[APML] So, what have you forgot to take?

["Jeff Ball" <jeffball@netacs.net>]

I know, imaging last night wasn't a great idea.  The Moon rise was around
11:50 p.m. local time in West Virginia.  But I wanted to try out a TV101.
Setup went fine and the sky looked great.  Started to get ready to polar
align and whoops.  Has anyone else forgotten the most insignificant piece of
equipment that can nearly shut down your entire night of imaging?  This
night I forgot to pack my 2" to 1.25" converter for eyepieces!  I have two
of them you know, but they are with other scopes.  This would not allow me
to drift align with my illuminated reticle and barlow.

So, I innovated.  Don't know how well yet.  I used the STV in Efinder mode.
I had synced up the Efinder well with the main tube optics.  The mount had
been polar aligned with the AP polar scope.  I did a calibrate routine and
the x/y angles looked perfect.  So, I found the x axis to correlate with the
N/S movement and drift aligning I went.  I made corrections to the alt/az
until the adjustments were so minor that the star would exhibit drift if I
made any other counter move.  This is not exactly scientific on my part, but
I hope it was correct intuition.  I used both "fast" and "slow" monitor
modes with the Efinder.  I checked both meridian and east.  The guiding
seemed to go OK- 2 arcsecond error and the x corrections not favoring any
one direction.

Oh, did I mention that it clouded over around 10:00 p.m.?;-(  Transparency
went to pot.  Oh well.  It was another night in the old Astronomy 101
classroom.
Jeff Ball
www.astro-photography.com
Ohio Valley Astronomical Society
www.ovas.org


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