| Joined: | Mon Apr 2nd, 2012 |
| Location: | South Lakeland, UK |
| Posts: | 4066 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
I took four series of images, one set like the chimney ones of a church spire about 5 miles away. The horizontal alignment was reasonable, the vertical alignment was rubbish but I think the mount moved down on the tripod while I was rotating the camera by hand, causing the error.
Then I took some at 40 second intervals just stationary to act as a control test. Then I took 34 more with the motor drive in forward direction, then about the same in reverse. I hadn't fitted a counterbalance, the D800 with the 70-300 lens is quite heavy so I wanted to see if the weight affected the accuracy of tracking. The motor was raising the camera in forward mode and lowering it in reverse mode.
All three sets of images produced a similar sized cluster of results, given the gale which was blowing at the time I was quite pleased. There did not appear to be any significant difference between the motor raising the camera or lowering it. The unpowered exposures of which there were only 18 showed a very similar cluster with no pattern or apparent regular repetition patterns like the star trail exposures did.
I am running out of energy so I will post the images tomorrow.
On a side note the Splash screen has popped up twice while I have been typing this, I just swiped it away and carried on, the text was exactly as it had been before the Splash screen popped up.
I am also designing a better wedge mount for the EQ mount. It's extremely difficult to align the polar scope exactly without a screw adjustment. I was going to try and use a worm and wormwheel but I have decided it's too coa**e an adjustment, it needs something very fine.
Something like this...
____________________
Robert.