though learning Registax (another free bit of software that I found out that I “needed”) has been a steep learning curve. Once I get this scope collimated, that is going to help out a bit, but now I’m going to have to wait for Jupiter to start coming up at a decent hour, because Saturn is out of my field of view.

$$$$$

Maybe it’s just me, but it is a bit odd that everything costs me a bundle for this hobby and the only “free” stuff appears to be software and everyone whines if they have to pay for software. I can’t believe people write all this software for free, and BYEOS is incredibly cheap for the amount of work it has to be for such a great product. Stellarium is also free. Good thing I develop business software, and not astronomy software, or I wouldn’t be able to afford to keep the UPS man busy delivering stuff to my doorstep all the time.

Seriously? More #*)%#&*(> Clouds and right on schedule those Bobs Knobs arrived.

Spent the next three clear nights trying to collimate my 8SE OTA.

Can’t figure out which knob does what, stupid left right reversal. I can’t backup a trailer worth a darn using mirrors, and I certainly can’t seem to figure out which knob does what to the image. Now I’m wildly out of collimation. This is not looking good.

I barely got the thought out, that I “need” a collimator tool of some sort, before it was on its way. Dang internet.

Sometimes it Takes 1000 Words to Describe a Picture

Sigh. I can program computers for a living, but can’t figure out the instructions to the collimation tool. Pictures, with words that make no sense. I need verbs, people!!! Not just nouns and pictures. I know it’s a collimator tool and I know it’s a telescope. I need to know what to “DO” with the two of them.

Finally winged it like a man, and ignored the instructions. Got it pretty darn close, even if I do say so.

Finally able to fine tune my collimation. Well, sort of.

Seriously, clouds?

Collimation slightly off still. Fixed it.

Took some photos. Fixed the collimation again.

ANDROMEDA

Andromeda came into my field of view and it’s my new obsession. After about ten tries, got a fairly decent photo of Andromeda stacked up and edited. I’m sure when I get more experience, the photo will be a total embarrassment, but hey, right now I’m excited. My scope really does get in too close. But now I’ve got two DSO’s photographed and a couple planets, and there’s nothing stopping me now, other than the fact I need some sleep and the fact I haven’t got a clue what I’m doing.

The Need for Cash That Never Ends

Hmmmm. Looks like if I want to get some really good photos, it seems that I “need” a cooled CCD camera and possibly a hyper-star for this scope to get a bit more wide angled shots. I’m going to have to seriously save up a bit more for the next phase. In the meantime I’ll use my DSLR because at the moment, I have bigger issues to resolve that are more related to my lack of skills, knowledge and ability. The lack of the correct equipment is the least of my problems at this point.

Still working on that polar / drift alignment. You’d think I could understand this a bit better. I keep having to go to the dictionary to decipher what I’m being told to do. I read post after post on the Astronomy forum. Not a clue.

Finally, I’ve got enough money saved to by a moderately priced CCD camera at about $1500. Will have to wait on the Hyper-star though. I’ll check out astro-mart and see if I can save a bit on a used CCD camera.

Sidetracked – Who Needs an Observatory? (I Do, I Do!!!)

Just browsing through the ads, looking for a used CCD camera, and EXCITING !!!! I found a sky pod observatory for sale and it’s only 180 miles from our house. Showed the picture to my husband, and we’re headed out tomorrow to pick it up. I’ll have to wait on the camera.

My husband poured a slab!!!! Who knew I could get so excited about a bunch of concrete. Now I’m saving up again for that CCD camera and eventually a hyper star.

I am still working on that polar alignment. I just don’t get it. I must be stupid. But, hey I DO have an observatory. This has to give me some credibility, or NOT.

My observatory is up, and I’ve moved my stuff in. This is SO MUCH BETTER than that CCD camera would have been. Getting a bit better at polar alignment. I’m spending my evenings reading about drift alignment instead of watching TV. Found an online drift alignment simulator. Yes, it’s an exciting life, but someone has to live it.

Astrophotography – The Obsession Continues

I’m finally getting the hang of BYEOS and can take some photos that aren’t too embarrassing. Fortunately none of my acquaintances know how bad these photos are, so to a lot of people these photos seem great. I know better, though because I am hanging out on AstronomyForum.net and people really post some spectacular photos out there and I know that my stars are ever so slightly egg shaped. (By slightly egg shaped, I mean more egg shaped than the eggs just laid by a hen).

I just saw that Canon is coming out with a new astrophotography camera, and I’m thinking about that. It would be a LOT cheaper than a Color CCD with a hyper star, and it appears that if I go the CCD route, I “need” to buy a mono-CCD camera and filters and by the time I get a hyper-star, I will be buried in this hobby. I’m on a mission to save up and buy as I go, but have to admit the CCD/Hyper-star combo is a bit ambitious for me.

Another Camera

I went with the Canon 60Da. It’s just too hard to justify the cost of the mono-CCD & Color filters (right now) and that would be another huge learning curve that I’m not willing to do at the moment. I figure the CCD cameras will get better & better and hopefully cheaper, so I can always do it later.

Not a CCD camera, but still nice. Canon 60da.

My new Canon 60Da arrives and the weather shows it’s going to be sunny. That’s rather unexpected. I expected long rains in August after this purchase.

Spoke too soon. There aren’t any rain clouds in sight, but now I can’t see anything because of all the smoke from the forest fires.

Dream On

I like my Canon 60Da, but now I am thinking of saving up for a Celestron 9.25 Edge scope and a hyper-star for that. I “need” at least a 9.25 scope if I want to go for a hyper-star with my Canon 60Da. I am really happy that I got the Canon instead of a CCD camera because I really want to get moving on this hobby, and do not want to have to learn another method of taking these photos and processing them.

