#22: Autoguiding – Failures and wasted time

31.03.2019 New aspect: Trying autoguiding for the first time Guiding basics: During the last sessions I slowly build up the dream of autoguiding my images. There are many advantages of having a guidecam with a guidescope attached to your main scope. The ability to use the guidescope for advanced polar alignment in phd2. There you …

#21: Crab nebula with short exposures & failed polar alignment with M81

25.05.2019 New aspect #1: Failed polar alignment issues New aspect #2: Capturing an object with high ISO and low exposure time Image acquisition: M81: On this night I originally wanted to capture more data on M81 and M82 to increase the quality of this image by a factor. So I set up my rig as …

#19: Visual observation of M42 Orion Nebula

31.01.2019 New aspect: Visual observation of DSOs Image acquisition: This two images of the Orion Nebula were taken using a smartphone hand-held in front of the 2” lens. This evening I observed a few DSOs with my Skywatcher 150/750 Newtonian on my little Skywatcher EQ-3 Pro mount. Doing visual astronomy is normally not really my …

#16: Venus, Andromeda and the Orion Nebula

05.12.2018 New aspect: Revisiting a target to improve quality and seeking for the next Image acquisition: Venus: This was a shot in hurry. On morning the 5th of December I set up the scope in a hurry to capture Venus. Polar alignment, balancing: All quick and dirty because of the limited amount of time. The …

#13: First surface images of the moon

17.11.2018 New aspect: Taking the first close up surface images of the moon with a modded Logitech webcam Image acquisition: When imaging the Mars with the modded webcam in the last session I recognised just how hard it is to get the focus right. So a member of a astro forum (Hi Carole!) pointed me …