It ended
up being cloudy the rest of the long weekend, unfortunately, so I didn’t get to
try my C11 again. Instead, and since it
was a week night, I set up the C8 in the front of my apartment and took some
video on Saturn and Mars. I was going to
do Jupiter too, but by the time I was set up and had Jupiter centered, it had
just started to dip behind the roof.
Darn. I’m going to have to set up
earlier or move to another spot if I want to get any more images of Jupiter
before it sets for the year. I haven’t
finished processing all of my videos, but Saturn was looking excellent that
night, especially visually. With a 13mm
lens and a 2x Barlow, the Cassini division was readily apparent, and I could
make out some banding in the clouds.
Saturn, Nikon D3100 on my C8, no focal reducer, 2x Barlow
12,203 frames stacked, unknown ISO and shutter speed
[You never need this many!!]
These are
both easy to see in the image as well.
My mom commented that it looks like the rings are glowing. Saturn is easily my favorite planet. It is such a treat in the eyepiece, and comes
out well in images too.
The C8 has been acting up a bit too
– both at the county park the other night and on this outing, after moving the object I’m
looking at, it continues moving for a bit after I let go of the button. I don’t hear the gears move, and it’s much
faster than normal backlash – as in, it’s faster than sidereal motion during
the time that the slack in the gears is being taken up. It’s also smoother than that, and it starts
slow, gets fast, and then slows again.
In my head, I call it “drooping,” since it seems like the telescope is
drooping after I slew it in order to cause this motion or something. It only happens in altitude. I haven’t yet determined which direction it
happens in – the slew buttons switch direction for slower speeds and I can’t
keep track – but if I recall correctly, the object (Jupiter in the west) would
appear to move upward after I let go of which button I was pressing. I tried adjusting the anti-backlash, but that
ends up taking up too much slack and the object jumps around. I’ll have to mess with it. I suspect I’m not using the right final two
movements during alignment – I have to check my notebook, since I can’t
remember and it’s different than the C11.
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