[APML] Guiding Bluez - Was OT: Iris Nebula

["John C. Mirtle" <spampit@shaw.ca>]

Thanks Stuart,
    Until 1995, auto guiders had bad karma around here. It wasn't REALLY
astrophotography, was it! You found the DSO, found a guide star, focused up
and then buggered off for the hard part - actually taking the picture. The
general feeling here was that if you didn't take the picture yourself, why
not save a pile of money and just buy prints from Palomar? Auto guiders were
cheating - SBIG should get photo credit, not you. Auto guiders were also
expensive, required a thick electron hose and they were one more thing to go
wrong under Murphy's Law. A REAL astrophotographer keeps his eye to the
crosshairs and gritted his teeth against the elements to get the shot!
    In 1995 Al Dyer came to one of our club's "Observer Group" meetings and
basically told us that we were nuts. We were about the only pocket of
resistance to auto guiders left in North America. If we really wanted to be
purists, devoid of automated assistance of any kind, then technically we
would need to replace our electric drive motors with a hand crank! The ST4
was just another tool.
    Alan changed my perspective on guiders and I bought mine that year. I
still enjoy the "Amish" approach from time to time, especially with the
Schmidt camera and it's short shots. Being portable I can't carry a second
scope, which brings me to the question: What are you supposed to do for that
2 hours when your trusty assistant "Otto Geeder" is taking the shot? Does
most of this list take a nap, run a few laps, bring a second scope to
observe with, or ???? When manually guiding there was always something to
do. Once the novelty of the clicking relays wore off, I discovered that AP
was actually quite boring! So... what do you guys do to relieve the boredom?

John Mirtle
Calgary, Ab. Canada

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stuart Heggie" <stuart.j.heggie@sympatico.ca>
To: "Discussion of Film Astrophotography" <astro-photo@seds.org>
Sent: Monday, August 25, 2003 8:28 PM
Subject: Re: [APML] OT: Iris Nebula


John, a great pic! Every time I look at your pictures and it says
"guided manually" I just shake my head. Amazing.

Stuart


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