Tuesday, December 20, 2016

#73 - Tuesday, December 20, 2016 - When In Doubt, Borrow Someone Else's Scope #2

Since my CGE mount is down for the count, I decided to go learn how to use the memorial scope, a permanently-mounted pier inside of a personal dome that was purchased by the club from a club member using a memorial donation upon the passing of another club member, which is a Vixen 5-inch refractor on a Losmandy Gemini mount, with a Celestron guide scope.  
            
I started entering stars, but it seemed to be slewing all over the place and having really bad guesses.  I figured out later that I wasn’t quite doing it correctly, but then the clouds started rolling in, and it was getting cold.  I also tried focusing my QHY5 on the guide scope, without success.  I might try with FireCapture rather than PHD though, since PHD has longer refresh times and stretches the histogram like crazy, so it’s hard to tell when you’re close.  I did get my DSLR attached to it though with the M48 adapter I bought for it, which is good.  I was worried it wouldn’t be the right size.  And I got it focused, no problem.  It was nearly already there, as a matter of fact.
            
It was a short night, but I’ll try again once it clears up around here and is not extremely cold when it is clear.