And now really up to date and on time from now on (maybe)

So, today, took the mount covers off, removed the should that stops the power connector going in far enough, checked the velcro strap  I had made earlier to help it stay in place and hopefully we are back in business.

Weather is great ( clear) but warm (turbulence?).

Anyway, given the bright moon, lack of true night and my increasing frustration, I have decided to stick with globular clusters and open star clusters until night return in Mid July.

So, targets for tonight will be clusters in Cygnus ( about the darkest part of the sky for me).

How exciting!!

Note to self - dont bother till after 11 pm and BALANCE THE SCOPE!!!!!!!!

Today or rather last night

First try out with my new Revelation barlow and remote intervalometer. My target was the DumbBell ( again), plus M101 Pinwheel galaxy.


Mixed results - not dark enough with the fullish moon and astronomical twilight. Then, because I hadn't bother to balance the scope carefully, the tracking was erratic. So I ended up with one 90 second exposure of the Dumb (

Steve) Bell.

Anyway, it looks like the glow has gone.


After spending around an hour taking 10 x 180 second exposures of M101, plus darks and bias, I found I had disturbed the very sensitive power connector and had reset the mount! So, it wasn;t tracking. I had one exposure only, but enought to see the Pinwheel was dead centre. If it had been truly dark, it would have been a good pic ( honest).

Getting Current

Ok, almost up to the present, but not quite.

nice, M81 Bodes Galaxy

M5 Globular Cluster in Serpens Caput

Found that after the collimation saga, I could no longer used the DSLR at prime focus without a barlow. This didn't seem an issue since the GoTo is so accurate. Then , oh no, look at my shots of the DumbBell Nebula...

Glowing M92 Globular Cluster in Hercules

Glowing M27 Dumb Bell nebula in Cygnus

From what I have been told/read, its likely  to be caused by the (cheap) Celestron barlow. plus I haven't bothered with flats, just bias and darks.

So, my first new purchase = Revelation 2" Barlow -oooooooooooooooooo lovely!!

Another issue was that to get accurate timings, I have been using the built in intervalometer in the D5300. However, this restricted me to 30 second exposures> From a few longer ones, I know that the mount is good for up to 180 seconds, even without guiding. So, I bought another Ebay special, a remote intervalometer. Works a treat. Just need dark skies now ( In June?!?!?!)

And a bit more history..should have written this earlier !

Beginning to rock now!

Found out that if the Celestron CG5-GT mount is two star aligned, follwed by two star for calibration, it is a real dead-eye dick!

It went straight to M57 Ring Nebula. Allowed me to start to wrestle with Deep Sky Stacker (DSS).

Also early success with M13 Globular Cluster in Hercules and M51 Whirlpool Galaxy in Cane Venatici.


Some issues though....


1. Cheap laser collimator from Ebay needed collimating ( then disassembly, repair and re collimating). This introduced me to the joys of collimating a reflector, reading all the posts on Stargazers Lounge and Cloudy Nights re collimating, how lasers are just a trap for the unwary (me) and Cheshire are the only way to go. Wait, that is laser collimators with barlows. No, wait...

I just used the laser, twiddle till it looks right and it seems ok. Life is too short. But I do collimate every time I set up.

More History

May 2015 Ok, so, camera without any tracking is just frustrating.

Ebay to the rescue; mainly because its a good mount for the money, I ended up buying an Altair Astro 200 mm F5 reflector on a Celestron CG5-GT Goto mount. No eyepieces or finderscope. Leisure battery for juice.

So, purchases to get it working:

Baader Red Spot finderscope - excellent.
Second hand 25mm Super plossl eyepiece - ok
New cheap 15 mm Plossl -  ok
Celestron Barlow with T thread - ok ( I thought)
T adaptor  Ebay special

First targets : Jupiter

Moon

Moon
Saturn


Tried using Registax; certainly improved the Saturn image captured using video.

History to Date

Got bitten by the Astronomy bug again, got out the camera, tripod, remote release and aimed it at Jupiter and Praesepe

Took exposures of around 15 seconds since no tracking possible.