Guiding experiments

Everyone seems to be outside looking at Orion tonight. We should try a super stack of all our images one of these days. An all-Ireland visible interferometry experiment.

I tried two guiding systems tonight. The LPI via the DSI software. I think I prefer this software over the original LPI software as for some reason the live image is more clear. However, sometimes the software (both LPI and DSI) gets itself into a twist and I can no longer use it that night. Results were good with the software keeping track of Aldeberan whilst my piggy-backed camera photographed the Hyades and Pleiades.

I then tried GuideDog. This requires the user to make joystick corrections. It's a bit like playing Pacman with a star. Right clicking a star superimposes a double crosshair on the screen with which to see if the star drifts.

I used Procyon to take this shot of Orion. It's a 5 minute exposure at ISO 1600. With this unmodified camera you can see The Great Orion nebula and the Flaming Tree Nebula as reflection nebulae. No H2 can be seen though so no emission nebulae.

All-in-all though you have to be in control all the time I prefered GuideDog only because the software is better. I'll try a few others at a later date.

Oooh, that's nice!
Mind me asking, have u got a permanent setup or do you polar align every night?

EVERY single night and it's a pain! Though it's getting easier with practice.

I saw a review for the LX200GPS-SMT in Astronomy magazine and wish I bought that instead of the LXD75. One touch of a button and it aligns to north, levels itself and then performs a 3-star alignment. Annoying!

The coming months will see me put a pier in the garden and then build a shed around it. Then come the 30 minute exposures!

I've heard so many people saying it is a pain in the neck alright. Results are very impressive though.
I'm holding off on all this polar aligning business until I can buy my own gaff. Takes alot of time and we're not getting much observing time at the mo.

Polar aligned? :oops: I'm a bit confused. Do I polar align, or do I do something different? I level the scope and point it north using polaris then chose "easy align", the scope choses two stars for alignment then we are away! Is that different from polar aligning and if so, is it better to polar align for photography?
Bill H.

Polar aligned? :oops: I'm a bit confused. Do I polar align, or do I do something different?

Your way is fine for allignment Bill. Ithink what you have is called the 2 (or 3) star allignment. You fix it on Polaris in center of view, then the sope wil move to where Arcturs is (for example). If its not in the center field of view, you adjust accordingly. Then, it will go for a second star to zoom in on, all the while the adjustments are fine-tuning the scopes allignment.

Of course, if you wanted to be really serious, yes, you could go for 4 and 5 star allignment to get it bang on. But with todays computer equipment, only 2 or 3 stars are needed.

The results Bill do show up in tracked astrophotography. As I'm sure others here will tell you, longer exposures on a mal-alligned mount will give feathering and trailing of the objects you wish to photograph.

After all that, I still don't have one of these mounts!



Seanie.