Thanks, Patrick. The real problems were the wind, my unfamiliarity with the new guider program and a declination disorder that I fixed. I really think I can get it down OK next new moon. I just thought a blog is most useful if I records failures as well as triumphs. As for backyard imaging, it's just not possible with the number of trees in the way in all directions. Best wishes, Joe --- On Mon, 8/16/10, Patrick Wiggins <paw@wirelessbeehive.com> wrote: From: Patrick Wiggins <paw@wirelessbeehive.com> Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Astrophoto failure To: "Utah Astronomy" <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Date: Monday, August 16, 2010, 2:50 AM On 16 Aug 2010, at 01:59, Joe Bauman wrote:
Hi all, Here's an essay about failure to photograph. Thanks, Joe
http://www.deseretnews.com/blog/47/10009760/Nightly-news-astronomy-A-Strike-...
Joe, I re-re-re-nominate you for SLAS's most persistant imager of the year (if not the decade). It really sounds like equipment problems, not problems with your technique. The way things seem to loosen or break so much makes me wonder if the equipment just isn't up to being moved around so much. I'd still like to see you try some work from your backyard. As we discussed before you'd only need to install a simple pier. It would then be much easier to set up and you'd have much more time for experimenting. Plus if something breaks it's just a quick walk into the house for repairs. Granted, you're probably not going to produce S&T quality images from in the city but you would be able to figure out how to make everything work. Then, once you've got the equipment working and your technique perfected you could think about more trips to dark skies. And, oh yeah, the experimenting can be done on any clear night, not just moonless ones. Just a thought but have you considered maybe taking your imager to SPOC and using it on the Ealing? You've seen the quality of images taken from here in Stansbury. And you'd not have to worry about setting up or aligning a scope. Again there would be drawbacks (like probably having to rediscover manual guiding) but at least you'd be making progress. But I really think that you should go with a pier in your yard and work out the kinks there. Hang in there, patrick p.s. I'll be happy to help you install the pier and with getting the wedge polar aligned. _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php Visit the Wiki: http://www.utahastronomy.com