Joe, practice sessions in the backyard are priceless, even though not very fulfulling on the surface. When I put my equatorial photo-mount together some years ago, for Hale-Bopp, I practiced set-up and alignment DOZENS of times in the yard before I headed to dark sites. These practice sessions allowed me to not waste ONE SINGLE session, which can be critial with comets, due to the fact that they are usually either setting fast, or wiped-out by the dawn as soon as they get high enough. The system wasn't quite ready when Hyakutake popped-up, but I practiced on it from the yard anyway, with no camera attached most of the time. I went out many times in the early morning, driving up to Little Mountain, even on work days, and I got good pictures EVERY SESSION. NO wasted time. Set-up was a snap thanks to repeated rehearsals. I almost got to the point where I could set it up blindfolded, and only needed to see to actually point the thing north. Even though I had done astro-photography many years before, I still practiced with the new mount until I had it mastered. Dark-site time is too precious to waste climbing the hardware learning curve, or poking yourself in the eye. PRACTICE at home, repeatedly! (and get yourself some bifocals!) ;) Heal fast, my friend. C. --- Joe Bauman <bau@desnews.com> wrote:
To make a long, stupid story short, I struggled until 2 a.m. trying to get aligned properly and finally gave up.
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos: High-quality 4x6 digital prints for 25ยข http://photos.yahoo.com/ph/print_splash