From: Milton Aupperle <milton@outcastsoft.com>

Date: January 20, 2010 4:11:32 PM MST

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] New Images

Hi Mark;

I never do 3 star aligns with the SkyWatcher HEQ5 mount and the SynScan V3.27 hand controller. I do a single 1 star and  pre pick a star "near" (+/- 60 degrees) of my intended target and go from there. That is usually good enough to get me within about 5  arc minutes of my target. Once you star slewing like 90+ degrees though, then I can be out by 30 arc minutes. I set the binning up to 4x4, set the gains  / brightness up to mid levle and lots of 9th to 12 mag stars start showing up in the FOV, making it pretty easy to navigate around until the stars patterns your looking for are in the FOV.

I seem to recall being able to disable that "stop at meridian" crap that the Celestron CGE mounts do, from a S&T article. I'm not sure what generation of the mounts this applies to though, maybe only the CGE Pro model?

TTYL..

Milton Aupperle

On 20-Jan-10, at 3:45 PM, Mark Gaffney wrote:

Hi Milton,

I like your "Running Man" & "Horsehead" nebulas best!

I feel positively remiss compared to you as I`ve had many good nights where I`ve done nothing!

I`ve had some recurrent heavy showers (one with hail) where I`ve brought the scope in for safety`s sake ruining my PA. I have my bricks marked & the position of the weights but not a recent marking on the rail for the OTA. The scope cover does a good job although there`s always some moisture lower down on the mount after rain, that has to be dried out in the sun. I guess I must be getting everything back into much the same position but even "All Star" isn`t my favourite operation.

I guess I must have about a 60% success rate with it, as often I`ve tried when the best alignment stars aren`t available. Although it`s known as "All Star" you really need a star fairly high in the sky, past the meridian( tracking stops when approaching the meridian) & behind the mount (to the north here & nice & recogniseable for me!).

I find I need some planning with 3 star alignments too to get 2 bright (recogniseable!) stars visible on one side of the meridian & one the other.

...I also spent a good deal of time experimenting (both night & day) with VNC control to be able to work from alternately in or outside. It turned out to be quite basic if I`d read the "Help" menu first & isn`t much chop anyway with moving pictures (like from CCD cameras) Maybe other people I`ve heard of using it have OSC cameras..

Mark.