Finally success at last. Last night I managed to get a polar alignment. I found I had been looking in the right area of sky but the star formations I was expecting to see were larger than I was anticipating.

That is now sorted and I have completed a drift alignment that shows no significant drift within 5 mins. I have parked the scope so tomorrow night I’ll continue to work on the accuracy. I may even give some piggy-back photography a go just to see how it turns out.

The entire process took me 4 hours. I need to get this down to about 30 mins. Much more practise is required.

Tags: astronomy, astrophotography, telescope

This weekend I finally managed to get a couple of hours to spend with my telescope.
I tried out the polar alignment, in preparation for astro-imaging. This the first time I have tried the polar alignment method and it involves knowing your current latitude along with how and where to find the Southern Pole Star - Sigma Octanis.

Sigma Octanis is not viewable with the naked eye so binoculars are needed to find it. Once found, you centre the star in the veiwfinder of the telescope and with a couple of other things, you’ve aligned the scope to the south celestial pole.

Well, I didn’t find Sigma Octanis last night. Hopefully tonight will be the go.

The image shows me Meade LX200R 10” SCT telescope mounted on a wonderful Milburn wedge. The scope is currently pointing at where I believe (according to compass, and angle of lattitude) the SCP is.

I’m so glad this whole topic is interesting and a challenge for me, else I would have thrown in the towel a while ago.

Tags: astronomy, astrophotography, telescope

My first attempt at Saturn.


This was shot through the eye piece of the scope with my Canon 5D, hand held. Of course, it's much better viewing by eye... crystal clear and you can see the moons.

Tags: photography, astronomy, astrophotography, telescope

The screws that hold the finder-scope to my Meade 10" LX200GPS SCT telescope are too short. I remember thinking this the day I first assembled the scope. But in my eagerness to use the scope this niggly little issue was shoved aside.

That was until a few days ago when I went to move the scope outside for use. My shoulder hit the finder-scope and it popped off, hitting the concrete. Lucky the lens cap was on, and no damage was sustained. This brought the problem crashing back to the fore-front of my mind.

Easy fix.

Counter-sink the screw heads a few millimetres into the bracket.


After counter-sinking the head of the screws, they now have a good 5 - 6 millimetres of thread to hold the bracket onto the scope.


And fully mounted.

Tags: astronomy, telescope, astrophotography

It was a reasonably cool night last night. Perfect conditions for star-gazing. Almost perfect conditions for imaging.

I have the equipment (mostly) but until recently didn't move in that type of photographic circle, preferring to be just a viewer of the universe.

The pursuit of astrophotography can be as expensive, or as cheap as you want to make it. I'm trying to keep the costs down, but have decided to move on from the classic "star-trail" photos. Don't get me wrong, I will continue to take such photos, they're easy and if done right, rather spectacular.

Here is a couple of photos from last nights viewing/photographing session. I had to focus by eye - the most unreliable method - but I think I came close enough for the moment. I'll post a review of the scope I use, shortly.

And now in the interest of keeping the photographic content down on this particular site, I'll sign off.

Tags: astronomy, astrophotography, telescope, photography