30th Jan Observing and a mount update

A clear night for a while last night. Yippee thought I. Anyway, had some things to do during the early evening, and I kept anxiously gazing skywards to check that the stars were still there. Yes, each time, they were still there, no one had come along and swept them all from the heavens (probably for the best really). I got a brief 25 minutes early in the evening, and decided to just setup the camera and have a go at snapping Cassiopeia before she got to hide behind the trees.

Here's the picture, Cassiopeia naked...

21x13 seconds frames @ISO400 stakced in DSS and tinkered with in Photoshop Elements. I have no idea what the red mark is in the top left of the image...



Went back indoors as I had some things to do (well, wanted to watch Torchwood if truth be told). Once Torchwood had finished, I grabbed my scope and the 10mm Plossl and dashed back outside. The sky was still clear. What's up, I thought, all evening, this is unusual. Anyway, I made the most of it. Had a look at M42, around Orion's belt, Sirius and on down to M41. Then decided to go find Saturn. I found Leo's question mark, and there hovering below was Saturn. Quickly found in the eyepiece and I spend some time just gazing. Then, thought I to myself, what the hell, lets try a quick experiment. Afocal Imaging. This is a lot easier to say than do. Especially when there is no way to attach the camera to the scope and you're trying to hand hold the camera, keeping the objective lens of the camera in the right area for the eyepiece image, not knock the scope, and try and keep track of Saturn in the eyepiece when the scope is on a normal static camera tripod. For some strange reason, I love a challenge. This is all made harder still, as the camera objective lens is about 35 mm, and the exit of the eyepiece on the scope about 5 mm. Not sure what the exit pupil of the optical train was. Still it worked and here is the result.



It's not a great image, and I'm sure if I knew how to use elements I could get a lot more out of it. In fact others already have, and I'm hoping they will whisper the secrets of this art to me...

Then the cloud pixies decided I'd had enough and a big bank of clouds rolled in blotting out the views of the stars. I hope they are all still there and didn't get washed away, but I can't tell now as it's still raining.

I thought I'd managed to solve the mounting dilemma, as I had found someone selling an eq2 mount, which would do fine for my little Konus on one of the forums, but it appears this is not to be. The current owner has responded saying he's in communication with someone else about it already and he would let me know. I think I'll have to move on and go back to the trying to second guess myself and my budget....