From: Mark Gaffney <markgaffney@me.com>

Date: January 20, 2010 4:33:42 PM MST

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] New Images

Hi Milton, 

Mine`s the basic CG-5 though I guess you`re talking about an operation familiar with it too. You`re doing all your alignments(I gather) using the cameras? That`s much more advanced than me. I`ve had trouble focusing stars with the cameras when I`ve tried. This is perhaps as I`ve been trying in not very star rich areas-basically working with really bright stars like Sirius & Canopus.Then there`s that problem I`ve talked about before where the camera is naturally a little offset from the target causing me difficulties?! With VNC I had Mac to Mac screen sharing done easily. It was back & forth from the PC to the Mac that was the trouble. I wanted to try collimating with Metaguide at least but I`m back to my quite cumbersome monitor on long VGA cable- extended usb ones for keyboard/mouse..With the initial alignments I find their accuracy is often compromised a distance from the alignment stars. 

Mark.

On 21/01/2010, at 10:11 AM, Milton Aupperle wrote:

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.