M31 The Andromeda Galaxy

Tell me, what did you mount the camera on?

Frank, I just had it piggyback on top of a C8 SCT

Thnaks for your comments lads, I find it's a very good target to shoot, one thing though, the core is easily overexposed if you're not careful, it's at the expense of detail in the arms. Still, as I say, I'll try aging some cold clear night soon....

Keith..

Ohh, sweet.
I bought a piggyback adapter from Andy at the Whirlpool for this sort of thing.
(except the bloody thing wont lock around the OTA ...arrgh)

Dumb question this may sound but you'd have to Polar align for this would you not?
Or would the ETX in alt az mode be useless?

thats fantastic keith

Dumb question this may sound but you'd have to Polar align for this would you not

Yep, I've been doing it for years, since I have no autoguiding, here's how it goes...

1. Focus on a bright star with a low power eyepiece, turn your motor on, and centre the star **exactly** in the centre of the field of view. Change to a high power eyepiece, and defocus the bright star until it is a very big circle of light.Make sure it's dead centre again.
2. Get your finderscope as closely aligned to this star as humanly possible!!
3. For my SCT, I lock both right ascension and declination dead centre relative to the scope (the dials will help you here)
4. Have a preprinted close-up of the north pole near polaris, and manually align the scope by moving both axes (not the ra and dec dials keep these locked)

I know it sounds a bit funny, but it 's worked for me for years It's only when I use a 135mm lens does the tracking show up a bit.

I'm sure you can manually align the etx alt-az also, this would work too once it's motorised

Keith..

Keith, that is a gorgeous shot many congrats. Beautiful detail in there.

Frank: The problem with the alt-az scope is going to be field rotation. However if you keep the exposures short enough the stacking software will deal with it. Would an etx-125 take a heavy camera mounted on it?

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