Last week I had the opportunity to image over two nights. It gave me the chance to try out a new piece of gear. It also showed me that our
The Good: I finally got the new piece of gear needed to attach my guide camera, a ZWO ASI120MC, to my AVX mount saddle to accomplish a polar alignment with either SharpCap or the static polar alignment in PHD2. The new mounting hardware is from ADM accessories and is moderately priced. I had Anthony at ADM drill a "pass-through" hole in the center of the vertical plate (not shown in the first picture) so I could attach my guide camera. I also picked up a couple of short $7 V-bars off eBay and used these, bolted small side to small side, as the adapter to attach my new gear to my AVX saddle. As you can see from the picture it's a simple setup and it worked just as expected. I was able to use 10-second exposures and could see enough stars to do the polar alignment in both SharpCap and PHD2. There is now no need for a Pole Master for my mount. The Bad: About the perishability of our skills. I have not had a night worthy of imaging since February of this year. Over that time, A lot of my normal routine has been not necessarily forgotten, let's just say, misplaced. So it was a bit frustrating and also a bit of a comedy of errors as I set up and attempted to execute many of the subroutines needed in getting ready to go for the evening's imaging session. The first night showed all of the kinks and deficiencies in my knowledge. Things smooth out considerably on the second night.
The Ugly: Lastly, my problem child. My Celestron AVX
Anyway, there you have it a couple of nights of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.
Go forth and image, cheers,
JT