M31 The Andromeda Galaxy

Keith. You can manually align the ETX but I guess Polar is best eh?

Dave - yea the ETX (125 anyway) will take a canon.
I've used it before for prime focus shots of bright targets eg:
www.lpod.org/?m=20061001

and I even dabbled in some deep sky,
(don't laugh now.....)
www.frankryanjr.com/deep_sky.htm

But with a piggyback bracket I'd have to balance the font of the scope
with some counterweights to be kind on the motors.

What about a couple of min worth wide field shots?
Would regular Alt Az mode be ok then or would you still pick up star trailing.[/url]

What about a couple of min worth wide field shots?
Would regular Alt Az mode be ok then or would you still pick up star trailing.[/url]

Frank,

In alt-az mode what you need are short exposures and gazillions of them for best results. In a wide angle shot, field rotation shouldn't be too big a problem. See if you can get 90 seconds without trailing and then maybe 50 of those frames. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

Wow, there's some detail there with just your 135mm lens. I've got a 75 to 300mm lens... I wonder (with time and practice) if I'll be able to take as good a shot with my 350D...

Keith. You can manually align the ETX but I guess Polar is best eh?

Yep, I'd think that would go a long way to keeping those trails away, as long as you kep the exposures short as Dave says. Try widefield for a start, you'll be surprised at the results

WOW.......... you moved to Greece or somthing

I wish David !!!

Wow, there's some detail there with just your 135mm lens. I've got a 75 to 300mm lens... I wonder (with time and practice) if I'll be able to take as good a shot with my 350D...

You're mostly there Seanie, How easy is it to polar align your mount?

Keith..

You're mostly there Seanie, How easy is it to polar align your mount?

About as good as my eyes will allow! I just attached an EQ2 motor to an otherwise manual EQ1 mount. I guess I will just fix the mount on Polaris as best as possible, manually slew the axis to the intended object, and turn on the motor.

If anyone has any ideas to further better this treatment, let me know!

Seanie.

Well try that, polar align with your eyes as best you can, oh, and have a very good map of the north polar area, the real pole is less than a dgree away from polaris.

This will then set your benchmark, start off with short exposures - say 30 seconds and work up, see how it goes........ :arrow:

Keith..