Every now and then I see a used Celestron 9.25 Edge out on Astromart, so I’ll just browse that, because I figure the setup would be about $3200 with the hyper star. A guy at our astronomy club gave a demo on the hyper star and his setup, and really it looked pretty good and it looks like it makes it pretty easy. He wasn’t spending his hours learning how to polar align, that is for sure. In fact he has an AZ mount and had no idea what I was talking about when I asked how he was polar aligning. On the other hand, he spent a lot on that setup and then there is additional software you “need”. I might have to rethink this.

Zig and then Zag

I’ve decided to consider an Explore Scientific APO Refractor instead of trying to go for broke with a larger scope & hyperstar. I was going to get the ES 80mm telescope, but then found the 102 APO used on Astromart for the same price the new 80mm would have cost me new. “Needless” to say it’s on its way and of course along with it the very much “needed” .8 reducer is also on the way. It appears that I’m learning to anticipate what I need with all these purchases.

I bought the new refractor on Wednesday, and it’s Saturday and it’s actually here!!! Plus, the .8 reducer arrived in the Saturday mail as well and that just shipped on Friday. Of course, if was going to be a sunny weekend, there is no way this would have all arrived so fast. It looks to be rain for at least the next week.

Ha ha. I thought it would only rain for a week but it’s been raining for three weeks. Okay, make that six weeks. Nine?

I love the new-to-me refractor, but of course it’s been raining forever and it looks like it will continue raining for some time. Since it’s going to be raining for the foreseeable future, I asked my husband to go ahead and pour my concrete pier for my observatory which will shut me down for another week, but it’s raining anyway. I already purchased the Dan’s pier plate I “needed” for the pier a few months ago when I got the observatory.

I had a lot of trouble figuring out how to align the mount to point due North. It was a big DUH moment when I realized the reason my compass was so erratic is because there is rebar in the concrete pad. Luckily for me this hobby just requires the ability to pay for this stuff and they don’t make you take an IQ test before you make a purchase. Oh well, with several compass checks OUTSIDE of the observatory, I think it’s all pointing North properly now. Those bolts have to be lined up properly.

It appears that by having cleaned out my observatory and put everything on the dining room table, we just got the first two clear hours of viewing opportunity that I’ve seen in weeks. Well at least I could double check the north alignment of the pier mount against Polaris before the pier gets poured tomorrow. It’s looking good.

My husband took the bracing and tube off my new spiff pier today. It needs another day of curing, but this is exciting. I cannot believe I even have an observatory let alone a permanent pier in it for my setup.

Really at this point I can’t think of anything else I “need” except some cloudless evenings. (ha ha ha) I can’t believe I just said that. I’m sure there is something else I “need”, I just don’t know what it is yet, but really at this point, I’ve got to use all the stuff I have and have a giant sale for the stuff it turns out that I didn’t “need” after all. If when I started, I knew what I know now, I’d have done things a lot differently. I really bought the wrong telescope, but on the other hand, I had to get into it, and it was only then that I figured out what I really wanted to do with this hobby.

ASTROTORTILLA – Say WHAT?

This was the cloudiest winter ever. Got out maybe a half dozen times and had some moderate successes. Read about a program called Astrotortilla. Naturally it’s free. Again, so glad I don’t program software for astronomers.

It took me about a month, but I got that program working. That was a brutal installation. The Astrotorilla part wasn’t bad but not all versions of CGYWIN are equal, and I had to pull down several copies to finally get one that had all the correct pieces. Hooked it up, and spent another week of effort to get it all working, but now it helps with polar alignment, and will also allow me to go to any object in the sky using Stellarium and it’s way faster for me.

Yes, I’ve read posts from people that say they can align their scope in five minutes or less. That isn’t me. Maybe if the clouds would clear up now and then, I’d get better at it, at least that’s what I tell myself; but now I don’t have to because of Astrotortilla. As a bonus, I can bookmark an object I’m photographing and come back a day or two later and get my scope in the exact same spot again.

Purchased PixInsight, and that’s another great piece of software. Took a bit of learning, but I’m getting the hang of it.

Third Time’s A Charm

Celestron had a big sale on CGEM mounts, but I googled some of the issues I was having with my CG5 mount and decided maybe to go a different route.

Finally decided to bite the bullet and buy an Atlas EQ-6 mount. Naturally I had to buy a replacement pier top for my Dan’s Pier plate to fit the new mount. All I can say is I hope this mount lasts me more than a year.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE my new Atlas EQ6 mount. I actually got the darn thing properly polar aligned in my observatory and NOW THE GUIDING REALLY WORKS. I cannot believe that it has taken me two and a half years to figure this out and I just took my first five minute photo which had perfectly round stars.

Cost

This is one expensive hobby. Often I’ve wondered if my hobby is astrophotography or is my hobby really shopping for stuff for astrophotography. I could have saved thousands if I would have known what I was doing. I bought the scope first and then figured out what I wanted to do. Sometimes that’s just how it works out though. I could have bought the proper mount & telescope up front, and then lost total interest. Fortunately I found the used market and have saved thousands of dollars so it sort of evens out.

Out with OLD and in with the NEW

Sold my 8SE tube and my CG5 mount and picked up a new (to me) 9.25 Celestron Edge. It’s beautiful. Now I’ve got a dream setup, but will have to really get my alignment down to keep that 9.25 scope tracking properly for photos.

Great for planet photography and viewing objects.

October 24, 2013