It's cloudy tonight, so I guess I'll send an email instead of looking at the stars. The Salt Lake southern skies cleared a little last night, so I took my friend's Celestron C8+ (8" CST with a motor drive - the one I'm dusting for him) and my Nikon D80 with a prime focus adapter out to my front porch and took some shots of the Orion Nebula. After about a 100 shots, I'm getting closer to a clear picture, but the problems are getting harder to figure out.. My Orion Nebula emphasizing the fuzzy stars: http://glogan.smugmug.com/gallery/6872266_UTskH/1/#440661533_PeEFc-A-LB The above link is a crop that shows fuzzy stars in the pictures. That was a 30sec. exposure at iso640. The stars definitely have movement, which I'm guessing is my poor polar alignment. My porch faces South and I can't see the North star from it, so I kept moving the tripod until the star trails got short (at the time I thought they went away). I am also wondering how long of an exposure I should expect to be able to get as far as accurate tracking using this Celestron C8+? But the stars should be smaller also, more pin-pointish. I can't seem to be certain of my focus through my camera viewfinder, as the stars are too dim. Are there techniques or equipment that others use to help focus when mounting a camera? Also, (whine) the Celestron seems to have a pretty coarse focus knob, even with the regular eyepieces. My best Orion: http://glogan.smugmug.com/gallery/6872266_UTskH/1/#440655195_68tXH-A-LB Regards Gary Logan _____