| Joined: | Mon Apr 2nd, 2012 |
| Location: | South Lakeland, UK |
| Posts: | 4066 |
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My newly acquired app for making the rotation setting of the Polar scope to obtain better accuracy of tracking worked well, I still have to perfect it but that's down to refining my technique, I now have the tools I need and an understanding of what's needed to get very close tracking of the night sky.
While waiting for the sky to get darker I tried some Moon pix.
This is Knottallow tarn above Ulverston, with Morecambe Bay in the background, the GSK factory can just be seen to the left, together with the Sir John Barrow monument, a replica of the Eddystone Lighthouse, caught in a blue moment.
http://www.ulverstoncouncil.org.uk/education/john-barrow-monument
D800 and Nikkor 24-120 f/4.0 - 2.5 sec @ f/5.6
This was made with the Nikkor 16mm f/2.8 fisheye - 2.5sec @ f/4.0
This is Pennington reservoir, not far from Knottallow tarn. This is where the Ospreys have been seen fishing. Taken about an hour after the previous images, the Moon having risen above the mist and become less pink.
Next is the EQ Mount image no idea what star it was, location to the North West. Made with the best 11 images of 15, taken at 30 second intervals.
Nikon D800, Nikkor 300mm f/2.8 ED Ai lens (MF) - 25sec @ f8, ISO 400. Processed in Starry Sky Stacker.
This is a star trails image using the same frames as the stacked image above, showing the movement from slight tracking error. I did not balance the weight of the heavy f/2.8 lens and camera for this test, partly because I need to make a better balancing arrangement and also because I wanted to see how badly the lack of balancing affected the tracking. It seems to have given an error of about one star diameter over 7 minutes. There wasn't as much air turbulence last night, almost all the exposures were pretty well perfect once the EQ Mount had settled down after a couple of minutes.
It's been quite a long journey but I have learnt a lot, I need to refine the mount and my technique but I am confident I have an outstanding combination with the D800 - 300mm f/2.8 and the EQ Mount. Roll on the autumn and darker skies.
EDIT: Looking at these last two images there appears to be some banding effect visible, I don't have that on my processed images at my end, need to investigate that
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Robert.