From: Mark Gaffney <markgaffney@me.com>

Date: September 13, 2010 5:37:49 PM MDT

To: astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: new guiding log...

Milton,

I got out & attempted to image M 42 early this morning (4 am) but rain closed me down before I took any shots with the DSLR..

M 42 was just above the tall trees I have at the new site in the north-east.

Above is the guiding log for the brief session..I hope it`s improved over previous excursions?

I`ve realised I`d do better in future using my f6.3 reducer with the Nikon D5000 & C9.25 but the above is with my Kwiq guidescope (9 x 50 mm) & Scorpion camera guiding the complete 2350 mm FL of the scope.

I`ve set the autoguide rate on the mount at 75 % of sidereal (Azm & Dec) & loosened my tightening of the knob below the tripod a little so there`s less of a binding noise..The rocking of the mount on the tripod is still virtually non existent..

The backlash settings should be still all at noughts- I haven`t touched them since the re-set. ( mentioned below)

My Precise Go To (nearby star Altinak) is much better since I did a factory reset of the mount (due to somebody running over my leads with a car & causing an intermittant connection which led to erroneous slews with with my new 240 volt- 12 volt power adapter..) I thought at first there was something wrong with it..!

I appear to be actually seeing the nebula in the FOV of my 25 mm EP at least.

I did a 2 star, 1 star callibration alignment & All Star PA earlier in the night,  this time using my 12 mm illuminated reticle EP for all alignments & got the "Display Align" (which is the measure of PA accuracy available after doing an All Star PA) down to Azm : 00* 00' 01" & Alt : 00* 00' 01"

The Up & Right direction buttons were used for finalising the earlier alignments as usual..

Mark.